FICTION
By FORREST REID
Sandwichtnan. By -Walter Brierley. (Methuen: 7s. 6d.) The Young Desire It is a first novel of quite exceptional interest and originality. The book falls into no definite category. It com- mences like a school story, but it is not a school story, though much of the action takes place at a public school in Australia, and Charles Fox, the chief character, is a schoolboy. Nor is it precisely a love story, though: ihe love story in it is extra- ordinarily .passionate. On .the surface, indeed, there appear to tie two iliemei (the second-belonging to Penworth, one of the -Masters at the school), yet in a sense, if we take Charles Fox to tie the hero, there is only one, for he is at the centre of both and they are not independent. Charles himself is unaware of this : he has no inkling of what he means to Penworth. Beyond the fad that they are friends and that Penworth has been unusually. decent and done a great deal for him, he sees nothing in their relation that may have to be reckoned with should he wish to form fresh ties. That, in Charles's eyes, is one of its great charms ; it is so unexacting—a thing always pleasantly there in the background, but leaving him perfectly free. Penworth, he takes for granted, feels about it exactly as he feels, therefore, when the wonderful new love is discovered
in the holidays, it is to Penworth he turns, knowing he will
share his happiness, will be sympathetic and understand, just as in the' past he has always been Sympathetic and always understood. Let me say at once that I can recall few characters
in fiction more completely and beautifully realised than Charles. Penworth is there of course ; so, in a lesser degree, are Margaret and Charles's mother; but Charles is life itself. And here a question arises : Was it possible for Mr. Mackenzie to be fair to both Penworth and Charles ? I should answer Yes ; and obviously he is trying to be fair, though 1 do not think he has quite succeeded. Penworth is not conceived with the same sympathy as Charles, the result being that for the dramatic value of the tale he is not good enough. He is true to a type—everything in the book is true—but I see no reason why that type should have been chosen, why Penworth's love for- Charles should prove shallower than Charles's love for Margaret ; better, it seems to me, to have left the scales evenly balanced. The love story of Charles and Margaret at all events is admirably told. It is largely physical—untried, untested— but it has a glow and a rapture that blind Charles to everything else. Nor can he see that from the beginning it is hopeless. Penworth sees it, but the hopelessness of his own position prevents him from saying so, and at any rate he would not be believed, would merely be regarded, as the mother eventually is regarded, as an enemy. Yet this reticence makes him appear cold and unresponsive. His unhappiness is visible, but so also is his increased irritability, and since the cause of both these changes eludes Charles, he is conscious only that their friendship is collapsing. He is disappointed, bewildered ; he feels that it is not his fault, and is too inexperienced to realise that it may not be, Penworth's either. The story from now on is unhappy, and would be definitely tragic were the characters Older. As it is, we feel that they have still all their lives before them, that the present is only a prelude. True, Charles loses his Margaret (she is deliberately taken from him), but we know that despite its innocent ardour his love is not of the kind to iuivive the removal of the beloved object, and Penworth, though he seems so much more mature, is after all only twenty-five. The book seems to me truthful and moving as only a book written out of a genuine emotion can be. Here and there—chiefly in the dialogue--there are sentences that jar upon my ear, but the general effect remains of something finely observed, understood, and felt, not devised for our entertain-
ment or edification, though the result is edifying, because it springs from a profound sympathy with human nature in its weakness and strength, in its struggle to fulfil an honourable purpose, and in its consciousness of moral
respcnsibllity. - •
In comparison with work so direct and sincere as this, Miss Helen Simpson's Under Capricorn is a pastiche. I
hasten to add that it is a pleasant one and the choice of the Book Society. Again_ the scene is Australia, but Australia in i835. To Sydney, in the train of his cousin the new
• Governor, comes young Adare, who pretty -soon establishes himself with Mr. Flusky, a wealthy emancipist. This Flusky was originally a groom, who first seduced and then eloped with Lady Henrietta Considine, daughter of an old Irish family. It was an unpleasant affair, involving the shooting of the girl's brother ; however, they have long been settled in Sydney, where Mr. Flusky is prosperous and on the whole respected. Lady Henrietta unfortunately has taken to drink, and the main subject of the novel is Adare's 'attempt to reform her. He succeeds—not without arousing the jealousy of Flusky. It is all rather pathetic and yet told-with a good deal of humour. The Fluskys are middle-aged ; Adare is twenty ; 'certainly he never is in love with Lady Henrietta. But the friendship between the woman and the boy is treated with considerable charm, and the whole thing carried off with a light touch.
Mr. Otis's Little Valley is at once more real and more exotic. He is writing of a primitive people, ignorant, superstitious, and passionate, so cut off, on their Mexican farms, from Modern civilisation, that they might belong to another age. The story is woven around Juliano, the eldest of the three Trujillo brothers, and Rosa, his unfaithful wife. It is a drama of passion and jealousy, for Juliano is very much in love, Rosa very little, though she is as fond of her husband as of anybody. We begin by 'disliking her ; then, as her beauty fades and her lovers withdraw, we grow more sympathetic.- Thii impression of the slow, inevitable flight of time—of youth declining into middle-age, and middle-age into old age and death, is the most striking feature of the novel, and Mr. Otis conveys it very skilfully, through the changing emotions of his characters. Passion dies, resignation is born, other interests awaken, only in Juliano the hatred of Ben Ortiz, Rosa's first lover, persists. Yet Rosa herself, never very popular among 'the villagers and at last suspected of witchcraft, has left him years ago. Eventually she creeps home, weary and broken; to die.
Throughout the story we question .nothing ; it is founded on the common experience of humanity ; hope -constantly renewed and constantly sinking 'into disillusionment. In Lost Survivor I found myself questioning everything, because everywhere I had to take the author's word for what was happening, and none Of those happenings could be -checked by normal experience. -TwO friends are out sailing: They are overtaken by a squall. Marvin, who is steering, blunders, with the consequence that his companion is struck on the heed by a boom and thrown overboard, where he sinks and is lost: On that accident, which is not even due to carelessness, the entire psychological structure of the to built, and in my opinion it is totally inadequate to account for the extra, ordinary effect it produces: Ma'rvin's life is rimmed ; his mind, unbalanced by the. shock, becomes haunted by the dead man, so that the !dead man's Spirit seems to take possession of him, altering his very' words and deeds. Nobody blames him. On the contrary, seeing how deeply he has taken the accident to heart, even those most concerned, his friend's parents, the girl he was to have married, go out of their way to show him kindness. But it does him no good, and his conduct becomes so strange that it arouses the attention of a couple of rogues who proceed to blackmail him, though they do not really believe there has been foul play. He submits without a struggle. He knows he has only to confide in his father to have the whole thing squashed at once, yet he submits. Of course what Mr. Pavey wanted was to describe the various stages in his hero's mental and moral disintegration, but personally I found Marvin's attitude incredible, and the happy ending contrived left me equally unconvinced. .Pastoral is the.very Modern story of a year's holiday (a kind of " try-out " honeymoon in fact, for James and Matilda are not married), the scene being a farm in Wisconsin, endeared to the man by memories of his :boyhood. The slender tale is presented in picture and reverie, often graceful and charming, for Miss Green has style, even if it is a somewhat self-conscious and literary style. Mr: Brierley ihas- no style at all : his Sondwichmin is a " social clacurtieittP the glootny.and depressing history of a young coal miner who tries to educate himself and fails.- • -
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