Fiction
A Change of Sky. By Frank Singleton. (Chatto Windus. I ls. 6d.) Epitaph of a Small Winner, the first of Machado de Assis' novels to appear in English, was published in Brazil in 1880, and reads as if it came out yesterday. It is, quite obviously, the work of a major novelist. 'Having lasted so long, it seems set fair to last much longer, and start a belated English vogue for its author.
The ironic survey of a rich man's life by his ghost, the book owes an immediate debt to Sterne. Two so-called chapters consist of nothing but punctuation marks. The author has obviously studied Candide also. On the other hand, his use of his reading is entirely original. Epitaph of a Small Winner anticipates the methods of Mr. John Dos Passos, building up a composite picture from a number of small pieces—such as the epitaph on page 202—but with a far stricter sense of form. I see that one reviewer has described the book as loosely put together. On the contrary, it seems to me a most skilfully controlled assembly of fragments, with a wide variation of colour, texture, and movement, guiding the reader with such cunning that the pattern grows clearer and clearer, and reserving a shock for the last line of all.
"Adding up and balancing all these items, a person will conclude that my accounts showed neither a surplus nor a deficit and conse- quently that I died quits with life. And he will conclude falsely for, upon arriving on this other side of the mystery, I found that I had a small surplus, which provides the final negative of this chapter of negatives : I had no progeny, I transmitted to no one the legacy of our misery."
This comes as a shock because the mood of the book has been that of a comedy of manners. Even such things as the death of Doria Placida, the madness of Quincas Borba, and Braz's finding of the note from Virgilia, only to realise that it was an old one dating from the happier days of their love, are not allowed to disturb the courteous, mannered, ironic flow of the conversation which author maintains with reader.
Here, then, is a discovery of real importance, the addition of an authoritative voice to the international company, for which we owe our best thanks to the publisher and to Dr. William L. Grossman, in whose translation de ' Assis is presented as the master of a style which perfectly matches his intention.
The average contemporary novel cannot' fairly be measured by such standards ; and it says much for Mr. Faller that even in this company his first novel stands up well. Genesis introduces a writer of exceptional quality. Its story is simple. Mark Hely, four years married, comes home from his work in the city to find that his wife is unexpectedly going out for the evening. Seeing his face fall, she offers to stay, but he tells her to be off and enjoy herself, and with obvious relief she goes. Left to his own resources, reflecting and wondering, Mark receives a brief, unexpected visit from a writer acquaintance. When after midnight his wife returns, a furious row springs up, ending in a passionate reconciliation in which an over- riding fear is banished for ever. Months later, the baby is born, and the writer, brought back into the pattern, fulfils a destiny vital to Mark, his wife, and his child.
The strength of the book lies in its compassionate understanding of human beings, the maturity of its comment, and the texture of the writing. Calm and sensitive, it can tauten nervously to describe the quarrel between man and wife, relax into a beautifully natural account of labour and childbirth, and serenely observe the back- ground of sea and hill. Mr. Faller has been led, I think, into a fault of structure in concluding the book from the angle of the writer de Vere. We have for so long been with Mark and Helen that it is a wrench, a flaw in continuity, to take us away. The short prologue, and his appearance as The Name, have not been enough to qualify de Vere for our full attention. But this is a small, mistake in a first novel, notable, finally, for confirming our view of human dignity.
Mr. Singleton follows with a sound, sane, sure-footed novel, less ambitious in scope, but wholly successful within its limits. Harriet Lansbury, a celebrated pianist, is sent by the Arts Council to play in the Lancashire industrial town where her uncle' used to keep a bookshop. She has not been there for twenty-five years, but there are old tangles of friendship and antagonism, and one at least of love. In a mood of curiosity, Harriet accepts an invitation to stay with a former antagonist. The whole thing is a comedy, and Mr. Singleton does not ,attempt to cut deep ; but he understands his world and his people, he knows his business as a writer, and the result is a work- manlike, firm, and quietly distinguished novel. L. A. G. STRONG.
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