The King of a Rainy Country, by Brigid Brophy

I think I've mentioned before that I get a lot of books at thrift stores. At the Goodwill, paperbacks are typically $.99 or $1.99 and I've picked up some gems at Goodwills around the city. The Salvation Army usually charges 10% of the price listed on the book, so a paperback might be $1.29 or $1.49 or thereabouts. Books at Housing Works thrift stores are a little pricier, but still usually $4 or less (at the Housing Works bookstore, you'll find a much larger selection, but also higher prices). But the place I pick up books most frequently is the Unique Boutique thrift store on 3rd Avenue, mainly because it's just a couple blocks from my work and makes for a good destination when I want to leave the office at lunchtime. Paperbacks are $1, hardbacks are $2, and cookbooks are $3. (They get a lot of cookbooks for some reason, and some good ones. I picked up 2 excellent Lidia Bastianich cookbooks there a while back, as well as the James Beard bread book.) I go to Unique Boutique about once a week and there's nearly always something I want to read, or that looks interesting on the shelves. Sometimes I come across something very unusual, as with The King of a Rainy Country. I had never heard of it, but the cover art caught my eye and a quick read of Brigid Brophy's bio intrigued me. (And at $1, what did I have to lose?) Last Friday, I finished The Shape of Water on the train back from Baltimore. After arriving at Penn Station, I stopped off at my office to drop off some things and realized I needed a new book to read on the subway home. I keep a small stash of books at work - mostly ones I've picked up at Unique Boutique on my lunch break - for just such an occasion, so I grabbed The King of a Rainy Country and went on my way.

When I started King of a Rainy Country, a novel about a young woman living in London with her dirtbag not-quite-boyfriend and working for a pornographic bookseller, I assumed I was leaving my spate of books about Italy behind, so I was completely caught off guard when suddenly on page 100, the couple heads off to Italy to chaperone a group of American tourists to the major sights (a gig they fell into by whim, luck, and chance). The tour winds up in Venice, where Mihály and Erzi's tour through Italy began in Journey by Moonlight. In fact, the two books make a very interesting pair. The King of a Rainy Country was originally published in 1956; Journey by Moonlight in 1937. It's not so long, but the ~20 years (and the war, of which Antal Szerb was a victim) that separate the books are era-defining. The King of a Rainy Country feels surprisingly current, but Journey by Moonlight is very clearly from another time. Also worth noting, the latter book mostly focuses on the man's internal struggle, while The King of a Rainy Country is told from the woman's perspective. But I think there is a common thread between the narrator* of The King of a Rainy Country and Mihály from Journey by Moonlight, though it's hard to pinpoint exactly. Instead, I'll transcribe a conversation between the narrator and dirtbag Neale that captures it for me:

Later he asked: "Could there ever be one moment so supreme that everything would be justified for evermore?"
     "I believe so."
     "All romantics believe so. But once the moment was over - supposing it ever came - once it was over, wouldn't you begin looking for new moments?"
     "No. Not if it really had been the moment."
     "You mean you couldn't tell till afterwards? You might cheat yourself like that for ever, going from one false moment to the next, getting tawdrier all the time. Promiscuity is an instinct as well as monogamy."
     "Perhaps I'm wrong then. Perhaps there really is no mistaking the moment when it comes."
...
     "O I'm so afraid that it's true about to travel hopefully being better than to arrive. It might be all in the quest, all in the search, all in the anticipation. When it came, there might be nothing there."
     "That's what you're afraid of," I said.
     "Yes, aren't you?"
     "No, I believe there will be something there."
     "I suppose I do, too, in a way," Neale said. "At least I'm willing to be convinced. Perhaps the moment will happen and convince me."
     "Perhaps it will." I got up.
     He looked down at me, as I stood on the step below him. "Will the moment just rise and overwhelm me?"
     "Yes."

Anyway, I loved this book. It was so unexpected, constantly taking surprising - and often funny - turns, never quite what I thought it would be.


*I believe that if an author chooses not to tell you the narrator's name until p. 194 -- even if it is in the blurb on the back of the book -- it's for a reason. (Regular readers may recall I voiced this complaint related to A Heart So White as well.)