The Journal of a Disappointed Man and A Last Diary by W N P Barbellion

Immediately, two things struck me about the title of this book. 

First, the use of the terms journal and diary.  On reflection, these words are not quite as synonymous as is often assumed.  A diary is log of a day’s events whilst a journal is the expounding upon of those events by the writer.  The use of both would suggest that either the author doesn’t wish to differentiate between them or that the reader should anticipate a change.

The second thing that struck me was the application of the adjective disappointed to the word man and the adjective last to the word diary.  This is intriguingly foreboding. 

What are we letting ourselves in for?

This book is the diary of Bruce Frederick Cummings which he himself has edited and rewritten into a journal, and under the pseudonym, W N P Barbellion.  It is a mix of diaristic account and journalistic musing with a generous helping of humorous anecdote thrown in.  There are many passages of what is obviously re-constructed dialogue.  The journal starts in 1903 when the author is 13 years old and continues through to 1919, when his life was cut short at age 29. The prevailing thread throughout is his illness, what is now known as multiple sclerosis.  Barbellion faced this debilitating condition with equal measures of self-pity and humour.

The thesis that "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.", as opined by L P Hartley,has always been debatable.  Many things have changed dramatically in the past hundred or so years but one of the things constant throughout the ages is what occupies the thoughts of young men, and young women.   The ‘foreign country’ is how those thoughts and feelings are acted upon dictated by the prevailing mores of the time.  Barbellion is frequently as frustrated on the ‘romantic’ front as he is by his ill health and the course of his career as a naturalist.  These frustrations are often related in an entertaining and witty manner, which in the earlier teenage entries these passages are reminiscent of the fictional The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, by Sue Townsend.

The Journal of a Disappointed Man, as is usually the case with diaries/journals, is well suited to being dipped into a bit at a time.  One can enjoy it nearly at the same pace as it was written.

It is readily available in a Dover edition, 9780486817392, and as a Penguin Classic, 9780241297698.