Venusberg (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Dissatisfied with life and love in London, Lushington, a journalist, secures a posting in the Baltic and sets sail. Before he even reaches the new country, onboard ship he has met and become thoroughly entangled with many of the characters who will affect his immediate future, including Ortrud Mavrin, the Russian counts, Scherbatcheff and Bobel, and Baroness Puckler.

Once in the Baltic, Lushington finds himself sharing accommodations with the other party involved in the love triangle that first provoked him into leaving England, one Da Costa. Lushington is soon thoroughly involved in personal and political intrigues, meeting various diplomats, representatives of the State Police, the intrusive valet, Pope (whose name ironically recalls the role played by the Pope in the Tannhäuser legend), the American diplomat Curtis Cortney–even Frau Mavrin's little child who "looks like his father, curiously enough."

Melancholy, shyness and embarrassment dominate the novel, suffusing even those scenes involving sudden violence with a sense of bemused, slightly detached sadness. Lushington's eventual return to England is set against a continued background of misunderstanding and social ineptitude which make clear that Powell has not simply been satirizing how things happen "on the Continent."