Résumé
Résumé de Dans l’escalier
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who like a witty narrator, a close study of two opposite temperaments, and a portrait of American city life as money, manners and marriage shift the ground under a family.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
On the Stairs is a short novel by Henry Blake Fuller about two men whose lives cross on a staircase twice, forty-three years apart. In 1873 a rich boy named Raymond Prince sweeps down the steps of a boys' academy while a newcomer named Johnny McComas stands aside. In 1916 the places are reversed on the marble stairs of a bank. Most of the story lies between those two moments.
The story is told by a friend of both men, a lawyer named George Waite, who admits his own limits and jokes about the conventions of fiction as he goes. You get a close, humorous portrait of a growing Midwestern city, its fortunes, its fashions and its manners. You also get a comedy of class in which the son of a stable keeper rises as the heir of a great house sinks. Let us start where the narrator does, with two boys, a stairway and a stable.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Two boys meet on a school stairFree
- 2A dreamer and a getter as boys
- 3Young men take different roads
- 4Europe for one, the city for the other
- 5A marriage that cannot hold
- 6What the staircase means and how it is told
Point clé 1 sur 6
Two boys meet on a school stair
The book opens with a trick. The narrator gives you two scenes at once. In 1873 Johnny McComas, new at Grant's Private Academy, steps aside on the stairway so that Raymond Prince can pass. In 1916 the same words are spoken at a marble staircase in the Mid-Continent National Bank, but now Johnny is the great man and Raymond is the one who waits.
The narrator promises that most of his story lies between these two dates. He says Johnny will climb the stairs of life from bottom to top, at least in the opinion of the town, while Raymond goes down from top to bottom, or so his critics see it. They will pass each other near the middle of the book.
The narrator sets the scene with dry humor. Raymond's father James and his grandfather Jehiel are capitalists who live in heavy, ugly houses in a small, exclusive district near the Lake. That district is already doomed to be swallowed by the growing city. Old Jehiel fusses alone in his basement office, scolding poor relations and dreading being cheated by them.
Then comes the first surprise of method. The narrator decides to make himself a character, a schoolmate midway in age between the boys. He teases the reader about the stock figures he will not use, such as a sweetheart called Elsie or a rivalry over a girl. Those things, he says, will come very differently, if at all.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Dans l’escalier
What is On the Stairs about?
It follows Raymond Prince, heir of a once rich family, and Johnny McComas, a stable keeper's son, from boyhood in 1873 to middle age. As Johnny rises in business, Raymond slowly loses ground, and a marriage binds their fortunes together.
Who tells the story of On the Stairs?
A lawyer named George Waite, who went to school with both men and stays a friend of each. He speaks to the reader directly, jokes about novel conventions, and often admits that he does not know what really happened.
What does the title On the Stairs mean?
Stairs stand for social rank and the ups and downs of fortune. Raymond and Johnny meet on the steps of a school, a festival hall, a great house and a bank, and each meeting shows who is rising and who is falling.
When was On the Stairs written and is it a true story?
Henry Blake Fuller wrote it as a novel, set in a growing Midwestern city starting in 1873 and written in the early twentieth century. The people are invented, but the scenes of business, clubs and society are drawn from real city life.
Is On the Stairs worth reading?
Readers like its warm, teasing narrator, its short sections and its clear portraits of two opposite men. It rewards anyone curious about American city life, money and manners, and it moves quickly from scene to scene.