The Memoirs of a Failure: with an Account of the Man and His Manuscript — Reading Companion

The Narrator's Self-Conscious Voice

The narrator's diction is marked by a formal, almost legalistic precision. He writes of "giving a description" and "relating what little is known," as if compiling evidence. Yet this formality is undercut by admissions of uncertainty: "all that lies within my aim or power is simply to try." The repeated use of "I doubt" and "it is best to admit" creates a voice that is both authoritative and hesitant. This tension between certainty and doubt is a deliberate authorial choice, framing the entire account as an act of salvage rather than revelation.

Observing Dunlevy Through Distance

Kittredge describes Dunlevy from a distance: "we used to watch him from the athletic field." The narrator and his peers are observers, not intimates. Dunlevy is seen standing on stone steps, "looking intently at the lofty porticos," a posture that suggests absorption but also isolation. The description of the Rotunda as "a copy of the Pantheon" introduces a theme of imitation and authenticity. The narrator's gaze is analytical, noting Dunlevy's age and aloofness, but never penetrating his interior. This external perspective is a deliberate limitation, keeping the subject enigmatic.

The Allegorical Dialogue of the Axilla

The embedded manuscript shifts into allegorical dialogue. The "Great Axilla" speaks in a mock-heroic register, addressing the visitor as "puny one" and "little visitor." The diction is ornate: "His Excelsior," "Fountain of Endurance," "acrid grapes of Ennui." The dialogue serves as a vehicle for social commentary, contrasting the "misfits and unfits" with the wealthy on the boulevard. The Axilla's speech is didactic, yet the visitor's responses—"I pondered once more, but said nothing"—maintain a tone of bemused observation. The allegory is explicit, but the author's choice to embed it within a manuscript adds layers of mediation.

The Dilettante as a Mirror

Within the allegory, the Axilla points out a dilettante who "imagines that he is different from the horde, because he sits by and watches them." This figure mirrors the narrator's own position as an observer of Dunlevy. The Axilla's critique—that the dilettante is "tired of it all, for he, too, has nothing to do"—suggests a self-reflexive commentary on the act of observation itself. Kittredge's choice to include this meta-commentary within the manuscript creates a recursive structure: the narrator observes Dunlevy, who may have observed others, and the manuscript observes observers. The diction here is sharp, with the Axilla's "mark me" and "follow his gaze" directing the reader's attention to the act of looking.

The Fountain of Endurance and the Bench of Women

The allegory's spatial details are precise: the fountain, the boulevard, the bench hidden by privet bushes. The Axilla explains that the bench "looks more comfortable than the others, but in reality it is hard and poses them in unnatural postures." This description of the women—"they paint and powder, and their cologne fairly makes me ill"—is blunt and judgmental. The authorial choice to include such a scene, with its explicit moralizing, contrasts with the narrator's earlier restraint. The dialogue's tone shifts from philosophical to sardonic, revealing a range of registers within the manuscript. The visitor's sad acknowledgment—"I did not think that you had them in here, too"—adds a note of disillusionment.

Kittredge's work resists easy categorization: part biography, part allegorical fiction, it is held together by a narrator who is acutely aware of the limits of his knowledge. Readers should attend to the shifts in voice between the framing narrative and the embedded manuscript, as these tonal contrasts reveal the author's deliberate construction of an enigmatic subject. The editorial note invites a reading that values ambiguity over resolution.

There is a particular tenderness in watching a man patch his own story, as Kittredge does with Dunlevy’s manuscript—each careful correction a small mercy. I recall, too, the quiet stubbornness of Metzerott’s shoemaker, hammering faith into leather. Both books hold that ache of repair. Metzerott, Shoemaker — A Reader’s Guide sits beside the memoirs on my shelf like an old friend who understands the same long silences.