DISRAELI by Robert Blake. 819 pages. St. Martin's. $12.50.
In Britain's political pantheon stands one statue raffishly askew, absurd finger-curls atop a drooping, oversized head, a sardonic smile on its decidedly un-English face. Benjamin Disraeli was as unlikely a Prime Minister as England ever had, as prodigal a son as the mother of parliaments ever spawned. During nearly 40 years of Tory leadership, he was hated with rare passion by his enemies, notably Liberal Leader William Gladstone, and often only barely trusted by his own lieutenants. Intrigued more by power than principle, too cynically clever by half in an age craving sober dignity in its statesmen, forever trailing a rake's reputation, Disrael was the great gate crasher of his times.
All "Dizzy" had going for him, as Oxford Historian Robert Blake makes abundantly clear, was genius. Not only was he a man of spectacular deeds, he was also a racy and prolific author of social and political fiction (twelve novels), master of the epigram rivaled only by Oscar Wilde and, says Blake with the refreshing lack of equivocation that distinguishes his book, "the best letter writer among all English statesmen."
Survival Factor. The best but not necessarily the most truthful. "Throughout his life," Blake warns, "Benjamin Disraeli was addicted to romance and care less about facts." He was invariably the hero of his own self-created myth, and because he could write all his contem poraries under the table, his version of events tended to survive longer than anyone else's. The famous, ponderous six-volume biography by Moneypenny and Buckle, published in 1920, often fell prey to this charm beyond the grave. It also abetted the myth—later given its crudest expression in the George Arliss film of 1929—of Dizzy as a brilliant theatrical Jew, triumphing over early poverty and snobbery to create the British empire singlehanded and present it to Queen Victoria like a posy of primroses.
Blake peels the petals off this flowery picture with loving precision. Disraeli was born in 1804, in no sense underprivileged. His father Isaac was a well-known, successful anthologist with a pleasant country house and an entree into at least the second rank of English society. Dizzy could have gone to the Establishment schools if he had wanted to—both his younger brothers attended Winchester—but he skipped school to get on with the great game of life, for already ambition was burning a hole in his dandy's pockets.
Almost any career would do. He tried law, but it bored him. He tried speculation (South American mining shares), and was soon saddled with a load of debts that plagued him nearly all his life. He took to writing, but his first novel, Vivian Grey, scandalized the haul monde, without winning a large public or making much money. Politics became his ladder of last resort. Even then he slipped four times on the first rung before finally winning a seat in Parliament on his fifth try.
A Message for Albert. In the arena, he soon was tagged the "jew d'esprit." Only a childhood conversion to Christianity arranged by his father made Dizzy eligible for Parliament, but prejudice, as Blake points out, played very little part in his difficulties. Dizzy himself was his own worst enemy.