After-Dinner Thoughts on New Novels

THE evening had reached its best moment : dinner just over, the aroma of good coffee in the air, and nothing to do but talk out the night in the firelight, with -the lively spring air stealing in through the windows to shake the flames of candles.

The conversation broke and formed again : two of the men persisted with an argument that had obviously been brought from the dining-room, and gradually everyone joined in. They were talking of novels.

" If you contend that the average reader only wants a rattling good story," the undergraduate was protesting, " and that Masefield's Odlaa is selling like hot cakes because it's adventure, then why didn't Capek's Kialcatit, which was terribly exciting, also sell by hundreds of thousands ? After all, if people didn't know what the title meant, how many who read Masefield know that the title means nothing more mysterious than ' one damned thing after another' ?"

" They probably think it is about love in the hula-hula islands when they buy it," said the cynical girl with the close crop. " They adore love. You know what someone says in Storm Jameson's Three Kingdoms, talking of modern novels : Don't be seduced—read Miss So-and-so's new book and enjoy all the sensations in the comfort and privacy of your own home ! ' " The business man blushed and said hurriedly : " Now, I call Three Kingdoms a beautiful book. You probably think me old fashioned but that's what I call a really clever novel without being nasty, how the girl finds out what a mistake she's making trying to run her business, and neglecting her husband and her little boy's best years. It's all a bit above my head, in a way, but it got me all right."

" I adore reading novels " a gentle voice observed. "They take me away from real life."

" You try reading six novels a week," grumbled a young man by the window, " and then sit down to write a fair, open-faced criticism ! " " Don't you enjoy any of them ? " asked the Jesuit father from Dublin.

" Why, yes, of course.' Odlaa is first rate, written in sublime prose, and sparkling with good spirit's. It's a real live tale that anyone can enjoy. And I liked The Informer awfully, a good story by O'Flaherty about a great hulk of a man who betrays his friend in the bad times in Dublin.. It didn't sell, but there's no accounting for tastes. Last summer I raved about The Tree of the Folkungs, a vast and agitated story of old times in Scandinavia by a man called von Heidenstam ; but I've never met another soul who has even heard of it."

" But I say, what about detective stories ? " broke in the Eton crop. " I can't read anything else. I'm sick of complexes."

Several voices spoke up warmly in favour of Edgar Wallace. here, particularly The Man from Morrocco, and of Sapper's; The Final Count and J. S. Fletcher's The Great Brighton Mystery.

" What about funny books ? " said the padre. " I laughed; myself silly over Birmingham's Gun Runners, the impudent: way he has with him with religious orders and politics and all."

" The Isle of Pheasants is a funny book too," the under- graduate said, " choke-full of clever Chelsea talk. Dickey.' will make a name for himself."

" And I," said the young man who wrote book reviews,: " with my little eye, I laughed at Frankau's Masterson."

Babel broke out, and when something like order was restored it was discovered that two-thirds of the gathering, admired the brilliantly-best-selling Masterson enormously,; while the remainder objected to it because it was vulgar,! untrue to life, sold by the yard to the gullible and sentimental! public.

" It's half-baked propaganda," the undergraduate shouted,' " not fiction."

After-Dinner Thoughts on New Novels (Continued) " In my view," the business man said, " though I don't pretend to know about literature, a book like Masterson does a great deal of good." (Sniffs from the young people.) " It is sincere, and it made people who otherwise would never think about their duty to the country sit up. And, by the way, I notice that those of you who are most against it have read it anyway."

" Talking of books that do good," the grandmother inter- posed, " what about Rough Justice—I suppose everyone has read it ? "

Most of them had ; again the young rebels protested and the literary boy remarked that it was too finely written, which made the business man snort.

" As I was going to say," the grandmother continued, " Rough Justice seems to me very fine. I don't know why it is, but books about the War and post-War, like this, and that delightful book The Hounds of Spring are absolutely fascinating. I feel we are all trying to find something out- s remedy perhaps not only for the ills of life, but for ourselves. And there is an ideal in Rough Justice. That's what lasts walks book. Why, Dickens wrote with a purpose " (murmurs of approval from all parties this time, much to the good lady's surprise) " and so did Dostoievsky, whom I don't admire as much as my daughters do. And as to your submitting that the hero and heroine of Rough Justice are too good to be true, I much prefer them to the half-baked, loose-living characters in your Aldous Huxley's and D. II. Lawrence's. They make me uncomfortable, and I shouldn't like to have to meet them."

" I absolutely agree," said the man of affairs. " That's why I think Maxwell's Fernande a good book, though it treats of adultery. The hero and his unfortunate friend only knew happiness so long as they stuck to their ideals. You must have a moral, I think, in novels, for every man and woman has some sort of a code, and to be reminded of a better one does them good—and they like it."

Boyish-bob shook her head in disgust : " I don't read to be uplifted," she said, " but to be amused."

" Wit, plot, purpose," said the undergraduate, " that's what sells a book. The modem tendency is all against flippancy."

" Sex interest," sneered the reviewer.

" Never ! " said grandmamma. " We haven't conic t that. A story must be a story first strong and simple and clean."

The dreamy, gentle voice suggested : " Why be so critical ? If the public was like you all, authors would starve. I like big print, but except for that I take what comes from the library."

And at this point the priest, who was always tactful, changed