The Wooden Shepherdess

by Richard Hughes

Paperback, 2000

Status

Available

Call number

823.912

Publication

NYRB Classics (2000), Paperback, 440 pages

Description

The Wooden Shepherdess is the sequel to The Fox in the Attic, and the second volume of Richard Hughes's monumental historical fiction, "The Human Predicament." It opens with Hughes's hero Augustine in prohibition era America, where he is a bemused onlooker and an increasingly fascinated participant in a country intoxicated with sex, violence, and booze. In brilliant cinematic style, the book then moves to Germany, where the Nazi Party is gradually gaining in power; to the slums, mining towns, parliamentary back rooms, and great houses of a Britain teetering on the verge of class war; and to the wilds of the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The novel ends with a terrifying account of the Night of the Long Knives, as Hitler ruthlessly secures his hold upon Germany. This new edition of the The Wooden Shepherdess concludes with the twelve chapters that Hughes completed of the planned third volume of "The Human Predicament," here published for the first time in America.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member stillatim

Really more like five stars for effort, three for execution, but he never got to write the last volume to the trilogy. The end of The Fox in the Attic and the first couple hundred pages of this one are very, very disjointed. His minor characters, whether historical or fictional, are fascinating,

but for some reason his major characters look more like plot devices (Augustine gives him an excuse to write about Germany, America, Morocco, the upper classes of England, Wales...) or ciphers (er, Hitler, who I guess kind of was a cipher). At points everything pulls together, particularly when he deals with financial turmoil and how it moves from location to location for a variety of reasons. It's tough to make enthralling fiction out of finance, but he manages to do it in only a few pages. But even with all that, and the beautiful writing, which hovers somewhere between fairy tale and Jane Austen level irony in style, the lack of conclusion really hurts the Human Predicament as a whole. This one also has more tedious passages than Fox, so unless you really like that and are fascinated by the project, you might want to give this a miss, sad to say. If you do take it on, there are plenty of mind catching scenes (Ree's attempted seduction) and details (wax dropping on a christmas decoration) and characters (Mitzi! Mitzi rules) to make it well worthwhile.

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LibraryThing member rocketjk

This sequel to Hughes' The Fox in the Attic continues the story of Augustine, a young an quite naive English peer in the 1920s, as well as the von Kessen's a Bavarian noble family trying to make sense the turbulent times post-WWI and far from disapproving of the growing nationalism, both in Bavaria

and in greater Germany. The novel also follows the rise of the Nazis in close-up range, with Hughes describing the machinations of Hitler as well as his allies and his foes within the party. We also see responsible Germans watching, and generally underestimating Hitler's political skills and staying power. The Fox in the Attic showed us Hitler's first attempt to seize power, the so-called Beer Hall Putsch. The Wooden Shepherdess takes us through the Nazis' rise to power in 1933, culminating in the Night of the Long Knives, the Nazi's brutal internal purge of 1934. Through Augustine's brother-in-law, a member of the British House of Commons, we also get a picture of political developments there, as well. The German sections are interesting, and Hughes claimed to have done exhausting research of letters and memoirs to nail down details. But overall, the book drags in parts, with long side journeys, especially while we're following Augustine. Augustine is young, strong and capable but as he grows into mature adulthood, remains immature in important ways, unable to find himself a worthy pursuit in life. It is frustrating to follow a character so good-hearted and yet so dunderheaded. This is the second book in what Hughes planned as his "The Human Predicament" Trilogy. Sadly, Hughes died before he could finish the third book, although I've read somewhere that there is an edition of The Wooden Shepherdess that includes the 12 chapters of Book 3 that Hughes did write. Given that, it's understandable that this book just sort of stumbles to a close with many of the threads left unresolved. I would say all in all that this book is interesting to read, but not particularly compelling or even, sad to say, satisfying.

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