Author of more than forty titles over a career lasting seventy years, Bruce Marshall (1899-1987) is one of those writers of British Catholicism who has managed to gain a certain fame outside national borders. In any case, if some of his novels, such as Father Malachy’s Miracle, continue to be read and appreciated for the combination of humour, polemical force and perfect psychological definition of the characters, the rest of his substantial bibliography has fallen into relative oblivion. This is a shame, also because, despite the fluctuating quality, there is certainly no shortage of interesting works, from some of which movies have been made.
Often compared for his humorous and paradoxical style to G. K. Chesterton or the Italian Giovannino Guareschi, author of Don Camillo stories – but also to Graham Greene when contrasts prevail – Marshall came from the antagonistic Scottish environment, which has always been hostile to Catholics. Sometimes the tensions with the Protestants even led to acts of violence, but being forced to the margins, far from any worldly blandishments, at least had the advantage, according to Marshall, of giving strength to the faith, avoiding that “bourgeois” attitude that irritated him.
It is no coincidence that during the 1920s and 1930s, alongside the revival of Catholic literature in England and the strengthening of nationalist demands, in Scotland a small group of “papists” emerged who, in their works, knew how to combine art and apologetics with sometimes-notable results. Marshall aside, the best-known name is perhaps that of Muriel Spark, but Compton Mackenzie, Fionn MacColla, George Scott-Moncrieff and George Mackay Brown should not be forgotten.
However, Marshall, unlike many of them, was not interested in throwing mud at Calvinism by re-evaluating Scottish history or in launching into exaggerated praise of the Catholic Church; rather his aim was simply to represent the daily lives of Catholics. A whirlwind of events gives the reader the sensation of feeling perpetually out of place, poised on the edge of a meaning that is not fully revealed except in the epilogue. Usually Marshall does not even propose exceptional cases, preferring to show the action of Grace on the most ordinary individuals and creating pages full of charity and gratitude for God’s mercy.
Irony, his distinctive feature and outcome of those who look at things sub specie aeternitatis, arises from the contrast that occurs between the highest aspirations of the heart and the dramatic superficiality of a lost world, victim of its own illusions (this is also one of the reasons that led the Scotsman to passionately investigate the figure of the priest, more than anyone else between earth and heaven). Usually a benevolent and light-hearted humour prevails, which at times, however, transforms into biting satire. The impression is that the corrosiveness of Marshall’s pen grows as time passes and is evident in particular in the final part of his career, with an unchanged faith in Christ which is contrasted with a growing distrust of humanity.
As mentioned, his books openly address issues of a religious nature, ranging from the numerous temptations that the humble protagonist must resist to the description of the delicate relationship between the Church and modernity, but other themes are also explored such as war, temporary honours, the liturgy, the affection for the homeland, the empty rhetoric of the political class, the love for animals and the denunciation of the cruelty committed against them. Marshall also wrote spy novels and autobiographical references are frequent, sometimes peppered with gossip about real people. It also reveals a very personal sentimental geography characterized by a disesteem of Latin peoples – but always tempered by occasional appreciation and an equally severe self-criticism of the British system – and by a sympathy for the United States.
Overall, Marshall’s literary career can be roughly divided into three phases, namely the debut, which goes from the first works until the Second World War, the critical-commercial affirmation and the decline, which began in the second half of the 1950s.
Wanting to take a quick look at the best titles, one cannot help but start from Father Malachy’s Miracle (1931), by far the best known of these.
The old Benedictine Malachy Murdoch, temporary guest of a parish in Edinburgh, is dragged one day into a discussion by a minister of the Reformed Church, and finally challenges the latter’s disbelief by promising him a miracle. The events and reactions follow one another with sharp humour until the fateful evening, when, to general dismay, Father Malachy makes the well-known and much-discussed dance hall in the area disappear. The rest of the story, dedicated to describing the reactions to what happened, is a refined analysis of people’s stupidity accompanied by a reflection on miracles and the exceptional nature of normality, that is, of a daily life transfigured by the Christian experience.
With Yellow Tapers for Paris (1943) Marshall signed another of his strongest and most challenging writings.
The title of the book, a reference to the wax candles that the Church uses in solemn funeral masses, reflects the perennial state of disorder that reigns in Paris in 1934, the year in which the story of Migou, a former soldier of the Great War and now poor, begins. He is an accountant and has to take care of a seriously ill wife and a daughter. Exploited by employers who take advantage of his good heart to get rich, and uncertain about the faith in which he grew up, Migou finds some consolation only in the bar near his home where his existence intersects with that of the other inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The days pass in a climate of general decadence, which fortunately does not prevent him from catching sporadic flashes of truth and beauty in the immense darkness that surrounds him, while the shadow of an imminent disaster looms on the horizon.
Selected by the Book of the Month Club and reprinted in a popular paperback edition for American soldiers, All Glorious Within (1944), written in a style reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor, is equally valuable.
The narrative follows the human and spiritual parable of Father Smith, a humble Scottish priest, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1940s, along a life marked by two world wars, by social and cultural upheavals and by the difficulties, large and small, that characterise the ministry in a nation so viscerally opposed to Catholics. The title, a quote from Psalm 44, declares the splendour of the Church, which does not dazzle, but which aims to illuminate the conscience by making its relationship with the infinite clear.
Vespers in Vienna (1947), also chosen by the Book of the Month Club, is set in the Austrian capital at the end of the Second World War. The British Colonel Michael “Hooky” Nicobar is sent there to contribute to the reorganization of the country and to help the Soviets to repatriate their fellow citizens. Housed in the convent of a sweet but resolute mother superior, Nicobar soon finds himself having to manage a particularly delicate situation involving a young Russian dancer who does not want to return to Moscow, fearing prison or, worse, her death. Between doubts and difficult choices, even the gruff colonel’s lack of faith ends up being put to the test.
Decidedly more substantial, To Every Man A Penny (1949), a delicate and touching work, tells the life of the gentle Abbé Gaston, former missionary in Africa and chaplain of the parish of Saint-Clovis, in Paris, from 1914 to 1948. The priest often suffers wrongs and injustices, but constantly finds in prayer and the sacraments the strength to react with love, putting aside his little greeds, prides and failures. After all, he knows well that divine mercy is nothing more than a long rope that one can always hold on to.
The last of these novels, which draws its strength from the prevalence of dramatic tones and the scrupulous examination of the contradictions that are evident in the characters, is The Fair Bride (1953).
The Spanish Don Arturo Carrera y Granja, an honest priest who cannot tolerate the hypocrisy of the Church – “the Fair Bride” described in the Song of Solomon – feels attracted to communist ideology, and so at the outbreak of the civil war he abandons the priesthood and transfers to the Republican side, working for the information service. As the months pass, however, he realizes that the new world prophesied by progressive forces is ultimately no better than the old one. In the meantime, while the man forms a relationship with a young prostitute called Soledad, both the republicans and the nationalists are on the trail of the finger of Saint John of the Cross, a relic which, according to tradition, guarantees the owner invincibility.
In conclusion, it is worth asking the most obvious of questions: why, then, read Bruce Marshall? Why go to the trouble of recovering the books of an almost completely forgotten author? Not only because it is truly good for the heart and mind and is an opportunity to review serious theology and true catechism, but also and above all because his work is a passionate invitation to open one’s eyes to life, without selfishness and prejudice.
By Luca Fumagalli