Fiction
Fresh Fields
Pitiful Dust. By Vernon Knowles. (The Bodley Head. 6s.) THE shadow of a preceding book generally inclines to lie upon its successor, and this is especially true in the case of Miss Delafield, who has proved herself, more than once, such an able chronicler of suburbia. Now that she has created a new villainess, and established her in a rich setting, I find myself, as it is likely many readers will, quite unfairly resenting the intrusion. Yet. Clarissa Marley, who deliberately purchases a second husband, who is fre- quently kind in order to be cruel, and who, in order to satisfy her " urge " for domination and mismanagement, emphasize the " brother and sister " _relationship of her son and step- daughter, is most emphatically suited to Miss Delafield's shrewd and shrewish muse. Clarissa Marley gives her the opportunity for exposure, the excuse for the employment of such cutting phrases as have so frequently pandered to our sense of malice in the past. But it is not, I think, because the author has sent her Muse to new fields that her book is really not so successful as most of its predecessors, but because she has become too absorbed in Clarissa. The other characters do not really count : some have en air of legend and some are nonentities. True, the hero and heroine wriggle from under Clarissa's thumb, but their writhings do not seem to matter. Nevertheless, Miss Delafield will always be as welcome to us as the gossip is at a tea-party.
We are used to surprises from Mr. Garnett, but his latest book will not astonish those who have likened him to Defoe, for now he tells the story of a sort of Crusoe. The hero, who has 'been engaged pilot-by rich woman, in order to beat a flying record, is an ordinary-thinking little man. He finds himself alone, with a damaged machine, in a rocky desert. The author surpasses himself in this record of hunger and loneliness—a loneliness, broken by the coming of the locusts, that are first welcomed as food and then abhorred as vermin. How naturally unnatural is the pilot's greeting to the first of the strange company " Hullo, what are you doing ? ' he asked the insect ; and quickly, before it could jump, he caught it, and, without reflecting, broke off its head while it was still looking at him, and then, pulling off the legs and wings, popped it into his mouth." The whole story, from exquisite beginning to half-thrilling, half-prosaic end, is economically and beautifully written. Yet there is danger of the author's own particular grass- hoppers, his rather wispish stories, becoming a burden to those who await the fulfilment of his promises. The new story lacks the richness of, for instance, The Sailor's Return. It is perfect within its limitations, but need Mr. Garnett so limit himself ?
Mr. Knowles ranges from theme to theme. He has not, yet, I think, found the medium for his real talent. His new and rather depressing story tells of a number of people in love but unloved by those they care for. Again the writing is beautiful, and again there are the irritating
Previous page
