ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

middle of fundamental change; the uncertainty even in the face of epiphany reflects
the devotion of these novels to the narrative of the middle, as well as modernism’s
role as chronicler of historical middles.
Saturnine, however, not only narrates war as middle (both of the novel, and as
a narrative middle of history), but was itself written and published in the middle of
the war. In some sense, the book does not exist outside of the war: when it was
reprinted, it was also rewritten and re-titled, as The Greater Infortune. Both Saturnine
and its sequel were written while Heppenstall was a soldier in the war, and
Heppenstall’s return to novel-writing was perhaps as much a product of the time on
his hands during this period as it was a desire to document and fictionalize the events
of his life.
Meanwhile, the book itself bears the visible mark of war: below its
publication date of July 1943, the War Economy Standard’s logo is imprinted, with
the following text: “THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN COMPLETE CONFORMITY
WITH THE AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS” (4). The book’s obscurity
can also be partially attributed to the war. The following page notes a production run
of only 1,600 copies, and it is easy to see how, leaving aside these material
limitations, Saturnine might have seemed neither serious enough nor escapist enough
to capture the public’s attention in wartime. (It also lacked the scandalous publicity its
predecessor, The Blaze of Noon, had received for its somewhat erotic depiction of a
blind masseuse.) Heppenstall also notes that the episodic form of the picaresque
narrative fit nicely with the material difficulties of the book’s composition—he could,
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