Enoch Soames
"Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties" is a short story by the British writer Max Beerbohm first published in 1916 in The Century Magazine and the name of the main character of this story, which can be read as a "false biography" and elements uses the genres of fantasy and science fiction. In addition to the title character, the author Beerbohm himself appears as a first-person narrator, telling a story about ten years ago that uses various elements from Beerbohm's biography; Enoch Soames is presented as an actual character and both the painter William Rothenstein (both historical and real) and the author himself have made drawings of Enoch Soames, both of which obviously show the same person; the portrait made by Rothenstein is also mentioned in the story.
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The first-person narrator Beerbohm tells of his life as an aspiring young essayist in England in the 1890s and of an acquaintance of his, Enoch Soames, who lives by his legacy and himself in a world of vanities in which the artist has no other standard than himself recognize, stylized as a poet, but remains unsuccessful despite minor publication. His attempts to present himself as a hipster of his time also fail. Soames is described as unsuccessful, irrelevant, even ridiculous, as dim (cloudy). Which, however, does not diminish Soame's belief in himself and his art, at least according to his own statements; the admiration of others, he says, means nothing to him.
On the afternoon of June 3, 1897, Soames and Beerbohm met in a restaurant in Soho , the Restaurant du Vingtieme Siecle . Soames is depressed at the lack of fame; Beerbohm thinks a few superficialities; Soames immediately recognizes the false comforting thought that geniuses are often only recognized after their lifetimes. Soames utters this platitude himself and states that he would give anything to be able to look up what is being written about him in the reading room of the British Museum in 100 years . Now the man at the next table gets up, a dump who introduces himself as the devil. He proposes a deal to Soames; for the price of Soame's soul, he will have him spend an afternoon in the reading room of the British Museum exactly 100 years from now. In the evening he would return to the Restaurant du Vingtieme Siecle , where the devil will take his payment.
Against Beerbohm's protest, Soames agrees and disappears; only to appear again at the appointed hour at the restaurant where the worried Beerbohm is waiting for him.
Soames is dejected and accuses Beerbohm of not being a friend, yes, of being a bad person. Beerbohm tries to get him to describe the future, with Soames approving practically all of Beerbohm's assumptions; all he'd really noticed was people backing away from him and mostly trying to find evidence of his fame. Now he gives Beerbohm a sheet of paper with text copied from a future reference work; the English of the future seems strange but understandable: In a story by Max Beerbohm, a fictional character named Enoch Soames, a third-rate poet who considers himself a genius, is described and a pact is made with the devil.
While Beerbohm insists that he would never write anything like that, the devil enters the restaurant to take Soames with him to hell. Soames begs Beerbohm to at least write his story in such a way that future readers will know of its existence. Beerbohm, deeply moved, now realizes that the author of the article about his future story will not finish reading this, typical of self-loving critics; for in the future Soames had noticed that people stared at him and backed away from him. This must be because they knew of his appearance and the hand of the devil in the story; because the absolutely irrelevant figure of Soames himself could never cause such a reaction.
Aftermath
The British Museum reading room was used 100 years earlier as described in the story in June 1997; It was closed later that year and renovated in 2000, but reopened for a different purpose.
In November 1997, The Atlantic Monthly published an article written by Penn & Teller's entertainer Teller about the June 3, 1997 events; On that day a man reminiscent of Soames is said to have appeared in the reading room of the British Museum and searched various biographical and literary reference books; it is widely believed that the events described were choreographed by the author of the article.
There is now an Enoch Soames Society (at least a fictitious one) dedicated to the study of the works and the person of Enoch Soames. The figure has since inspired other portraits, including one by the Argentine artist Lautaro Fiszman.
The story also mentions literary predecessors, such as HG Wells' Zeitreisender from the novel The Time Machine and Goethe's Faust , whom the devil magically leads into the past.
Enoch Soames is perhaps the best-known creation by essayist Max Beerbohm today; it has even been noted that Beerbohm “would simply not be remembered without Enoch Soames”.
bibliography
- Terry L. Meyers, review of Mark Samuels Lasner, "A Bibliography of Enoch Soames, 1862-1897," Victorian Poetry , 37: 4 (Winter 1999), 555.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the phonetic rendering of the future English of history: "in wich e pautraid an immajnari karrakter kauld" Enoch Soames "- a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate those an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot posterriti thinx ov im! "
- ^ The Atlantic Monthly
- ↑ esquire.com ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 26, 2012
- ↑ http://www.cypherpress.com/content/soames/
- ↑ http://lautarofiszman.blogspot.de/search/label/Retrato%20de%20Enoch%20Soammes
- ↑ https://lecturaserrantes.blogspot.de/2012/02/enoch-soames-de-max-beerbohm.html
