Rayner Heppenstall

[poliphilo]

Rayner Heppenstall: I knew the name was vaguely familiar so I Googled him. Turns out he used to be a producer for BBC Radio. That's probably how his name got into my head.

But he was also an all-round literary phenomenon. He was mates with Eric Gill and Dylan Thomas, wrote a verse satire on Mussolini and produced a number of experimental novels which have been said to anticipate the French nouveaux romans of the 1950s- Robbe-Grillet, Duras, people like that.  He is also remembered as the person whom George Orwell beat up with a metal-shod shooting stick- an incident that strengthens my impression that Orwell (for all that he was a great writer) was a deeply unpleasant man. 

In old age Heppenstall became very right wing and somewhat mad and wrote a series of pot-boilers about crime and criminals. He died in 1981- aged 70. Most of his books- including the ground-breaking novels- are out of print.

Comments

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

What a very louche circle of friends! Why did Orwell beat him up, do you know?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They were living in the same house. Heppenstall came home drunk, late at night and Orwell told him to cut the racket. Heppenstall took a swing at Orwell and Orwell retaliated with the shooting stick. The way H tells it, Orwell used more violence than was necessary.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Trivia. My first home of my own (house I bought) had a view of the Midvale Heppenstall steel plant from the back windows. My maiden name is Hippensteel, which is very similar, but that branch of the family was from Germany, not England (Aachen, to be precise, so I'd love to claim descent from Charlemagne).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How interesting.

Rayner was from Yorkshire and Heppenstall strikes me as a typically Yorkshire name. I suspect a Viking origin. There's a Yorkshire village called Heptonstall- presumably a variant- just across the hills from here.

Rayner Heppenstall: A Critical Study

[(Anonymous)]

It may interest you to know that I have published a critical study of Heppenstall's novels through the Dalkey Archive Press - www.dalkeyarchive.com.

It's sad that he's best remembered for his spat with Orwell (and the fact that they remained good friends afterwards forgotten) - he wrote eight novels, which, at their best, are sensitive, intelligent, adventurous and often humorous - in fact, his debut, THE BLAZE OF NOON (1939) was cited by Helene Cixous as the novel that founded the Nouveau Roman.

Re: Rayner Heppenstall: A Critical Study

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know.

It's strange when an obviously important writer almost completely disappears from the radar. It's good that you're keeping his memory alive.