Book Review: "Mr Perrin and Mr Traill" by Hugh Walpole

As you know I've recently been to the library and picked up quite a few books. I was on the phone to my mother and she asked me why I needed so many - mother, don't you know me by now? Well, I've moved on from Kindle deals, though I don't know for how long because there's a book on The Borgias right there and...yes, I am now a proud owner of it. I knew I couldn't keep away long. This book we are looking at today is different to my usual requests but honestly, I really enjoyed it.

We are introduced to Moffat's, a school on the Cornish coast where we meet some questionable student figures and yet, some even more questionable schoolmasters. Everyone is frustrated and there is definitely an air of authoritarianism running rampant through both teachers and students which is equally hated by both. The headmaster is an egotistical bully who runs the staffroom by a measure of politics and, with his domineering nature often exhausts the abilities of his staff.

Monotony reigns in classrooms whilst the smell of either mutton or onions permeates around from the kitchens - the author captures the everyday life of the existentialist regime of a teacher. The bleakness of life is crushing and real in this tiny world where slights and slip-ups feel like multi-faceted betrayals. I can honestly say that this is heavy before we are even introduced to the actual conflict, we are set up to be drip-fed personal tragedy one way or another. Nothing good can happen here and the author wants us to understand that before anything happens.

Mr Perrin is a sympathetic figure who has had his dreams of an academic career pushed out by reality and so, has settled for less. The drudgery of everyday life is weighing every day on his soul and though he is deeply committed to his unrequited love for a nurse, he cannot bring himself to speak to her. We see Perrin’s worldview shattered by routine cruelty, how humiliation festers, and how suppressed grief can both be swallowed and released, often at the wrong time. He becomes this figure of sympathy because of his failures and unexpressed longing. I thought this character was so well-written that by the end of the book, I could have sworn I knew him. He almost felt like a real person.

Enter: Archie Traill. He's a working class war veteran from Oxford. He's in his 20s and has this way of being kind and courteous which surprises the students positively but creates some tensions between him and his fellow staff. He is everything that Perrin is not and honestly, even though some of the staff don't like him they definitely find him hopeful and so, are careful to align themselves with him. Thus starts Perrin's emotional erosion which puts him on the path to self-destruction. A brilliant juxtaposition of character which, in the introduction to the text is likened to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by RL Stevenson and honestly, I can see it. And guess what sparks this weird conflict? Traill took Perrin's umbrella by mistake.

This is met with the emotional disintegration of Perrin and the complete ignorance of Traill who then goes on to court the nurse Perrin had his eyes on as well. Again, Traill knows absolutely nothing about this, he is just living his life whilst Perrin is basically becoming more and more self-destructive in his emotions and we cannot help but feel for him as the reader. He has lost out on everything in his life and the one thing he was probably going to consider, he's lost out on as well. It makes him feel like a failure. When Traill and the nurse announce their engagement, it becomes even worse. Honestly, I felt quite bad for Perrin at this point, he didn't need this in his life alongside having a terrible job which was destroying his soul in every human way possible. Perrin starts making internal revenge plans thought trying his best to keep face at the same time.

This accumulates in not just a fight but something much more where tragedy basically overtakes the novel in the worst way. I was so emotional at the end of the book because I felt that Perrin had it so difficult throughout his life. What he had tried so hard to do and what had actually happened to him were so different that the ending was literally inevitable. All in all, this is a very upsetting book at times and is quite heartfelt when it comes to describing how people can often just be let down by their own lives. I would urge everyone to read this novel. It may not be well known but it is brilliant.

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