bibliographing

The Provost, the first political novel, is the autobiography of “a genuine Machiavellian”—a natural born one, at that. The chief pleasure here for me, as I noted over at Wuthering Expectations, is Galt’s technical virtuosity in producing this amazing narrator, Mr. Pawkie, and his exploits.

It’s hard to explain without just giving examples of the unmitigated gall of the man—but that’s not the right word. If you’ve ever wondered whether politicians were liars or merely blinded by a lifetime of self-serving…

“Since syne they have been trying every grip and wile o’ the law to punish me as they threatened; but the laws of England are a great protection to the people against arbitrary power….”

“Had I been a sordid and interested man, this news could never have given me the satisfaction it did, for Miss Lizy was very fond of my bairns, and it was thought that Peter would have been her heir; but so far from being concerned at what I heard, I rejoiced thereat, and resolved in secret thought, whenever a vacancy happened, Dr. Swapkirk being then fast wearing away, to exert the best of my ability to get the kirk for Mr. Pittle, not however unless he was previously married to Miss Lizy; for, to speak out, she was beginning to stand in need of a protector, and both me and Mrs. Pawkie had our fears that she might outlive her income, and in her old age become a cess upon us.”

“At first, I could not divine what interest my old friend, the Dean of Guild, had to be so earnest in the behalf of the offering contractor; in course of time, however, it spunkit out, that he was a sleeping partner in the business; by which he made a power of profit. But, saving two three carts of stones to big a dyke round the new steading which I had bought a short time before at the townend, I had no benefit whatever. Indeed, I may take it upon me to say, that should not say it, few Provosts, in so great a concern, could have acted more on a principle than I did in this; and if Thomas Shovel, of his free-will, did, at the instigation of the Dean of Guild, lay down the stones on my ground as aforesaid, the town was not wronged; for, no doubt, he paid me the compliment at some expense of his own profit.”

It’s almost…unbelievable. Not the way Pawkie acts, I mean, nor the way he justifies himself—those are some of the most believable things in the world. But the perceptiveness required of Galt to write it all this way, and the genius required to come up with so many set pieces to do it in, so many instances of petty corruption and pathetic skimming of any possible advantage from the public trust, I am still amazed at.

Yes, there is really something to these brief chapters that keep coming at you. It reminds one of our own hopelessly sped-up news cycle. For Mr. Pawkie, this is a lifetime’s political trajectory. But the way one issue follows another, somewhat organically and thus somewhat chaotically, but also somewhat prodded by the interests of the politicians, and there is always something the town’s narrative is converging on as important and needing Doing Something About, is perfectly like our whole political discourse.

Mr. Pawkie really is a great character. Even I could not hate him for his sins, he was so amusing. And what Amateur Reader describes as “the voice of a proud and successful but only lightly educated man who has never written a book before” not only revels in his own political wiles but also gives some memorable and colorful descriptions of the more tumultuous moments in the town. For one:

Gill-stoups, porter bottles, and penny pyes flew like balls and bomb-shells in battle. Mrs. Fenton, with her mutch off, and her hair loose, with wide and wild arms, like a witch in a whirlwind, was seen trying to sunder the challengers, and the champions.

You are a bad, bad man, Mr. Pawkie, but I was sorry to stop reading of your adventures when they were over.