Meet Novelist Peter DeVries...

Of course, some of you may already know him. Peter DeVries (1910-1993) worked as an editor for Poetry Magazine but mostly for the The New Yorker. He is chiefly remembered for his very funny (and serious) novels written from the late 40's through the 80's. His novels have an existentialist vein and he allows us to feel the irony and ambiguity which characterises living in the 20th century, especially suburbia, his milieu. He is always trying to square, in an dark humourous way, the absurdity of life while being born into God's creation. To quote him, "If God loves us, why is he giving us such a hard time?" As dark as the books are, they are immensely entertaining. He provides laugh out loud epigrams, reversals, and witticisms while exploring the puzzle of existence and how to best for us to come to terms with it. To him, the answer seems to be to soldier on.

DeVries scores against fundamentalists as well as against liberal ministers, one of whom in a book, made divorce a sacrament in his church… to enhance inclusiveness. He is passionately interested in man's relationship with God in  its ambiguities and degrees of belief and unbelief; but to me he often seems to want to believe, despite his dark moments. He doth protest too much. His novels examine marriage, parenthood, suburban living, sex, in ordinary middle class situations...and the books are very entertaining. Aphorisms and observations abound; here are a few:

• The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.

• The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly.

• Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

• Life is a zoo in a jungle.

• Let us hope, that a kind Providence will put a speedy end to the acts of God under which we have been laboring. (after a series of floods in one of his novels).

• It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

• The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

• We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.

• Parenthood: when I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.

• Writing: I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.

• Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter.

• The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance.

• There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you.

• Celibacy is the worst form of self-abuse.

• DeVries likens the war between the sexes to two French nobleman fighting  a duel on  a battlefield upon which bombs are raining.

Here are DeVries’ twenty six novels (out of print but available through secondhand book websites):  But Who Wakes the Bugler? (1940), The Handsome Heart (1943), Angels Can Do Better (1944), The Tunnel of Love (1954), Comfort Me With Apples (1956), The Mackeral Plaza (1958), No, But I Saw the Movie (1959), The Tents of Wickedness (1959), Through The Fields of Clover (1961), Blood of the Lamb(1962), Reuben, Reuben (1964), Let Me Count the Ways (1965), The Vale of Laughter (1967), The Cat's Pajamas and the Witch's Milk (1968), Mrs. Wallop (1970), Into Your Tent I’ll Creep (1971), Without a Stitch in Time (1972), Forever Panting (1973), The Glory of the Hummingbird (1974), I Hear America Swinging (1975), Madder Music (1977), Consenting Adults, or The Duchess Will be Furious (1980), Sauce for the Goose (1981), Slouching Towards Kalamazoo(1983), The Prick of Noon (1985), Peckham's Marbles (1986).

This is a man you should read. I recommend starting with The Mackeral Plaza.

To learn more, here are a couple of links to articles on DeVries:

http://www.westportmag.com/media/Westport-Magazine/April-2006/The-Return-of-Peter-DeVries/.

http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1975/v32-1-article1.htm

Photo courtesy of Westport Magazine.