The scifi time travel fiction short story “Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen Nineties” was published in 1916 by author Max Beerbohm. This is an amazingly fun story because Max, the author, grew up going to Oxford in London. He was a man-about-town college student. He then writes this story with HIMSELF as the main character, living it up, meeting famous artists, and interacting with a wannbe poet “Enoch Soames”.
The issues these 1890s college students face, in their quest for fame and ‘likes’, are exactly the same as college kids nowadays face when trying to build followers on social media.
We begin knowing that Max (the character) is looking back on his life from an older age. Max is thinking about all the great authors and poets he’s known over the years, and yet the one he knew from his youth, Enoch Soames, has been wholly forgotten. He thinks back to when he first met Enoch, in 1893, when Max was but a young, raw college student at Oxford in London.
Max at the time wanted to be a writer. Max got caught up in whirlwind friendship with Will Rothenstein, a 21-year-old artist who arrives from Paris with great acclaim. Everyone wants to be sketched by Will. Max and Will go out clubbing, dress fancy, drink vermouth, and are men-about-town.
Then, in a club, they spot Soames.
Soames is the opposite of Max and Will. Soames is dreary. Dressed in an old black hat and gray cloak. Shambling. He drinks the “sorcière glauque” absinthe to be ‘wild’ – at the time Absinthe was banned because it was dangerous. Soames tries to quote French and be fancy, but everyone knows he is a joke.
But Soames has gotten a book published, which impresses Max. Max promptly goes out and buys a copy. Max leaves it around his apartment to try to impress other people, but the truth is Max has no idea what the book is really saying. It’s too confusing. Max figures maybe he (Max) is just not smart enough to figure it out.
Over time Max feels sorry for Soames. Soames publishes another book, but nobody buys it. Max, on the other hand, is getting books published, bylines in magazines, and so on. Max mentions to Will that maybe Will should draw a portrait of Soames. Will gives in, and that portrait hangs in a local gallery for a while. Soames parks himself by the portrait at all hours of all days, relishing his temporary fame.
And then the art show ends, and Soames is even more depressed. He’s not drinking absinthe not for effect but because he’s an alcoholic.
Time rolls around to 1897. Max goes to a cafe that used to be hip but is now quiet. He realizes there are only two people there, at separate tables – Soames and some other sinister dude. Max tries to be kind and sits with Soames. Soames is miserable that nobody appreciates his writing. He says, maybe in 100 years someone will realize how brilliant I am.
The Devil hops over and says, I can send you 100 years into the future, to 1997, and you can find out! Soames instantly says YES. Max is of course upset by this but is overruled. Off Soames goes.
When Soames returns, he’s even more depressed. It turns out even in 1997 nobody likes Soames’ poetry. Even worse, the only reason anybody even knows of Soames is that Max wrote a memoir about this whole situation and people think Max made it all up. They think Soames is an imaginary character, since he never had anything else of note known about him. Soames is furious about this. He won’t even try to hide from the devil. He just goes off with the devil to hell.
But that’s not the ending piece. Max is now feeling guilty about watching his friend taken to hell, but he can’t tell anyone, because nobody will believe him. Nobody even really notices Soames is missing.
Then, a few years later, Max is walking down a street and recognizes the Devil coming the other way. Despite Max being furious with the Devil over the whole situation, Max finds himself nodding and smiling at the Devil because it’s just “what men do” when they pass on the street. But, even worse, the Devil is dismissive of Max! The Devil acts disrespectfully to Max! And THIS is what makes Max upset. Max should be respected! He’s a published author after all – who is the Devil to dismiss him like that!
There are all sorts of great references in here. Soames’ obsession with absinthe. The way Max automatically “knows” what the future is going to look like, completely with shaved-head people and numbers for names. He assumes it will be exactly like Jerome K. Jerome wrote about in “The New Utopia” in 1891. Apparently it pretty much is.
Overall, what I enjoy the most is how teens / college students stay the same over the decades. These college students in the late 1800s are obsessed with their clothes, their popularity, their drinks, and so on. They want to do things that impress others. It seems it’s about the same in modern times!
A funny note – Enoch Soames went forward in time from 1897 to June 3, 1997, to the Reading Room in London. It turns out the Reading Room was still active in 1997. A bunch of people gathered on June 3, 1997 to see if Enoch Soames would actually appear. And Teller (of Penn and Teller fame) did indeed set a scene from the book, to the delight of everyone present.
You can buy Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen Nineties as part of the anthology “The Spark of Modernism” edited by William Gillard, James Reitter, and Robert Stauffer –
Ask with any questions!