Eric Ambler on the Human Face by Jim Cummins

This paragraph leads off Chapter 14 of Eric Ambler's A Coffin for Dimitrios (Knopf, 1939; published in England under the title The Mask of Dimitrios):

         A man's features, the bone structure and the tissue which covers it, are the product of a biological process; but his face he creates for himself.  It is a statement of his habitual emotional attitude; the attitude which his desires need for their fulfilment and which his fears demand for their protection from prying eyes.  He wears it like a devil mask; a device to evoke in others the emotions complementary to his own.  If he is afraid, then he must be feared; if he desires, then he must be desired.  It is a screen to hide his mind's nakedness.  Only a few men, painters, have been able to see the mind through the face.  Other men in their judgments reach out for the evidence of word and deed that will explain the mask before their eyes.  Yet, though they understand instinctively that the mask cannot be the man behind it, they are generally shocked by a demonstration of the fact.  The duplicity of others must always be shocking when one is unconscious of one's own.

Comments

[Marissa Despain]

"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty...But at fifty you get the face you deserve." Coco Chanel
I wonder what made you think of this excerpt for this space. It's interesting.

[jim cummins]

Marissa, I read A COFFIN years ago and that paragraph just leaped out at me then and has stayed with me since. Besides the Chanel, a famous quote has been attributed to Lincoln along those lines, too; I'm sure there are others similar. I was planning to do a blog today about performance art and literary ventriloquism, like Colm Toibin's novel "about" Henry James, THE MASTER. I thought this quote would be a good lead-in.

[DL]

Thanks for the memory, Jim. Eric Ambler is my favorite spy novelist, and "A Coffin for Dimitrios" is my favorite of his books. ("Journey into Fear" is pretty great, too.) The black-and-white Hollywood movie made of "Dimitrios," under the title "The Mask of Dimitrios," has wonderful performances by Peter Lorre (as the hero, a detective novelist), Sydney Greenstreet, and Zachary Scott at his most sinister as Dimitrios. The best scene: Belgrade, orchestrated by "Pefidia."

[Marissa Despain]

Thanks. I'll be interested in reading your post.

[jim cummins]

I just love Eric Ambler. There's no preamble or framing, you're just in the adventure and rolling along fast. Also, since I saw those movies before I read the books, I had a Hollywood-design of the times and places. The books were like hard bones of the face. "The best scene: Belgrade" makes me want to see them again.