Joyce Cary

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Joyce Cary – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Discover the life and novels of Joyce Cary (1888–1957), the Anglo-Irish writer of Mister Johnson and The Horse’s Mouth. Explore his biography, literary style, recurring themes, and memorable lines.

Introduction

Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary (7 December 1888 – 29 March 1957), better known as Joyce Cary, was an Anglo-Irish novelist, painter, and civil servant.

He is particularly celebrated for his innovative narrative techniques, his trilogy experiments, and for novels such as Mister Johnson and The Horse’s Mouth, which combine moral inquiry, social critique, and vivid characterization.

Cary’s life spanned times of colonial transition, personal illness, and shifting cultural landscapes—and his work reflects a constant grappling with human freedom, creativity, and the tensions of modern life.

Early Life and Background

Cary was born on 7 December 1888 in Londonderry (Derry), Ireland, into an Anglo-Irish family of “planter” landowners in Inishowen, County Donegal, though the family had largely lost much of its property by the time of his birth.

His father, Arthur Cary, was an engineer; his mother, Charlotte Joyce, was the daughter of a banker. The family relocated to England shortly after his birth, though Cary spent many summers in Ireland, especially with his grandmother, and later drew upon these memories in works such as A House of Children (1941) and Castle Corner (1938).

Cary’s mother died in 1898 when he was about ten, a loss that marked his childhood. During his youth, he suffered from asthma and had vision problems in one eye, which later led him to wear a monocle in early adulthood.

He was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, England. In his late teens, he pursued art studies: first in Edinburgh (1907-1909) and then in Paris.

After that, Cary read law at Oxford (Trinity College) (1909–1912). He did not become a practising lawyer, but this phase contributed to his breadth of learning and intellectual formation.

Career & Key Phases

Colonial Service & African Years

In 1912–13, Cary briefly served as a Red Cross orderly in the Balkan Wars—experiences later fictionalized in Memoir of the Bobotes (published posthumously).

Soon afterward he joined the Nigerian Political Service and later served in the Nigerian regiment during World War I, notably in Kamerun (Cameroon). He was wounded in the Battle of Mora in 1916.

Cary held senior administrative roles in Nigeria, including being a district officer and magistrate. Over time, his views regarding colonial governance matured, and his African experiences provided raw imaginative material for novels such as Mister Johnson (1939).

By about 1920, on health grounds and motivated by literary ambitions, he left the colonial post and settled in Oxford, England, with his family, to devote himself to writing.

Early Novels & Experimentation

Cary’s initial published novel was Aissa Saved (1932), which draws on his African background. Other early works include An American Visitor (1933) and The African Witch (1936).

In 1939, Cary published Power in Men, a more overtly political work. The same year he also wrote Mister Johnson, which has become one of his best-known works.

He also wrote Charley Is My Darling (1940).

In 1941, he published A House of Children, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Trilogy Work & Mature Phase

Cary’s most ambitious structural project was his First Trilogy, composed of:

1. Herself Surprised (1941)

2. To Be a Pilgrim (1942)

3. The Horse’s Mouth (1944)

Each volume is narrated from a different character’s viewpoint, offering overlapping perspectives on shared events.

The Horse’s Mouth is perhaps his most enduring novel: it follows Gulley Jimson, an eccentric and obsessed painter, narrated in Jimson’s own voice, merging artistic passion and social critique.

Later, Cary produced his Second Trilogy, comprising Prisoner of Grace (1952), Except the Lord (1953), and Not Honour More (1955).

His last attempted work was The Captive and the Free (1959), intended as part of a trilogy on religion; it was published posthumously and left unfinished.

As his health declined (later diagnosed with what appears to have been ALS / motor neurone disease), Cary adapted to writing with pen strapped to his hand or dictation until he became unable to speak.

He died on 29 March 1957 in Oxford aged 68.

Themes, Style & Literary Significance

Multiple Perspectives & Narrative Experimentation

One hallmark of Cary’s fiction is his use of multiple narrators or shifting viewpoints, as seen in his trilogies. This allows him to explore how different consciousnesses perceive shared reality.

He believed that a novel should convey emotional truth more than argument.

Art, Freedom, and Creativity

Cary was deeply concerned with creativity and the artist’s struggle. In The Horse’s Mouth, Gulley Jimson embodies a wild devotion to art, often to the point of self-destruction.

He also wrestled with ideas of human freedom, moral responsibility, and the constraints (social, personal, metaphysical) under which individuals act.

A recurring tension in his work is between preserving the old and creating the new, between activism and stability, tradition and innovation.

Colonial and Postcolonial Engagement

Because of his Nigerian service, African themes and colonial critique appear in his novels (especially Mister Johnson)—though not without complexity. Cary’s relationship to Africa was ambivalent: both a site of narrative material and moral challenge.

He also engaged with political ideas—not overtly ideological, but exploring the connections among power, authority, morality, and culture.

Poetic & Reflective Tone

Though a novelist first, Cary’s prose often has a literary, meditative, or philosophical tone. He wrote essays and reflections (e.g. Art and Reality) that demonstrate his thinking about art, perception, and reality.

Famous Quotes by Joyce Cary

Here are several notable quotations attributed to Joyce Cary, which reveal his mind and values:

“To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius.”
“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.”
“This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity.”
“I don’t care for philosophers in books. They are always bores. A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.”
“A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.”
“Enjoy the best Joyce Cary Quotes … A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.”
“Remember I'm an artist. And you know what that means in a court of law. Next worst to an actress.”
“Politics is like navigation in a sea without charts, and wise men live the lives of pilgrims.”

These lines reflect Cary’s enduring preoccupations: art vs. philosophy, freedom, perception, and the strangeness and instability of life.

Lessons & Insights from Joyce Cary

1. Embrace multiple perspectives
   One way to deepen understanding of reality is to allow multiple voices and viewpoints to coexist, rather than insisting on a single truth.

2. Art must be lived, not merely planned
   Cary’s artist characters often act impulsively, in tension with orderly systems—suggesting that creation demands risk, even self-conflict.

3. Emotional truth over intellectual argument
   He believed that the novel’s power lies in evoking what is felt, more than what is posited.

4. Freedom is complex
   The will may be “attached” to purposes, but imagination, reason, and moral questioning still steer. True freedom is tangled with constraints.

5. Creative work can persist even in decline
   Despite grave illness, Cary continued to write with difficulty, experimenting with methods until he could no longer. His dedication testifies to art as identity and vocation.

Conclusion

Joyce Cary, born on 7 December 1888 and active until his death on 29 March 1957, occupies a unique place in twentieth-century literature. Blending African experience, Irish reminiscence, moral inquiry, and narrative innovation, he produced works that challenge readers’ assumptions about freedom, art, and perspective.

His novels, especially Mister Johnson and The Horse’s Mouth, remain compelling not only for their characters and plots, but for the ideas that ripple beneath the surface—the instability of perception, the cost of creativity, and the moral weight of seeing.