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Book Review: David Blaize at King’s
Sep. 12th, 2023 09:18 pmUnlike David Blaize, which gallops along at a good clip all through its slashy Edwardian boarding school adventures, E. F. Benson’s David Blaize at King’s is an uneven book. As you may recall, I almost gave up on the book, because I got so bogged down in the interminable meanderings of a secondary character who, most unfortunately, continues to pop up throughout the book, bringing the narrative to a screeching halt each time.
Fortunately, however, it was much easier to prove through the later digressions, because by this time the book had started to hand out some truly exceptional David Blaize/Frank Maddox content. Take, for instance, this quote, which David says to Frank after a rugby match, while wearing nothing but a shirt and a towel:
“But, O Lord, how I love my friends: isn’t that enough for a chap till he falls in love in the regular way? If I’ve got to kiss somebody I’d kiss one of them. You for choice, because I’m much fonder of you than the whole rest of them.”
I just!!! That’s just!!!! SO MUCH.
Or this: “As far as David was aware of his own heart, that heart was [Frank’s], open to him and beating for him in that sexless surrender which boys make to boys and girls to girls.”
Now, yes, “sexless”: clearly Benson doesn’t want us to get the wrong idea, or at least wants to give himself some plausible deniability about the whole thing. But… surrender. His heart open and beating for Frank. Plausibly deniable in the most overcharged, romantic way possible!
Even David’s friends notice that there’s something just a bit odd about him. “I can’t understand you, David,” [Bags] said. “You’re simply dripping with energy, and yet you never dream of going after a girl. It seems to me absolutely unnatural. You don’t even want to.”
David insists he is interested in girls, but “when the time comes that I see a girl I really want, and ask her to m-marry me, I mean to go to her clean. It’s just a fad of mine - call it that, or call it pi’ and p-priggish. You may call it anything you please.”
In love with Frank but not yet aware that he’s gay about it? Asexual? Simply extremely Edwardian? Who can say!
In short, a book with some real gems - but you do have to wade through a lot of dross to get to them. Only for the completist David Blaize fan, and completely optional, I might add; David Blaize is a standalone with a perfectly satisfying ending of its own. And although I don’t remember any individual quotes as jaw-dropping as the kiss quote, the atmosphere on a whole is simply drenched with schoolboy longing, in a way that David Blaize of King’s never approaches.
Fortunately, however, it was much easier to prove through the later digressions, because by this time the book had started to hand out some truly exceptional David Blaize/Frank Maddox content. Take, for instance, this quote, which David says to Frank after a rugby match, while wearing nothing but a shirt and a towel:
“But, O Lord, how I love my friends: isn’t that enough for a chap till he falls in love in the regular way? If I’ve got to kiss somebody I’d kiss one of them. You for choice, because I’m much fonder of you than the whole rest of them.”
I just!!! That’s just!!!! SO MUCH.
Or this: “As far as David was aware of his own heart, that heart was [Frank’s], open to him and beating for him in that sexless surrender which boys make to boys and girls to girls.”
Now, yes, “sexless”: clearly Benson doesn’t want us to get the wrong idea, or at least wants to give himself some plausible deniability about the whole thing. But… surrender. His heart open and beating for Frank. Plausibly deniable in the most overcharged, romantic way possible!
Even David’s friends notice that there’s something just a bit odd about him. “I can’t understand you, David,” [Bags] said. “You’re simply dripping with energy, and yet you never dream of going after a girl. It seems to me absolutely unnatural. You don’t even want to.”
David insists he is interested in girls, but “when the time comes that I see a girl I really want, and ask her to m-marry me, I mean to go to her clean. It’s just a fad of mine - call it that, or call it pi’ and p-priggish. You may call it anything you please.”
In love with Frank but not yet aware that he’s gay about it? Asexual? Simply extremely Edwardian? Who can say!
In short, a book with some real gems - but you do have to wade through a lot of dross to get to them. Only for the completist David Blaize fan, and completely optional, I might add; David Blaize is a standalone with a perfectly satisfying ending of its own. And although I don’t remember any individual quotes as jaw-dropping as the kiss quote, the atmosphere on a whole is simply drenched with schoolboy longing, in a way that David Blaize of King’s never approaches.
