Forgotten Book - The Man Whose Dreams Came True

The Man Whose Dreams Came True is a novel published by Julian Symons in 1968, and although it is a Forgotten Book, it should not be. I borrowed a copy from the local library not long after it came out, having recently discovered Symons,and I thought it was terrific. I still do. Symons' cynical wit is much in evidence, and the plot is wonderfully twisty and ironic. As with its immediate predecessor, The Man Who Killed Himself, Symons was working very much in the tradition of Anthony Berkeley/Francis Iles, while producing a novel that was distinctive and thoroughly entertaining.

Tony Jones is a good-looking but feckless young man who has plenty of ambitions, but neither the money nor the character - it seems - to realise them. When we are introduced to him, he is working for a crusty old general as his secretary, and indulging in a variety of petty fiddles as well as an affair with a local girl who is - like several characters in the book - not all that she seems.

Things don't work out for Tony in this job, and he soon drifts into an affair with an older woman, before a new job, working for the wealthy husband of a sexy woman, seems to offer him that long-awaited chance to make his dreams come true. There are numerous excellent plot complications, and plenty of surprises before Tony finds his destiny.

This is a very readable story, which stands up well nearly fifty years after it was written. Yes, the price of a flight to Venezuela has changed, and so have some of the other specifics in the storyline, but Symons describes human folly with cool insight as well as humour. Returning to this book so long after I first read it, I definitely was not disappointed, and if you track it down, I don't think you will be, either.

Forgotten Book - The Man Who Killed Himself

Starting in 1967, Julian Symons wrote three books with title beginning "The Man Who..." The first two, certainly, rank among his finest work, and it's no coincidence that when the Detection Club marked his 80th birthday with a collection of short stories in his honour, it was called The Man Who.., and each story had a title containing that phrase. The three books were not a trilogy, and are entirely distinct from each other. There are no common characters, although a strong sense of irony, and a sharp sense of humour, are common features.

The Man Who Killed Himself was the first of the three novels, and it features meek, unhappily married Arthur Brownjohn, a character who closely resembles Dr Bickleigh in Francis Iles' Malice Aforethought. This is not the only parallel between the two stories, and I've no doubt that Symons was consciously trying to take elements from the work of Iles (whom he admired, as I do) and fashion them into a contemporary mystery. He does so with great success. This is quite a short book, but it's genuinely gripping.

Arthur is leading a double life. He finds an outlet for the more, shall we say, outgoing aspects of his character by creating Major Easonby Mellon, a dodgy chap who runs a very dodgy matrimonial bureau. Mellon is married to a nice but unintelligent woman whom he has persuaded that he is actually a secret agent. The early scenes are very funny, but then the plot thickens - and it becomes progressively darker. Arthur, like the other 'Men Who...' is essentially a weak man, whose personality flaws make him a potential murderer.

Ultimately, this book is a study of a man's psychological disintegration. Symons had tackled this subject before, notably in The 31st of February, his first significant crime novel, and he would revisit it subsequently, but never with such zest as in this book. The combination of a clever plot and ironic prose is a real delight. I recommend it unreservedly.

Forgotten Book - The Man Who Killed Himself

My admiration for the late Julian Symons is almost unbounded, and my latest contribution to Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books is a novel he published in 1967, The Man Who Killed Himself.

This is a novel that I read perhaps three years after it first appeared. Symons was one of the first contemporary crime writers whom I read after I ran out of Agatha Christies to devour. Now, some may say that Symons, an advocate of the ‘psychological crime novel’ had little in common with Christie as a writer. But although they belonged to different generations, and had different literary preoccupations, Symons could plot quite brilliantly, and the plot of The Man Who Killed Himself really gripped the youthful Martin Edwards.

It’s the story of a timid, hen-pecked man called Arthur Brownjohn, who metamorphoses into the caddish Major Easonby Mellon. It’s a means of escape for him. But when murder occurs, the double identity seems to offer not merely escape, but salvation.

The opening line is: ‘In the end Arthur Brownjohn killed himself, but in the beginning he made up his mind to murder his wife.’ Symons is strong on irony – you might almost say that this book is a Sixties update of Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles (which I first read around the same time), though there are many differences in the story-lines. Like Iles, Symons tends not to go in for too many sympathetic characters, and some readers find this off-putting. But I thought this was a clever book when I first devoured it, and I haven’t changed my mind since.