In “Speak, Memory” (Chapter 4, section 4) VN discusses
his many governesses including “one awful
person who read to me Marie Corelli’s “The Mighty Atom”. Corelli, very
popular in her day, is bettered remembered for her first biggie “Romance of Two
Worlds”. “The Mighty Atom” may be found in full on the web. Below, I quote
from a brief web summary of the volume.
D. Barton Johnson (Who, for his sins, is now reading
Corelli’s “Romance of Two Worlds”.)
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Marie Corelli’s novel from 1896, “The Mighty Atom”, is an
attempt by Corelli to show the evils of Atheism. Her dedication reads: “To those
self-styled “progressivists,” who by precept and example assist the infamous
cause of education without religion, and who by promoting the idea borrowed from
French atheism, of denying to the children in board schools and elsewhere the
knowledge and love of God as the true foundation of noble living are guilty of a
worse crime than murder.”
Corelli then tells a very contrived tale of a
sickly boy, Lionel, whose father (John Valliscourt, insists be taught a
curriculum devoid of superstition (a.k.a. religion). There are two forces in the
boy’s life, one is his father, the source of the entire push of atheism. His
father’s influence extends to the boy’s mother as well as to the teachers who
are responsible for his instruction. The other force is that of people who
believe, which includes the boy’s first teacher Mr. Montrose, who is dismissed
by his father due to lack of satisfactory progress in Lionel’s education; Mrs.
Valliscourt, though she lacks the ability to stand up to her husband, and even
the boy’s second teacher Professor Cadman-Gore softens in this area due to
Lionel’s influence. However, it is the grave digger Mr. Reuben Dale and his
daughter Jessamine that are the biggest influences in this area, as it is from
them that he learns the most about religion.
The conversations between
Mr. Dale, Jessamine and Lionel are among the most painful to read, as the author
insists on trying to convey in misspelling how Jessamine (and her father)
pronounce their words. Other parts of the book read very much like Corelli’s
previous works as the characters are very two-dimensional, and other than the
slight hint at change in Professor Cadman-Gore there is no character growth
which has always been a problem with Corelli’s writing. The worst part of the
story though is Corelli’s attempts at conveying what atheists actually believe.
It is clear from the start that she has no idea how atheists think. It is also
clear that she has no understanding of science, given the way she talks about
“The Mighty Atom”, which she seems to think is science’s substitute for
God.
When I started reading Corelli’s works, I was a bit more forgiving
about her weaknesses as a writer, and though her characters have rarely shown
growth in the course of the books, the earlier stories at least contained some
interesting ideas. That seemed to change with “The Sorrow of Satan”, and I am
sorry to say that this problem has continued with this novel as well. The only
saving grace here is that “The Mighty Atom” is fairly short, but you will pretty
much know the entire story within the first couple of
chapters.