A Cab at the Door by V. S. Pritchett
"A Cab at the Door" by V. S. Pritchett is the first volume of the author's memoirs, capturing the first twenty years of his life during the early twentieth century in England. Born in Ipswich, Suffolk, Pritchett grew up in a household marked by financial instability and contrasting parental figures—his father, a failed salesman with grand aspirations, and his free-spirited, chaotic mother from North London. The memoir details Pritchett's experiences of constant relocation in London, the influence of his strict grandfather, and the challenges of a minimal education, while also highlighting the strong bond between him and his brother.
Throughout these formative years, Pritchett's love for literature blossomed, leading him to dream of becoming a writer despite his early work in a leather trade office. The narrative unfolds with rich descriptions of his surroundings and the colorful characters in his life, reflecting the struggles and joys of a lower-class existence that resonate with social realism. Critics have praised the memoir for its evocative prose and its unflinching portrayal of Pritchett's upbringing, positioning it among the notable autobiographies of its time. The work is recognized for its literary merit, drawing comparisons to the writings of great English authors who depicted similar themes of class and personal adversity.
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A Cab at the Door by V. S. Pritchett
First published: 1968
Type of work: Memoir
Time of work: 1900-1919
Form and Content
In this, the first volume of his memoirs, V. S. Pritchett—novelist, short-story writer, travel writer, critic, and essayist—recounts the first twenty years of his life, which coincided with the opening years of the twentieth century. Further installments are Midnight Oil (1971) and The Turn of the Years (1982).
Pritchett spent these years in England. He was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, the eldest son of a family teetering between the lower and the lower-middle class. Pritchett’s father had escaped from his own father, a fierce Yorkshire Congregationalist minister only one generation away from the fishing boats of Hull, to become a representative of his day, a salesman. Vain, doggedly hopeful, and tireless, Walter Pritchett failed at one enterprise after another as Victor grew up. (The cab of the book’s title is one of the vehicles which periodically enabled him to escape his creditors.) Walter’s enthusiasms were spiritual and imaginative as well as material. He tortured his family with his devotion to Christian Science; he responded to London not as a real city but as a world of fantasy. He once dressed as a yachtsman and then as an aristocratic fisherman; his reports from the provinces were filled with tales of royal hotels and splendid restaurants. Eventually he was tamed by life; he became severe and moderately successful, at least as far as this first volume of Pritchett’s memoirs progresses.
Pritchett’s mother was quite different: A slatternly, sexy, devious, free-spirited North London Cockney, she was a woman more in tune with the old century than the new. She was moody, unkempt, and given to bathroom humor, but lovable and loving. She told wonderfully suggestive stories, but was notoriously bad at cooking and sewing; Pritchett’s trousers, for example, were made from his father’s clothes or old curtains and often were insecurely basted together. She was jealous, too. Pritchett and his brother overheard many of their parents’ loud quarrels about “that woman”—who could have been Walter’s bookkeeper, but who usually proved to be the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy.
Pritchett’s account of his first eleven years is one of constant change, mainly from one district of London to another— some suburban and pleasant, some central and dangerous. Change also came in the form of periodic stays with relations in Yorkshire and Suffolk while his father got back on his feet. Here the grandfather’s strict and puritanical influence began to tell; Pritchett’s character was to take on a certain stubborn strain. Pritchett says little about his education during these years because he received little, but he says much about the ordinary trials and pleasures of growing up. He and his brother were close; he liked the Yorkshire countryside and the calm life there, yet he participated with gusto in the knockabout existence of the London poor.
When Pritchett was ten, important changes began. The old king died, and war came closer; the family fortunes took a swing for the better; his puberty arrived; his education improved. Walter Pritchett became a manufacturer of needlework, and the family moved to Dulwich, a pleasant South London district. At school, Pritchett himself was finally blessed by an inspiring and imaginative teacher. Soon he dreamed of becoming a writer; he read voraciously—everything from pulp magazines to John Ruskin and William Shakespeare. Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist (1837-1839) thrilled him. When he moved to a better school, he unfortunately found that he was good only at learning languages and writing stories. His first literary success described a World War I air raid from his mother’s hysterical point of view. He thought more and more about girls (his classmates) and women (his teachers and neighbors) and religion. Then, just before he turned sixteen, that world came to an end. He was sent to work.
He worked for a firm in the leather trade in offices near London Bridge. Even though he was numbed by the simplicity and repetition of his tasks, he liked his work—the office’s Dickensian characters and their banter, the pretty secretaries, and the errands he ran through the streets and to the docks. He was promoted and learned his trade well. All the while, he read modern writers, attended night classes, and began to think once more of becoming a writer. His circle of friends expanded, from intelligent men at his office to a sophisticated French piano prodigy who lived next door. During these war years, his father worked in an aircraft factory and dreamed grandiose dreams. After the war was over, Pritchett luckily caught the flu and spent some months convalescing. This interruption was lucky because the enforced hiatus made it possible for him to break with his past and pursue his dream of becoming a writer. He was twenty years old, and he left England, his job, and his family for Paris.
In form, A Cab at the Door is quite traditional: It is divided into twelve chapters, the first two dealing with Pritchett’s father’s and his mother’s families and the remainder of the book recounting, in roughly chronological order, his first twenty years.
Critical Context
Almost all important English male writers of this era attended a university, or could have done so. Pritchett’s formal education stopped when he was fifteen; he achieved his status by himself. Many of these writers have written personal accounts: J. B. Priestley, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene. Pritchett’s is unique, not only in that it is notably unself-centered and has no ax to grind, but also in that it tells about a truly lower-class life. Unlike George Orwell, Pritchett lived naturally among the poor. His experience enabled him to rival Charles Dickens and Arnold Bennett in some of his lower-class scenes; his rendition of office life resembles those in the early novels of H. G. Wells and in D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913).
Although one reviewer called reading this volume a “depressing experience” because Pritchett appeared to say that his “childhood was not worth having,” most critics agree that A Cab at the Door is exceedingly evocative, captivating, and well written. One critic called it “one of the half-dozen autobiographies of our time which are works of art.”
Bibliography
Baldwin, Dean R. V. S. Pritchett, 1987.
Gilliat, Penelope. Review in The New Yorker. XLIV (October 12, 1968), p. 206.
Guzzardi, Walter. Review in Saturday Review. LI (May 4, 1968), p. 26.
Haffenden, John. Novelists in Interview, 1985.
Janeway, Elizabeth. Review in The New York Times Book Review. LXXIII (April 28, 1968), p. 8.