Losing Nelson by Barry Unsworth
Myth And Identity - A Dangerous Mix
Perched high atop his pedestal in London, Admiral Horatio Nelson has
remained one of the loftiest icons of English nationalism. Now, however,
he has been seriously rattled by Barry Unsworths Losing Nelson, a
gripping study of the dark side of heroism and hero worship. In the
basement of his large, anonymous North London house, Charles Cleasby
obsessively reenacts the admirals every military maneuver: Usually when
we fought these battles I had a feeling of fulfilment, they brought me
closer to him... Cleasbys admiration also extends upstairs--to his lifes
work, a biography of the great man. His only assistant in his heroic
struggle is Miss Lily (real name, Lilian Butler), a hired secretary who
carefully transcribes his painstaking pages. Cleasby wants nothing better
than to rescue Nelson from the revisionist clutches of unpatriotic academic
cynics. Alas, his passion soon reveals a sinister side, as he declares that
he is in fact the admirals twin: I will say what I think angels are. They can
be dark or bright, but they all have the gift of spontaneity, of creating
themselves anew. This is a pure form of energy, and Horatio was winged
with it. All the same, angels are not complete, they need their
counterparts, the dark needs the bright, the hidden needs the open, and

vice versa. Sometimes they meet and recognize each other. Sometimes,
as with Horatio and me, the pairing occurs over spaces of time or
distance. He became a bright angel on February 14, 1797, during the
Battle of Cape St. Vincent. I became his dark twin on September 9, 1997,
when I too broke the line. As the book builds to its inexorable climax--and
Cleasbys only solace is his amanuensis--Losing Nelson confirms
Unsworth as one of Englands most elegant, understated novelists. His
historical grasp of Nelson is outstanding. But his book really excels, and
also profoundly disturbs, in its exploration of the tarnished angels of
patriotism. --Jerry Brotton
Personal Review: Losing Nelson by Barry Unsworth
When an infant, I used to wiggle the ridges off my candlewick bedspread. I
don't know whether it was a search for solace in the tactile, but it used to
exasperate my mother, because I used to pick things into holes. Charles
Cleasby, the Horatio Nelson worshipping main character of Barry
Unsworth's Losing Nelson, often sleeps under a holed and worn blanket of
his mother's whenever he needs reassurance. It's a covering of peace for
him, a way of shutting out the complications of the world and operates
physically in the same way that his need to wrap himself in the myth of
Nelson protects him mentally. Thus he is perhaps more a worshipper than
a scholar. But the myth has become part of his psyche, part of his identity.
Nelson's greatness, Nelson's genius, are parts of the nation's greatness
and genius and thus, by association, part of Cleasby's own moral and
personal identity. But, wanting to find out more, Cleasby researches
Nelson's history, expecting to confirm greatness and therefore bolster
myth. To his increasing dismay and reluctantly admitted disbelief, what he
uncovers are the complications of history, the messy realities of war and
the personal limitations of the historical figure, who is often revealed as
less than competent, certainly less than diplomatic, but also, and more
importantly, as a self-seeking, ruthless individual, certainly not a team
player. The myth dissolves little by little and so does Charles Cleasby's
hold on reality. As Nelson loses his mythical status, Cleasby's world simply
falls apart. He is no longer able to interpret experience nor relate to his
surroundings. The blanket cocoon offered by myth generates an
intellectual and mental solace that can both justify and reinforce identity
and, once the protecting wrap has been holed for Charles, at least and
perhaps for a nation, it is identity itself that is challenged. Losing Nelson is
a serious and moving study of the essential role of myth in defining identity
and creating psyche, citing its power and its limitations, these derived from
its essence of simply being myth.
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