Augustus Carp, Esq., By Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man, by Henry Howarth Bashford

I was the victim of a
similar loss of equilibrium.

So it goes that, for one reason or other, I was asked recently* to recommend a list of classic British comic novels that one might take on holibobs, to be read at the pool, on the beach, or in this case at a sprawling, crumbling ancestral seat in the heart of Ireland during a month-long fishing expedition.

Unfortunately, every suggestion I made was knocked back, either for reasons of personal (bad) taste or because it had already been read. I thought long and hard** and serendipitously, most likely due to having read this post from the most excellent Neglected Books blog, but equally likely due to a ringing endorsement from Anthony Burgess at some point or other, I came upon Augustus Carp Esq, a book I noticed I had on my e-reader, although how and why it was there is anybody’s guess.

Penned by a notable English physician, one which any blog of note would not neglect to mention once was physician to a contemporaneous English King (George the something?), it is ill-in-keeping with any of his other work. It’s also damnably funny, a vicious satire. Our eponymous hero is a deluded, pious, puerile, flatulent, corpulent, self-righteous Christian windbag, whose modest and yet surprising success (until karma arrives in the form of a seductive actress named Mary) is predicated on his ability to bore and/or shame other people into submission, just as his father had done previously. Neglected Books says,

As Bashford portrays so effectively, Augustus and his father are devoid of any sense of shame or embarrassment. It is not they, but most of the world around them, in fact, that’s in the wrong. Certain he is without sin, Augustus vigorously takes up Jesus’ invitation to cast the first stone.

In my mind, he is akin to the pompous Ignatius J Reilly, of A Confederacy of Dunces, a similarly bumptious cretin with little or no aptitude for self-reflection. One could level the accusation that it’s long-winded, with some tortuous syntax, but then this adds to the marvelous characterisation of the narrator. It is close to genius - observe:

From the time of his marriage to the day of my birth, and as soon thereafter as the doctor had permitted her to rise, my father had been in the habit of enabling my mother to provide him with an early cup of tea. And this he had done by waking her regularly a few minutes before six o’clock. 

In all honesty, were the same request to be put to be today, I might find the ‘memoirs’ of the good Xtian Carp Esq much nearer the top of the list.

*In the summer of 2017…

**Googled....

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