FICTION

By FORREST REID The Stronghold. By Richard Church. (Dent. 8s. 6d.) " IF a man and a woman decided to strike sex upon sex and delight in the spark they produced, that was their own concern. This was the modern outlook, and the modern outlook was right. . . . It was he who had draped loveliness around with the dingy cloths of puritan respectability. But that was over."

I have borrowed these reflections from the hero of Mr. John Brophy's novel, The Ridiculous Hat, though oddly enough, of

the three books before me it is much the least representative of the " modern outlook." By which I mean this particular

outlook, for it is possible to have another, without being hope- lessly old-fashioned ; puritanism is not necessarily dingy ; while the striking of sex upon sex, as we find it for example in Hans Habe's Three Over the Frontier, may be carried to

a point where it is very far indeed from being lovely. In other words, Herr Habe not only accepts the doctrine but also carries it to its logical conclusion, for the heroine, at the age of twenty-two, has already given herself to fifteen young men, while in the course of the story she is to give herself to two more

before finding anyone who suggests the possibility of a per- manent union. That it will be permanent may be questioned

from the particular manifestations Herr Habe presents. Stripped of the ardent rhetoric by which he would persuade us of an essential difference between this last love and the

others, it emerges simply as number eighteen in a series that is most unlikely to end there. For why should it ? The

seventeen previous experiences point neither to self-restraint nor to a squeamishness of appetite. In fact, to have a love affair seems very much like having a drink, to be a pleasure equally casual and unimportant. It is " their own concern," the concern of the lovers, Mr. Brophy's hero declares ; the implication being " and there's an end on it." Only, is it ?

Is not the next generation involved ? Is not the whole basis of civilisation involved ? The young Jew Peter, in Herr Babe's novel, thinks it " extremely silly " of his mother not to " allow another man to touch her " after his father's death : but Peter, I should imagine, is exceptional : he is a Communist and very advanced. In reality his attitude indicates a step backward towards a more primitive and chaotic society, ruled by the morals of the poultry yard.

It is rather unfair, perhaps, to take as the text of these remarks

a passing thought of Mr. Brophy's hero—a thought which is not really characteristic, but expresses merely a momentary

rebellion. Basil Stilford is not like that ; he is a middle-aged Civil Servant—a man with a conscience and a sense of responsi- bility, married to a woman he is fond of, and the father of a boy of sixteen. Unfortunately he meets a girl of a lower class and falls in love with her. We can believe it : the symp- toms are not in the least those described in Herr Habe's novel. Basil is intelligent, very correct, and not usually impulsive ; Rosemary is good-natured, simple, easily amused, and attrac- tively vulgar. He meets her by chance in the street. He discovers that she has a baby but no husband, and they become friends. Of course, very nearly from the beginning, he is in love with her, though Rosemary does not suspect it. And from the beginning she is perfectly frank with him, regarding him as a kind of ideal uncle, to whom she can show off the baby. Her friendship is not in the least mercenary. Basil is unlike anyone she has ever known. Quite apart from his generosity, the way he treats her—taking off his hat when they meet, walking on the outside of the pavement—all this goes straight to her ingenuous heart : Basil is good. So when she falls in love with young Dick Burrell, and he with her, and they decide to get married, it never even occurs to her that Basil can be jealous. Isn't he married himself, and hasn't he a boy who is nearly grown-up ? The relation

between Basil and Rosemary is admirably treated. I think I might even say beautifully, for except for one passing moment of temptation there is a complete absence of " the modern Outlook." And Basil, later, is thankful that he kept it like this. He remains a rather pathetic figure. With Marion, his, wife, he is all right, but to Oliver, the boy, he is almost a stranger. Oliver is clever, but he is shy, unresponsive, and his father is shy, and somehow they never get on terms of real friendship, let alone of intimacy. So there it is. My two other novels are recommended by the Book Society : this novel I personally recommend. I think it a better book, though I know something slighter has been attempted. But Mr. Brophy has a sureness and lightness of touch that are most agreeable. The whole thing lives, and with a truth, a freshness and a charm, that seem to me infinitely preferable to the tortured realism of Three Over the Frontier.

It will be gathered that I do not like Three Over the Frontier. It has a topical interest, and its author is a talented reporter, but as a novelist he leaves me unenthusiastic. Of the three who escape across the German frontier into Czechoslovakia, Nora is a young Jewess, Kiesler a rich Jewish industrialist, and Sergius a Communist engineer. The year is 1933, and the fate of these refugees is an anticipation of the tragic fate now overwhelming thousands. The book is a convincing indictment of injustice, and to that extent everyone must be on its side. On the other hand, does it contain a single character whom in happier times one could care about ? The persecution that hounds them down is odious, but need they themselves have been such dubious specimens of humanity ? What attracts or repels in a novel' is less the story than the creative intelligence behind it This it is that gives a book its tone, its spiritual atmosphere, which we find either sympathetic or the reverse. I found Three Over the Frontier unsympathetic. I read it—sometimes interested, sometimes bored, but never with the least enjoyment. The descriptions, the facts, are, I should imagine, accurate, for care seems to have been taken not to overstate their horror. In this careful presentment of a political situation lies, indeed, the chief value of the novel. As for the story, the three separate escapes, all accomplished on the same night, are well managed. The refugees are thrown together, and their subsequent wanderings through Europe and encounters with others of their kind form the plot, which progresses somewhat haltingly, in an atmosphere of -political discussion.

There remains The Stronghold. Its hero, John Quickshott, would seem to have figured in Mr. ChUrch's earlier novel, The Porch, but not having read The Porch, I cannot say whether as a major or a minor character. At all events he is a quite young man when the present tale begins, on the 4th of August, x914. In fact this is his twenty-first birthday, and one is rather surprised to find that he has already been the lover of Dorothy for a considerable period—long enough for love to have become " familiar," and " the finer delicacies of its pattern " erased. Thus the story opens in the very middle of things, and in its course we learn little of the past, except that both Quickshott and Dorothy were friends of a dead poet called Mouncer. So far as blood-relations go, Quickshott seems to be completely alone in the world—a young Civil Servant, working in his spare time to become a doctor, and too absorbed in his work to make a very satisfactory lover. Dorothy also is in the Civil Service, and she and Quickshott have dis- pensed with marriage because marriage would have necessitated the giving up of her job. The Stronghold is an interesting and well-written book. As the date will suggest, it plunges us straight into the War, with all its complicated effects upon civilian life. Quickshott does not join up—nor is he really anxious to, though he offers himself, and is rejected. It is through Dorothy and several of the other characters that we get into touch with what is happening at the front. And with one or two exceptions these characters are likable people, their friendships sincere, generous and kind. All Quickshott's friends are very good to him, and he is worth it ; for though he blunders and inflicts pain, it is involuntarily. Mr. Church has drawn an excellent portrait. Quite apart from his senti- mental problems, we really believe in Quickshott's vocation, and that he is destined to become a great doctor. The gradual estrangement between him and Dorothy is made natural— in the circumstances almost inevitable—yet it is presented so that we lose sympathy with neither of them •; and equally natural is their subsequent reconciliation.