New Novels

DURING 1956 new novels appeared at the rate of at least forty a week. With how many, of these did an ordinary fortnightly reviewer stand any chance of becoming acquainted? What informa- tion can he get as to the kind of novel the public Is reading as distinct from those it is reading about? Has he, in short, any authority for dis- cussing 'trends'? Very little. All the same, he should be borne with if he thinks there is any point in registering his impression of changes (if any) in the kind of novel that is being written and published. (The kind of novel that is being written and not published, a more interesting subject, is no concern of his.)

With a memory jogged by this week's supply, he might be tempted to record that there has been

a revival of humour in fiction, implying a falling- off in realism of the sort that takes no account of the ineradicable cheerfulness of human beings. But here he must be careful: to suggest that it is any part of the novel's business to go about amusing people would be to endanger whatever reputation as a serious critic he may have con- tracted, the assumption being that fiction to be good must be ghastly.

Here, anyhow, is Winston Clewes appearing like a non-preaching Priestley with a very pleasant novel about a theatre in a cathedral town. Delia Terhune acquires the theatre (lock, stock and some of the company) in the hope that with sup- port from local authorities Drama will again be- come a glory of Kingsbridge and even provide the excuse for a Festival. There would be no story if all went according to her dream. As it is, what

with diversions created by an obstructive mayor, his cad of a son, Americans from one of those airfields that have become a common feature of the English landscape, temperamental actors and

actresses, dignitaries from the Cathedral and a nice selection of townsfolk, Delia is far from

having it all her own way in a delightful comedy

that deep down, as the author would say, is true to life as the English live it.

Margery Sharp's book is another superficially frivolous novel to which serious attention could be given. Its period is June, 1932, onwards for six months or so, but its characters seem to exist in a limbo populated by revenants from Dickens, Barrie and the early Wells; which is not to say they could not be passengers in a No. 73 bus today. Indeed, this story might have been made up about people seen in a bus. That stoutish man —what does he do for a living? Could be a furrier. The thin woman next to him, trying to look Spanish—not his wife: his mistress? The little girl—what's she up to? Sketching on the back of an envelope. Art artist in the making? That slightly Jewish, prosperous, heavy- overcoated man? Had to lay his car up, that's why he's in the bus. But surely he's the type to have access to plenty of petrol. . . . And so on.

Thus artlessly Margery Sharp seems to have put together the framework of her novel. Filling the framework has not unduly taxed her in- genuity. It is not what its early pages fore-

shadowed, a romance of the fur trade, but a warm-hearted story cleverly planned to exhibit near-comic characters in a credible context. Per- haps the little girl artist and her benefactor are a shade too obviously aimed to please the senti- mental. Perhaps they missed the bus to the Christmas market.

The new Georgette Heyer is what might have been predicted, an historical romance—her twenty-fifth apparently. Conscientiously period— They saw badger-hunting in the reeking squalor of Charles's, where a man must be a very fly-cove to avoid having his pockets picked; they rubbed shoulders with bing-boys and their mollishers in the sluiceries; became half-sprung on blue ruin in these gin shops, and, wandering eastward, deep-cut at the Field of Blood.

—it is an entertainment for a reader who can still take to such people as Lord Cardross (with mistress) married for his money (to save her father

and brother from disgrace) by the eighteen-year- old Lady Helen (Nell to us). The thing is that Giles (Lord Cardross) really does love Nell and vice versa, and after a more or less regulation amount of misunderstanding they achieve a proper modus

vivendi—at least, the butler surprises them 'locked in a crushing embrace.' Discreetly retiring, he

fumbles with the door-handle when he returns, this time to find that 'My lord, before the mirror above the fireplace, was pensively absorbed in some delicate adjustment to the folds of his

cravat; my lady, a trifle dishevelled, but other- wise a model of fashionable decorum, was seated in a large armchair.' Being a 'period' novel, has no bedroom scene; but it is undoubtedly the stuff to give them as likes it.

Few novelists can more often have been praised for the presumably agricultural enterprise of breaking new (sometimes fresh) ground than Richard Llewellyn. This time he has dug deep— right down to the buried city of Herculaneum, the last days of which, it may be recalled, were celebrated by Edwin Atherstone (1788-1872) in a poem to which public reciters were much addicted: Walls—arches—roof-

And deep foundation-stones—all mingling, fell.

The present excavator, who himself some- times writes blank verse and sometimes American prose ('. . . a Prince D'Elbceuf ordered a shaft sunk. . . . The prince ordered the roof holed. . . .'), is also concerned with the city's last days, but before they are reached has given us an unrattling good story about a Prince of Gaul and a Roman girl dedi- cated to Diana. Opening with a scene in a war- galley, the master of which, in accordance with precedent, impairs the efficiency of his rowers with a copper-reinforced rhinoceros-hide whip to make flesh and muscle fly, the action loses no time in becoming violent and should leave noth- ing to be desired by those who, seeking a change from twentieth-century horrors, would like to sample those of the first.

The blurb on the jacket of Martha Dodd's book begins: 'This is a novel about an American university caught up in a political witch-hunt.' There's honesty for you! If there had been no other novels on the subject this one might have been highly praised. It can, in fact, be recom- mended to readers whom the subject still attracts as an earnest, high-minded but cautious exposure of a movement that, thanks to courageous people like the Professor John Minot whom it presents, seems to be losing its momentum and noticeably