Product Description

The Fifth Duke of Portland was known as "The Underground Man". This fictionalized story of the last six months of his life is told through his notebooks and accounts by those who knew him. The Duke built a series of tunnels beneath his home and a series of dumb waiters to carry him around.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #608069 in Books
• Published on: 1997-01-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Mick Jackson makes films. It's no surprise, then, that his first novel, The Underground Man, should be so economically told, the action evoking a mise en scène. The novel takes the form of journal entries interspersed with eyewitness accounts from servants and neighbours. The "Underground Man" portrayed in the novel, William John Cavendish Bentinck-Scott, the Duke of Portland and a resident of Nottinghamshire, is mightily eccentric; the man was real (1800-1879), as was his eccentricity. Historical fact: the Duke commissioned eight tunnels on his estate. Present-day fact: if you walk the estate today, you see the skylights--2ft in diameter and 4in thick. But why did he build them?

In the last few days of the Duke's life, eccentricity burgeons and madness follows. The reader learns that his odd view of the world was shaped by early tragedy, the full truth of which is withheld until the last few pages.

The Underground Man is that most delectable blend of fact and fiction, one in which the intriguing details of a real life are richly explored through imagination.

From the Publisher
Unforgettable first novel about lonely and eccentric lord
The 5th Duke of Portland is a Victorian misfit, a man who spends his time and wealth creating a network of tunnels beneath his Nottinghamshire estate. As he withdraws further from society he falls prey to his lonely self-absorption and to the mercy of his household staff. His rare appearances are misinterpreted and local gossip has inflated his eccentricities into sinister deformities. No one, not even he, understands his most persistent ache, a pain of absence that no amount of tunnelling or searching can bring to light. The Duke's slow piecing together of the truth about his past builds to an intensely moving and powerful conclusion. "Soaked through with originality and expertly written: tragi comic fiction with the most endearingly sympathetic of anti-heroes" Dominic Bradbury, The Times; "A remarkable balancing act, witty, restrained and shot through with interesting tensions. As a first novel it is, quite simply, astonishing" Christina Patterson, The Observer; "A strong narrative drive, a Gothic twist and a wonderful cast of secondary characters make this an entrancingly readable book. What lifts it into the prize-deserving category is Jackson's uncannily visual prose" Miranda Seymour, Sunday Telegraph

Customer Reviews

Sympathetic and beautifully written
Jackson makes the figure of the Duke come alive in a wonderfully endearing way. I loved the way that the Duke's view of the world was given almost free rein so it seemed like he was making perfect sense and it was everyone else that was mad. It was a very sympathetic view of what madness is perceived to be. The spiritual side of the writing was very uplifting and thought provoking and nicely leavened by some beautifully dry touches of humour. Similarly the Duke's narrative was broken up with the accounts of those who had come into contact with him to give a more rounded yet no less eccentric picture. Wonderful.

Strange, Gentle and Melancholy
The Underground Man tells the tale of an endearingly dotty and delightfully eccentric old Duke. During the course of the novel the Duke asks for a series of tunnels to be built beneath the grounds of his estate so he can travel to the outskirts of his land, by coach, but completely underground. He also engages in such eccentric behaviour as travelling between the floors of his mansion in a dumb waiter; taking the study of phrenology to insane extremes and wondering at length just what exactly does happen to all the whale bones deposited on the sea bed. He's a beautifully strange and lovable creation, but beneath the wayward charm there seems to be something rather dark nagging at his consciousness. He worries about the past, fretting upon something he cannot quite recall, and he occasionally sees a young boy out of the corner of his eye that no one else ever notices.

What raises this book above being simply the character study of a delightfully strange old gentleman is the quality of the prose. Mick Jackson has a gift for the beautiful metaphor and the dazzling simile. At one point the Duke recalls a young lady he loved and lost asleep on a divan in all her finery, describing her defenceless state as being "beautifully capsized". At another he meditates on the weather-worn gravestones in the churchyard, wearing their tattered garments of green and brown. There's a definte melancholy edge to much of the writing, but all the same the key-note of the book is one of gentle humour. The Duke's observations, and the way his long-suffering staff relate to them, are exquisitely funny: the maid discovering the old gentleman suspended upside down from a tree by his trousers is a beautifully comic moment.

There is, in truth, little in the way of plot but the superb writing and the delightful company of the Duke make this an engaging and memorable book. Lyrical, lovable and melancholy, and with a dark twist in the tale that I personally didn't see coming. Recommended reading for a winter's night by the fire.

A hauntingly beautiful book
A book both melancholy and beautiful, sad and lyrical. I found myself enthralled from page one of this story about the 5th Duke of Portland. Have you ever compiled a list of fictional or dead characters you'd like to invite for dinner? I would definitely include His Grace, that most gentle man, to sit in awe as he formulates his original points of view.