'Mr Prohack' by Arnold Bennett

I like to read an Arnold Bennett novel each year if I can and chose this one because it was published in 1925 and is hence exactly one hundred years old. It is not one of his finest, but I still enjoyed it.

It is more light-hearted and satirical in tone than his most celebrated works, with a central character who does not quite ever seem very real. Its value lies in the perspective it takes on the early 1920s and the social changes occurring in the UK at that the time in the aftermath of the First World War - particularly the rejection by younger people of Victorian mindsets and mores.

The plot is simple. Mr Prohack is a hard-working, upright and prudently-minded civil servant who occupies a middle ranking post in the Treasury. He lives comfortably in West London with an adored wife, an army veteran son and a daughter who are in their early twenties. He is unremarkable but respectable and well-thought of at work and by society generally.

His life then changes suddenly when quite unexpectedly he inherits a substantial fortune, a sum which quickly multiplies due to investment. So pretty well overnight he becomes very rich indeed, and the novel explores the ways in which this makes the lives of him and his family better and worse in a variety of ways. Each responds differently, and this leads to challenges of various kinds.

Mr Prohack spends much of his time being baffled by the ways in which his family wish to alter their lifestyles, being pushed all the time into assisting them in achieving ambitions that he has no real understanding about and does not share. At one point he sums his feelings up to his doctor as follows:

"My aim has always been to keep my life simple, and I succeeded very well - perhaps too well - until I inherited money. I don't mind money, but I do mind the complications.... All I ask is to live simply and sensibly, but instead of that my existence is transformed into a quadratic equation. And I can't stop it."

He finds that he hates being idle, but somehow can't find ways of becoming less so. Having money makes him no happier at all.

There are no big emotional crises or big, unexpected plot twists. The story is all rather gentle and sweet with a big cast of entertaining minor characters and some subtle disapproving social commentary. It is though a memorable, well-crafted and thought-provoking read.