The Underground Man
Mick Jackson
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 0140274375
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Short-listed for the 1997 Booker Prize -- a haunting historical novel from an astonishing new British talent
Victorian England's most famous eccentric, the Duke of Portland was renowned for both his enormous wealth and for the elaborate series of tunnels he had built beneath his massive estate. The Duke, who is a fountain of nineteenth-century knowledge and curiosity, faithfully records in his journal the events that make up his days. His research extends into the fields of chiropractic medicine, and the study of auras, archaeology, and phrenology in a series of hilarious episodes that echo the New Age exploits of our own era while revealing the Duke to be a true naif: wonderfully humane, painfully shy, and untouched by the power his great wealth affords him.
As the Duke's enthusiasms gradually turn inward to the working of the mind and memory, he slowly slips into madness. The natural end of his journey of self-discovery gives The Underground Man its horrifying and unforgettable climax. A brilliant comic and tragic creation, Mick Jackson's Duke of Portland is one of the most memorable and heartbreaking characters to emerge from recent fiction.
"A marvelous study of human foibles". -- The New York Times Book Review
"Ingenious ... Jackson's portrait, through the Duke's eyes, of an age poised between credulity and science is shrewd and fascinating". -- Kirkus Reviews
Whitwell is found easily enough, therefore I must be just a little to the East. There is Clumber, so I must have gone too far. I go back – slowly, slowly now. Then, of a sudden – hurrah! – there we are! My house, my lake, my own front drive! Even the ice house is named, and Greendale and The Seven Sisters – my grand old oaks. This gives me no end of the most profound pleasure. I am located. Verified. I put my nose right up to my own house, as if I might see me waving from a window. And, no
good news for, after many a barren year, his wife had just been told she was pregnant and, not surprisingly, Lord Galway’s friend was as pleased as Punch, not least because he might finally father a son who would one day take over his affairs. Well, for several months after these glad tidings Lord Galway was kept very busy and when the two of them next met up he straight away detected the most solemn attitude about his friend. Fearing his wife had perhaps lost the child, he decided, as he put
it, to ‘act the diplomat’ and kept up his end of the conversation until his friend got around to saying what was on his mind. Apparently, he was very worried about his wife’s mental state; indeed feared she had already gone some way down the road towards insanity. Lord Galway trod ever more carefully – the grave look on his friend’s face told him this was wise – but, bit by bit, managed to draw the fellow out. It transpired that the man’s wife was a coal-eater … was always at the stuff. He
drawers in his lap. His head disappeared into them. There was the sound of much scuffling and rattling about. When he re-emerged he looked much invigorated and held up a curious looking object which he passed to me, saying, ‘What do you make of that, Your Grace?’ Well, it was flat and fairly heavy – about eight inches by four. White and smooth, like something which had been washed up on a beach. ‘Is it a bone?’ I asked. ‘Full marks,’ announced Mellor. ‘Now, Your Grace, any idea what beast?’
suddenly, I saw it. It leapt right out at me. To the right of my reflection sat Fowler’s porcelain head with his usual inscrutable look and, what with my own head so white from the talcum, the two of us looked like kin. How strange. It would never have occurred to me. All I lacked were his labels and dividing lines. Undid my gown and went over to the full-length mirror. Removed my trousers. What a white old man. Stared at me until I became a stranger. And in time I saw projected onto the flesh
