THE MAGICIANS
J. B. PRIESTLEY
With a new introduction by
LEE HANSON
VALANCOURT BOOKS
The Magicians by J. B. Priestley
First published London: Heinemann, 1954
First Valancourt Books edition, January 2014
Copyright © 1954, renewed 1982 by J. B. Priestley
Introduction © 2014 by Lee Hanson
The Publisher is grateful to Val Biro for permission to reproduce his cover painting and to Mark Terry of Facsimile Dust Jackets, LLC for restoring the copy used for this edition.
Published by Valancourt Books, Richmond, Virginia
http://www.valancourtbooks.com
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INTRODUCTION
When The Magicians was first published in 1954 J. B. Priestley had a record behind him of over 30 plays (many of them West End hits), 19 novels and more than 30 published works of essays, criticism and biography. When we add to this impressive list his wartime broadcasts (which attracted audiences of over 15 million); press articles too numerous to tally; British and Hollywood film scripts; an opera libretto; pamphlets; social criticism; manifestos and political campaigns; and various television appearances, we are presented not just with a prolific author, but a towering figure in British public and intellectual life. He was, as the British television presenter and journalist Andrew Marr has written, “once, undoubtedly, too much everywhere”.
Priestley had magnetism and the common touch. Brought up in the northern industrial city of Bradford he understood what life was like for the working and lower middle classes. To the reading and listening public he was enormously influential. His radio broadcasts either side of the Blitz made him “the voice of the people”; only Churchill was more popular. When it came to sales of books, he shipped more than Orwell, more than Anthony Powell, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh or Virginia Woolf; a state of affairs that aroused both their envy and at times their scorn. Not that this bothered Priestley much: his shoulders were broader than most—quite literally. But what would have bothered him, I believe, was the general decline in his own status as a novelist and author in the latter years of his life and those after his death in 1984. At that time all of his novels and non-fiction went out of print and a generation came to have a J.B. Priestley-shaped hole in their reading experience. For a time things were so bad that Andrew Marr was able to qualify his earlier remark by stating, with much sadness, that Priestley had become “now, not anywhere enough”.
In the 1990s Stephen Daldry changed everything. He took a play that many believed was a tired staple of repertory and unpacked it for a new generation. His ground-breaking, award-winning and money-spinning National Theatre production of An Inspector Calls propelled Priestley back into the nation’s consciousness. The play became compulsory watching for anyone who loved the theatre. The acting and costumes, symbolic set, the music and the staging across three time dimensions were hailed as “awe-inspiring”, “blazingly original”, “an amazing expressionist vision”, “the theatrical event of a generation”. The political message was ramped up and caught the national mood—just as it had in 1946. It played in the West End for a decade, won 19 international awards and made several nationwide and world tours, as recently as 2012 in the UK. What the production also did was to ensure that when the National Curriculum was introduced in all UK schools in 1996, An Inspector Calls was listed as a key text in English Literature. Because of Daldry and the Inspector the young discovered Priestley and what he stood for. Priestley is now studied by thousands of British youngsters each year.
Daldry shifted the ground and in the past decade there has been a surge in the number of professional and amateur productions of Priestley’s plays. There have been major revivals in London, at the National Theatre, in Europe and across the Atlantic. What Priestley called his “charades” are performed all over the world once more. A change has taken place outside the theatre too. Since 2006 his novels have started to make a comeback. Bright Day, The Good Companions, Angel Pavement and Lost Empires are all available again. His 1934 travelogue and hugely influential work of social criticism, English Journey, has been reissued and described by Stuart Maconie as “the best book about England and the English ever written”. And now, to my delight (and hopefully yours too) Valancourt Books are bringing back into print several of his novels and a collection of short stories, some of the volumes, like The Magicians, bearing their original jacket designs. It is something to celebrate. Priestley has justly risen and continues to rise.
The Magicians is one of Priestley’s most interesting post-war novels. Speculative in nature, it brings together three of Priestley’s personal preoccupations: the nature of time and ideas about serialism; the Jungian process of individuation; and the well-being of society itself. Priestley’s choice of setting is realistic; his main character, Sir Charles Ravenstreet, is typical of many aging and tired industrialists who find they must contemplate what the persistent and grasping accumulation of wealth has really brought them. Forced out by younger men eager to take his place, Ravenstreet is coincidentally brought into contact with Sir Edwin Karney who in turn introduces him to Lord Mervil and his aide Prisk. The three men outline a new business proposal where Ravenstreet will become part of the production of a new drug called Sepman Eighteen—our equivalent would be ecstasy or MDMA. Cheap to manufacture, highly addictive, and able to rid users of “worry, anxiety, feelings of guilt or inadequacy” and render them “easy”, it has the potential to make them millions—wealth beyond their dreams. Naively believing the drug will in some way benefit humanity and help him find some new purpose, Ravenstreet accepts a role in the team. Into the narrative by mysterious circumstances then come three wise men figures: Wayland, Perperek and Marot—the magicians of the story. They warn Ravenstreet that the manufacture of the drug must not take place; he is also taught a lesson about the nature of time and is afforded the chance to relive certain periods of his life when happiness and fulfilment meant more than wealth, power and material gain. If he follows their way then there is hope for all, and the personal promise of genuine happiness.
The sudden arrival of a mysterious (often foreign) stranger is a motif often used by Priestley, and the three magicians are from the same sphere as the Inspector in An Inspector Calls, Dr. Görtler in I Have Been Here Before, and The Figure in Johnson Over Jordan. Their purpose, as it is with the characters in the plays mentioned above, is to work on Ravenstreet and redeem him. But is redemption really possible at such a late stage in life? This question leads us to the process of individuation so central to Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology and one of the concepts at the heart of this novel. Priestley was committed to the principles of Jung, met and befriended him, and through articles, reviews and broadcasts helped to promote his ideas across the United Kingdom. Of Jung Priestley wrote: “he seemed a great man . . . in essence, a deep wise old bird, half a chum and half a magician”. Priestley shared Jung’s idea that the dreaming self was just as important as the waking self and that through dreams one connects not just with one’s own unconscious attitudes, but the collective unconscious attitudes of all cultures. Ravenstreet’s experience of “time alive” in the novel offers him the opportunity to connect with his unconscious self and his own past. It also allows him the chance to begin the difficult process of individuation. But what does this mean? Well, Jung advocated that the first half of life was essentially a preparation for mating and earning a living, adjusti
ng egos to the world; but the second half of life starting in the late 30s was really preparation for death. At first sight this might appear gloomy; it isn’t. Jung’s ideas hold that to live fully from middle age onwards we need to adopt a different standpoint; live more in the spirit and ally ourselves with what is imperishable and outside the ego. Release ourselves from the tug of war of opposites in our conscious and unconscious and begin a journey of self-realisation, where we discover and experience the meaning and purpose in life. In short, it is the means by which one finds oneself and becomes who one really is. Necessary to the process is a confrontation with the shadow inside us—that part of the psyche that contains all we hide away from the outer world and often what we hide from ourselves. All this is Jung’s individuation and it is in essence the challenge the three magicians set before Ravenstreet. It begins for him by reaching back into his own past and beyond that into the realization that a new way of thinking and experiencing the world is possible. After his final experience of “time alive” it appears Ravenstreet confesses that he is moving towards this process: “you make things come alive, take on significance, point somewhere, instead of killing and burying them. Even if it shouldn’t be true . . . that a man is really all his time and that he may have the chance, if he really wants it, to change both himself and all that has happened to him, it’s better to think so, to take the long, hopeful, creative view, than to believe you’re being hurried helplessly into the grave . . .”
Ravenstreet has also at this point been taught a lesson about the nature of time; the same lesson Alan Conway divulges to his sister in Priestley’s 1937 play, Time and the Conways. The lesson is that our experience of time is not linear, but simultaneous, serial and multi-dimensional. “But the point is,” begins Alan Conway, “now, at this moment, or any moment, we’re only cross-sections of our real selves. What we really are is the whole stretch of ourselves, all our time, and when we come to the end of this life, all those selves, all our time, will be us—the real you, the real me. And then perhaps we’ll find ourselves in another time, which is only another kind of dream.” This mirrors what is revealed to Ravenstreet by the magicians when he experiences “time alive”. Priestley, like Jung and like his other big influence J. W. Dunne (author of An Experiment with Time), believed that our experience of time as linear was an illusion brought about by human consciousness; and that perceiving it in this way was hurrying us all along a single track to oblivion, creating apathy and a numbness of spirit. Despite the negativity Priestley was adamant that “we are something better than creatures carried on that single time track to the slaughter-house. We have a larger portion of time—and stranger adventures with it—than conventional or positivist thought allows.” Individuation to Priestley was a preparation for existence outside our usual perception of time. He believed that our essential self is beyond what can be realised in a standard linear experience of time. These specific ideas about time and how we experience it are somewhat unfashionable now, but they engaged the minds of many writers, philosophers and scientists throughout the middle part of the twentieth century. Priestley was not alone in his thinking.
Unfashionable maybe, but that is not to say they aren’t worth exploring; they are certainly a better way forward than the prescriptions of Lord Mervil and the creator of the new wonder drug Ernest Sepman. Mervil asserts that all people want is “reasonable security, food and clothes and shelter and medical attention, some education but not too much, easy work, no trouble, no worry, no loneliness and fear, mass emotions, mass entertainment, a smooth road from cradle to the grave. They’ve known for some time now that life is essentially meaningless, so they want to get through their share of it as painlessly as possible . . .” And the new drug will give them precisely this. There are echoes here of Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World and soma, yet this is not some future society, it is the world contemporary to the novel and Priestley is too humane a writer to allow them to succeed with their plan. He is too engaged with the well-being of society, so he instead offers us a possible way out of the madness. There is no lack of irony here though, for the mass entertainment and emotions outlined by Mervil and the smooth easy road people appear to want seems rampant in 2013 in our digital, image-conscious, ephemeral, X Factor world. As Priestley wrote in 1972, “we are televised and advertised out of our senses. We exist in images, not realities”. Perhaps our digital age makes Priestley more prophetic and perceptive than his contemporary audience believed? It is certainly possible to interpret The Magicians as a satirical fable of contemporary life, a critique of society then and even more so now, though Priestley cannot mock for long; he is at his core far too hopeful, too much the dreamer for that.
If we can come to accept the dovetailing of realism with speculative, fairy-story elements then The Magicians can be a rich and rewarding read. If we go a step further and begin to think about our own experience of time and the hidden aspects of our personalities, then we might, just like Sir Charles Ravenstreet and J.B. Priestley, begin to envisage and experience the “unimaginable promise of things, of enchanting possibilities branching out everywhere”; and along with this acquire “a sense and a feeling into which there enters an obscure conviction of immortality; as if somewhere at the root of it there might be knowledge buried deep in the heart, that nobody blessed by this atmosphere of well-being and affection, lit with such wonder and delight, could possibly go away for ever, die and turn to dust, be lost in the dark spaces of the universe. . . .”
Lee Hanson
Yorkshire, England
October 28, 2013
Lee Hanson is a writer, editor, and teacher. He is the editor of the Rediscovering Priestley series for Great Northern Books and is also Chairman of the J. B. Priestley Society. For more information about J. B. Priestley’s life and work or to join and become involved with the society please visit the official website of the estate of J. B. Priestley, www.jbpriestley.co.uk or the website of the J. B. Priestley Society, www.jbpriestleysociety.com.
THE MAGICIANS
CHAPTER ONE
Sir Charles is Out
“So there we are, gentlemen,” Hathon concluded in his best chairman manner. “Mr. Selby will be Managing Director, with Mr. Torr as deputy.”
Now that it had happened, Ravenstreet felt no shock, not even surprise. Yet he had been sincere when he had refused to listen to Garson and young Treves, who had tried to warn him that this might happen. His rejection had been unthinkable up to the very moment when it became a fact; now that it was here, it seemed inevitable. As if his life were a book, and somebody had turned a page.
Selby was talking now, thanking them for their confidence, pledging himself to do this and that—the usual smooth stuff. His own gang listened, all smiles. Old Hathon’s enormous purple face sagged forward, as if he were more than half asleep. Ravenstreet felt a long way off, and paid no attention to Selby until he heard his own name mentioned.
“And so I should like to propose, Mr. Chairman,” said Selby, “that the Board should ask Sir Charles Ravenstreet to serve as Production Manager.”
Hathon opened his eyes and nodded almost vigorously. He was ready now to exchange glances with Ravenstreet, who realised at once that this move had been arranged between Hathon and Selby. After an encouraging growl from Hathon, Selby went on to remind the Board that at the October meeting it had already approved the possibility of appointing a Production Manager. Details could be settled later. What was important now was to assure Sir Charles Ravenstreet that the Company wished to make the fullest use of his valuable services—blah blah blah.
The Chairman wished to associate himself with these views and was sure the Board felt as he did. The Board made various noises to show its approval. The Chairman looked enquiringly at Ravenstreet, and most of the Board followed his example.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman,” said Ravenstreet, still feeling a long way from the meeting, “but there’s no chance of my accepting this suggestion. I can only repeat what I said at
our October meeting. If a man is fit to be Production Manager of this Company, which is a manufacturing concern and not a finance corporation, then in my view he should be in chief control of it—in short, Managing Director. Clearly it isn’t the view of this Board, as we have seen from the voting this afternoon. I couldn’t serve the Company properly if I felt at cross-purposes with its management. But if you feel that you should have a Production Manager, then, Mr. Chairman, I propose Mr. Garson.”
It was decided to postpone the appointment. The meeting went droning on, and Ravenstreet wearily put in a word here and there, as if he felt they were sitting round a table in a dead world.
Sometimes the Board of the New Central Electric Company met in the main works, near Birmingham. This meeting, however, had been held in the London office, a first and second floor in Victoria Street. Ravenstreet escaped as soon as he could, and went along to the Managing Director’s room, where his secretary, Miss Latham, was waiting to do the afternoon letters. She looked at him anxiously; she was an exceptionally fast and reliable worker, but always rather anxious, as if she had no confidence in her ability. He said nothing about the meeting but began at once to dictate letters, keeping her hard at it for nearly an hour. “We’ll get the first four or five off today, Miss Latham,” he told her when he had done. “The rest can go tomorrow.”
“Yes, Sir Charles.” But she lingered, looking at him appealingly.
“If you’re wondering what happened at the meeting, then I’ll tell you. Mr. Selby was appointed Managing Director by a handsome vote.”
“I knew it, I knew it,” she cried, half in distress and half reproachful, as if it had been his fault. And perhaps it had. Perhaps he had been too confident.
“Well—never mind, Miss Latham.”