Saturnine. By Rayner Heppenstall. (Seeker and Warburg. xis.)
THE blurb declares that this book "constituted a land-mark in modern writing in the tradition of which Montherlant, Joyce and Celine are forerunners." This is an unfortunate and unjustified claim. In reality, it does not seem to be either in the same class or the same tradition as Ulysses or Pitie pour les Femmes, and the only thing it has in common with Voyage au bout de la nuit is the nasty taste they both leave in the reader's mouth. It is a pity because the author's earlier book The Blaze of Noon about a blind masseur led one to expect something better, and, of course, it is better than the average Miniverish we-can-take-it Blitz novel. The action is too complicated to allow of summary. The author and his wife seem to be constantly in and out of the Middlesex Hospital having babies or hallucinations. The characters are, as the blurb says, mostly "the overrated riff-raff of a big city." The confusion is in no way lessened by the author's regrettable interest in astrology, but the book is well written and very pleasantly produced.
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