Joyce Cary (1888–1957,) fully Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary, was a British novelist of Anglo-Irish descent. He pioneered a trilogy form in which each volume is narrated by one of three protagonists. The quality of family life, the nature of the relationship between mothers and children, and the philosophical pursuit of “the state of grace” feature prominently in his major works.
Born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, of Anglo-Irish parents, Cary was educated at Tunbridge Wells and Clifton College in England. He later studied art in Edinburgh and Paris, graduating in law from Oxford in 1912. He served with the Red Cross in the Balkan War of 1912–13 and joined the Nigerian civil service until forced to retire by ill health. After 1920, he settled in Oxford, where he took up writing.
Drawing on his West African experiences, Cary wrote several novels, including Mister Johnson (1939.) He established himself with the trilogy, Herself Surprised (1940,) To Be a Pilgrim (1942,) and The Horse’s Mouth (1944.) Other books include Moonlight (1946,) Prisoner of Grace (1952,) and Not Honour More (1955.)
In his final years, Cary suffered a generalized paralysis. He left an unfinished novel with a religious theme, The Captive and the Free (1959.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Joyce Cary
The will is never free — it is always attached to an object, a purpose. It is simply the engine in the car — it can’t steer.
—Joyce Cary
Topics: Freedom
A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress.
—Joyce Cary
Topics: Age, Architecture, Aging
I look upon life as a gift from God. I did nothing to earn it. Now that the time is coming to give it back, I have no right to complain.
—Joyce Cary
Topics: Dying, Death
Even the worst artist that ever was, even a one-eyed mental deficient with the shakes in both hands who sets out to paint the chicken-house, can enjoy the first stroke. Can think, By God, look what I’ve done. A miracle. … Must be one of the keenest pleasures open to mankind. It’s certainly the greatest an artist can have. It’s also the only one. And it doesn’t last long, usually about five minutes.
—Joyce Cary
Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul — politics does the same thing for the body.
—Joyce Cary
Topics: Politicians, Politics
A novel points out that the world consists entirely of exceptions.
—Joyce Cary
Topics: Books, Reading
For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.
—Joyce Cary
Topics: Change, Freedom
Love doesn’t grow on trees like apples in Eden – it’s something you have to make. And you must use your imagination too.
—Joyce Cary
God is a character, a real and consistent being, or He is nothing. If God did a miracle He would deny His own nature and the universe would simply blow up, vanish, become nothing.
—Joyce Cary
Topics: Miracles
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