Book Description
The British collector William Beckford helped to define many of themost significant parameters of nineteenth-century collecting, as he was unbound byconventional intellectual or aesthetic prejudice. He was among the first of the greatconnoisseurs to collect Asian and Islamic art while breaking with the taste of hiscontemporaries. He assembled an eclectic and luxurious collection that included ancient,medieval, and Renaissance art, as well as seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and early-nineteenth- century objects. His active participation in the design of various objects reveals adiscriminating aesthetic sensibility that set him apart from his contemporaries. Hisinfluence also extended beyond his day; generations of renowned private collectors inGreat Britain, on the Continent, and in the United States have reflected his interest in theart of many cultures and periods.This magnificent book describes Beckford'sflamboyant personality and unconventional life. Authorities tell us that at an early age,Beckford was known as "England's wealthiest son," due to a prodigal income generatedfrom Jamaican sugar plantations. As a youth, he traveled widely and made his mark as anovelist, composer of music, and impresario of design. His most ambitious project washis fantastic residence Fonthill Abbey; the construction and furnishing of this GothicRevival edifice consumed nearly twenty-five years of Beckford's life and vast amounts ofhis fortune, branding him with a reputation as a recluse and eccentric.In addition toproviding details about Beckford's life, the book discusses 175 of the finest works of artthat once were part of Beckford's legendary collections and examines his travels andgreat building projects. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Albion, published by North American Conference on British Studies on June 22, 2003. The length of the article is 977 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Derek E. Ostergard, ed. William Beckford, 1760-1844: an Eye for the Magnificent.(Book Review)
Author: Kathleen Nicholson
Publication: Albion (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2003
Publisher: North American Conference on British Studies
Volume: 35Issue: 2Page: 318(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (8)

Beckford's Soulscape?
The tale of Vathek is undeniably a wonderful oriental fable, where enlightenment ethics are presented and critiqued. If read in conjunction with Samuel Johnson "Rasselas", Montesquieu's Persian Letters and "Arabian Nights" one may be able to better understand the landscape upon which orientalism (a term used by Beckford himself to illuminate the period's infatuation with the orient, not to be confused with Said's) and enlightenment values where divulged. Beckford's tale however speaks of a more prescient sphere where the author's inner struggles and thwarted tragic desultoriness devolves. As with all literature this compact gem stands on her own; however many have tried to extract a moral import and some have even described a mystique of knowledge and a system of ethics with undue fastidiousness. In a more likely scenario we have a wonton fable whimsical and indulgent, crafted as a parody of "orientalism". Knowledge of Beckford's life may serve the reader well but should not hinder her enjoyment. The author's disquietude trumps an increasing distance from the absurd drive and hedonistic tendencies of the protagonist, while we feel a sympathetic kinship laxed the more into the novella we proceed. The author wrote this fable in French and supervised the translation as best he could. The grotesque and the sublime are here married insolubly but tend to find a balance suspended over a void that derides and insinuates the emptiness of a spiritual fantasy in turmoil.
The ending paragraphs are singed with a sad glow that seems to recriminate as much as it moralizes: much like a father that punishes a child only to feel remorse over the fact that his own blood cannot enjoy what is most enjoyable. He is not convinced and Beckford created a wonderful fable where much is exposed, but the simplicity, the arrogance and the conviction are to be regaled with the same comic grotesque sprightliness with which he infuses his narrative.
A quick fun read that demands little of us, but in degrees can disclose a sensibility we may be dismissive of if we are to package it as a tale where orientalism meets enlightenment values.

Time very well spent
Vathek was Caliph in the area of approximately present-day Iraq, at some unknown time in the past. He was generally a fair person, but woe unto him who got Vathek angry. He lived in an immense castle, with the absolute finest of everything. One day, a very strange, and very ugly, man stood before his throne. He had a hideous laugh, but didn't speak. He showed Vathek all manner of rare and exotic items, including sabers inscribed in an unknown language, inscriptions which kept changing from day to day. The stranger was thrown in prison for his unwillingness to speak. The next morning, finding the stranger gone, Vathek totally blows his top.

Finding himself outside the castle, at the foot of the nearby mountains, Vathek hears a voice coming out of a huge crevasse. It is the stranger, called a giaour, who promises Vathek all the powers of heaven in exchange for the blood of fifty young boys. Vathek provides the boys, through the guise of a sporting competition, then the giaour reneges on its part of the deal. When the people, especially the parents, understand what's happened, Vathek has to get back to the castle and lock the doors, until the anger subsides.

Later, Vathek commands the creation of a great caravan to a place called Rocnabad, home of famous springs. For various reasons, he needs to get away from the castle for a while. This is going to be the biggest, and grandest, caravan ever. On the journey, the caravan is attacked by wild animals, with a number of casualties. Vathek, his wives and senior advisers, can no longer be carried the rest of the way, because of lack of personnel, but actually have to walk to Rocnabad.

At Rocnabad, there is a castle as big or bigger than the one that Vathek left behind. He meets a young woman named Nouronihar, who he wants as one of his wives (as Caliph, what Vathek wants, Vathek gets). She is promised to a man named Gulchenrouz. The lovers drink a potion that will make them look dead for several days, then, the idea is that they go and live somewhere else, away from Vathek.

This is one of the very few novels set in the world of the Arabian Nights, a world of eunuchs, slaves and harem girls. It was first published over 200 years ago (in the 1780s), so the style of writing is very different than what is normal for a modern reader. Therefore, it will take some patience on the part of the reader. If you can find a copy, it is time, and money, very well spent.

HOW COME YOU DO SO MUCH WRONG VATHEK?
Vathek is another work in an endless series with the Faust myth as its backbone. Except here, instead of being set in Germany, the setting is the ancient middle east in which genies and devils inhabit the land.

Vathek is a caliph who is loved but also feared by his people. In fact, if he really loses his temper, just the sight of his gaze can cause death. His court makes The Satyricon look like a sunday school with its voluptuousness and excess. There are even five wings of his palace, with each one dedicated to a sense with names such as "The Delight of the Eyes" and "The Palace of Perfumes". Oh, the decadence! Of course someone as attached to physical gratification as Vathek is sure to stomp on the moral and religious boundaries of Allah and get in trouble.

Much like God and Yahweh in the Book of Job, Allah allows Vathek to be tempted and tried by demons as a bizarre test of his faith. Actually, maybe in both cases it was a test of God's faith in man. The faith that man will do the right thing in the end. That he will turn away from evil. That he will have an epiphany which will redeem him. Vathek isn't so lucky.

An evil being in the disguise of a man, called the Gaiour, comes to Vathek's court with all sorts of magical artifacts which seem to give their bearer otherworldy powers. Vathek becomes entranced by the thought of having powers over spirits and other men and begins to follow a direct line to eternal hell. In order to court evil spirits, Vathek becomes a mass murderer, a blasphemer, a betrayer, a killer of his own people. He is helped in this by his mother, Carathis, who hasn't even heard the word goodness. She constructs a tower much like the Tower of Babel, in order to reach to the gods and to serve as storage for her arcane items.

The book, much like Dante's Inferno, becomes a little much at times. I mean, how many deeds of evil can we experience before we go, "ok, he's going to Hell now!" Sometimes you sense that some of this is intentional and tongue in cheek. At other times, you're horrified at the evil that most of the characters do. Any characters that are good are trampled upon by the evil. The last couple of pages are truly disturbing. I liked this book and would recommend it to anyone that keeps an open mind about fantasy or who is interested in the question of how much knowledge is too much knowledge.

An exotic dark fantasy
Leaving aside the question of whether this book is a 'gothic' novel or not, it is a dark fantasy.It shares with its more conventionally gothic brethren a tale of dark deeds in an exotic setting, where an alien and exciting religion is practised.

In the standard Gothic tale, allusions to Roman Catholicism, thought of by respectable Englishmen as a dark, oppressive, and half-pagan faith, were part of the conventional apparatus.Beckford chose instead to imagine the world of Islam, an even more exotic milieu that added some flashes of bright colours to the dark and sorcerous background of his book.His choice of an even more exotic setting allowed him greater freedom in portraying characters who defied social convention and fell into exotic habits of mind.

My understanding is that it is a matter of some debate to what extent the English text of -Vathek- is a translation from the French, or an original English composition.I do not have the French text in front of me, but it has been represented to me that Beckford's "original" French is rather like the French of Oscar Wilde's -Salome-, and needed extensive editing to be acceptable to a French readership.

At any rate, -Vathek- is a prime example of early dark fantasy.The description, of course, will be richer than you are used to, but Beckford's prose actually seems to move quite quickly.Fans of H. P. Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith will find that it is quite easy to slip into.And the tale is indeed a vivid one, right up to the exceptional ending when Vathek and Carathis are damned to the halls of Eblis, their hearts seared with unquenchable fire.

This is a good edition of the story, and the notes and maps are helpful.

FANTASY / GOTHIC / ARABIAN NIGHTS
Those are the three categories that I've seen this story put in. Vathek tells the tale about a man with an exceedingly high tower. This man named Vathek is very greedy. The reading can be a little rough at times, which is why I took off one star, but there are some very memorable scenes. Two that really stick out in my mind are: When the stranger in the dungeon escapes. And when Vathek ascends his tall tower, thinking how tall he stands over his minions--then he looks up at the stars and grimaces, because the stars are still the same distance away. Both of these scenes are towards the beginning, which I think is the best part of the book. The middle details Vathek's journey to some far off place. But then it picks up again towards the end. I don't normally read Gothics--if this IS a Gothic, opinions vary--but it is a very good book and definitely one I plan on adding to my permanent collection. Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges gave enthusiastic mention to this book in one of his works. ... Read more