A Woman's War. By Warwick Deeping. (Harper and Brothers. 6s.)—This
striking novel gives in great detail the history of the lives of two doctors living in a country town, and their respective wives. One word of warning must, perhaps, be uttered to the average reader, and that is that no one should begin this book who dislikes reading about some of the less pleasant details of medical work. The author writes with great realism, and the necessary conditions of the story demand that many matters which are not usually touched on in works of fiction should be entered into somewhat fully. Although the task is performed with as much reticence and delicacy as is possible in the circumstances, still the book is not one which people who dislike the physical facts of life should try to read. Those, how- ever, who do not object to contemplating physiological details will find A Woman's War a very clever piece of work, for the author is capable of considerable depth of thought in dealing with the problems of life. The women referred to in the title are the wives of the two doctors, and perhaps the critic might say that for purposes of art the two couples are too strongly con- trasted, as being one all light and the other all darkness. It is, however, to the couple who are in essentials virtuous that trouble comes in the shape of an inherited tendency to drink on the part of the husband. The picture of James Murchison's struggle back to self-command is drawn with great power and insight; but the figure of Katherine, his wife, is not quite so convincing. It is a little too like the portrait of Queen Elizabeth in which the courtly artist left out all the shadows. Dr. and Mrs. Parker Steel, who are the bad characters of the book, are drawn on rather conventional lines, but in this couple the portrait of the wife, Betty, is more successful than that of the husband. Mr. Warwick Deeping's picture of society in the country town of Keaton is well executed, and as a whole, both in seriousness of conception and in success of execution, the novel must be pronounced to have attained a high level of merit.
Previous page
