ni PsomANTIA ' l everley's father S inion Penn p lust read Father Figure,
by erleY Nichols, I find myself left with an erwhelming feeling of compassion for ,:lat desperately unhappy and tortured 'wan, his father. I cannot accept that he thas an alcoholic in the ordinary sense of soe'sW°rd' any more than I can accept his he somewhat Biblical explanation that was it possessed of the devil. an,, :does not need a psychiatrist to tell is J Intelligent, educated person that there aie a distinct difference between an ois°h°lie and a dipsomaniac. John Nich Awas clearly a dipsomaniac. thahn ordinary alcholic is really no more old drunk,' who, over a period of pieae has tiallowed himself to indulge in the re he derives from drinking regularly eai`rY day, until the consumption of hic°I101 has grown to be so much a part of cash life that he has become addicted and do Without it. c,, leo, ,,,LArse, there are varying degrees of The lucky ones, although ennolisrn.ierel , or unwilling, to give up drinking n4Y, are able to control it. As soon as are.' realise that their livers and finances theirstifjering, they are capable of reducing 'any intake to within reasonable hounds, The 10t of alcoholics in an advanced a great deal more serious. adderare the unlucky ones, whose thatiQfthi°r! has become so out of control the are no longer capable of heeding bankwarnings (hangovers and letters from tend Innnagers and so forth!). In fact, they hal; to drink themselves out of one \vo °Lver to the next; and, although tro„r-,k7-1 about their health and money bat;°h'es, Will make matters worse by their More money in order to obtain Pecilm '44 quota. The plight of these Q01.i'di'e is tragic, because, although their irtcla-14,ti°h May have been due to self thei,'6ence and weakness to begin with, kno"waire now well and truly hooked.' The edge of this brings deep depression awa"ePression, because they are fully theirre that their family and social life, aboWork and financial security and, as tvhe. all, their health, are all at risk. Yet, need depression increases, so does their wow[Or the antidote. "not the disease known as dipsomania a arelike this at all. Those afflicted by Qatt,,,,Pe°Ple who suffer deeply: and the of their suffering are many. tanoiles the origin of their torment is 1or7le and can be attributed to remorse e Past crime; sometimes it is purely thei-h`utogical, because the sensitivity of et,4‘; natures is such that the horrors and therne`ties of the world which surrounds . "'l' become unbearable; sometimes t qe4oh,— in the fact that someone they love beh17, and passionately is not capable of ° `1111Y responsive to their love. The drinking habits of the dipsomaniac invariably follow the same pattern. Unlike the ordinary alcoholic, he will go for days, weeks, sometimes months, without drinking at all. During these periods he manages to keep the cause of his disease in abeyance, buried deep in his subconscious, until, suddenly, something happens to bring it all to the surface again. The suffering starts afresh and continues until it becomes so overwhelming, so intolerable, that the victim, if he is not suicidal, turns in his anguish to the only escape he knows — drink.
Once he has started, he is totally incapable of stopping. He is driven on through varying stages: vomiting, violence, incontinence, delirium, until, finally, oblivion is reached. When eventually he emerges from this condition, he is, of course, exhausted and physically ill, having suffered a high degree of alcoholic poisoning. But his bodily misery is nothing compared with his mental trauma. He is fully aware of the degradation through which he has passed and his shame and remorse know no bounds.
It is the memory of this that causes the true dipsomaniac to forswear alchol, to go on the 'wagon' absolutely — until something triggers him off and the whole dreadful business has to be gone through all over again. Those living in the twenties, the era about which Beverley Nichols writes in his book, knew far more reticence than we do today; and in a household, such as he describes, no one, least of all the children, would know very much about the private relationship that existed between the parents. One would certainly not presume to venture anything in the way of a hypothesis on this aspect of the Nichols' family life. But, as one reads the pages of Father Figure one fact does seem to emerge with startling clarity and that is that Nichols senior was an extremely tortured and unhappy man; and, as further events obviously show, this unhappiness was, in some way, closely connected with his wife. It would also seem fair to assume that his wretchedness was not helped by the ever increasing bond between his wife and his son; and also by Beverley's brilliance and almost precocious success. This was made apparent in so many ways, apart altogether from his drinking. It was evident in his pathetic posturing, in the jaunty eyeglass,' the carnation in the buttonhole, the swanking about his family in pubs and bars and his pitiful attempts, in his non-drinking periods, to show what a hell of a fine fellow' he was.
Reading about those unhappy days of his boyhood, one cannot help but sympathise with the youthful Beverley, because no one who has not lived through it (as I myself, and thousands of others, have done) can possibly imagine the horror and revulsion felt by the young at the human depravity that can be brought about by drink in someone to whom one is closely related. And, if one tried hard enough, one might even find some justification for thoughts of murder in a young man so inexperienced in the frailties of human nature, and with such an exceptional devotion as young Beverley obviously felt for his mother.
But, as one reaches the final pages, what one fails to understand completely is how he could possibly have brought himself to write such a book after all these years. Here we have a man who has put his considerable talents to good effect and whose duty it is, by very reason of his profession, to know about and understand human weakness; a man who, except for a surprisingly vitriolic outburst directed posthumously against his fellow writer, Somerset Maugham, has always appeared to have a gentle disposition. His genuine love of animals and the beauty of flowers is very evident in his books and articles. And yet now, in the evening of his life, and after years of experience, he has shown that he is quite incapable of working out for himself any of the factors which may have caused his father's behaviour — and to forgive. Instead, thirty-three years after his mother's death, he is still as hard and bitter as was that inexperienced youth, whose hatred of his father was so great that he tried to murder him not once, but three times.
Even at the end, he leaves vital questions unanswered. One is the question which, as he himself says, a student of alcoholism must find incredible: why was it that after his mother's death his father never drank again? Is it not possible that here lies the key? That the devil to whom Beverley Nichols suggests his father had surrendered was no more than human frustration. Has it never occurred to him that his mother, undoubtedly as sweet and kind as he describes her, gave all that apparently incredible loyalty and loving forgiveness to her husband because she knew that in some other way she may have failed him?
So, with all these questions, which must remain forever unanswered, may we perhaps ask one more? Is it not possible that Beverley Nichols has written this book because he, himself, has a deep desire to cast out his own devil?
If this is so, the motive can only be one of selfishness, because, from a social point of view, this book should never have been written. Mr Nichols is an author of great skill, one might almost say, cunning, and herein lies the danger. As his story builds up, one gets the impression — as it is his obvious intention that one should — that his case is unique and, therefore, his reactions justified. But this, of course, is sheer nonsense.
As the stresses of modern life increase, through such problems as, for instance, overcrowding, with all its ensuing horrors of aggression and ugliness, so does the human need for escapism. It is doubtful if there are many today — other than hermits — who have not, at some time, come into contact with tragedies caused by extreme alcoholism or dipsomania, if not actually within their own family circle, at least _ _ / within their social group.
Therefore, it requires little imagination to realise the outcome if it were to be considered justifiable to attempt to murder all those suffering from these weaknesses; and I think one should end here by pointing out that not all might be as dismally inefficient as was Mr Nichols in this respect!
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