New Novels
MR. R. C. HUTCHINSON has been highly praised by some distin- guished critics, and wrote, among other novels, The Shining Scabbard. His new book is long and ambitious, with a largish canvas carefully filled in—much too carefully filled in in the opening chapters, which are clogged with unnecessary detail. It is the story of a young German-Jewish doctor and how he fared under the rise of Nazism. It begins with Josef's arrival•to take up his first post in a hospital, when already well on the way, through private research, to the discovery of " a new polyvalent tuberculin." He is not encouraged to continue this research at the hospital, where he antagonises colleagues by his narrow, impersonal attitude towards his profession: " Young Zeppich- mann never did think of the patients' comfort, except where comfort had a physiological importance." But he devotes all his spare time to his tuberculin, and with it experiments upon the very sick servant-girl in .the pension where he lodges. In the course of doing so he falls in love with her, and finally revolts against using her for his own. ends ; and it is this conversion, and Minna's answering devotion, which forms the core of the book.
Josef has meanwhile unwittingly become involved with some Communists and enraged a member of the Nazi Party, is arrested on false charges, ill-treated by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Minna, after a period in a sanatorium, is advised by a lawyer that the only chance of tracing Josef is to bring a charge against him, which may result in a trial and release after imprisonment. Helped by friends, but chiefly by her own indomitable energy and courage, she and Josef escape from Germany, taking with them the notes of his work, and reach England. He has contracted tuberculosis and is treated in England with his own tuberculin.
As I have said, and as the sub-title indicates, The Fire and the Wood is intended primarily as a love-story. The brooding horror, the suspense, the excitement of the escape are admirably conveyed ; so are some of the minor characters ; but these things are incidental to the main ,theme, whose fundamental expression depends on the natures of Josef and Minna. As regards Josef, Mr. Hutchinson limited his difficulties by choosing a one-track mind. Only slightly humanised by love, Josef clings to his dis- covery simply for its own sake, instead of for the sake of fame ; he remains a simple, boring,. intensely limited man, dogged in adversity, brave when in pain, capable of dimly recog- nising greatness in a comrade ; but not an interesting character. Minna—a pert, cockney type with some brains —is more interesting ; but with her Mr. Hutchinson has made fatal blunders. How could a servant-girl reared in an orphanage write the highly literary and fluent diary reproduced in Chapter 14? Where did she learn to refer to herself as a " kitchen slut " and to use the word " fabu- lously " and the Latin cum? Only by deliberately forgetting such total impossibilities can one continue to be interested in Minna. This superficiality on the part of a serious, not to say laborious, writer is a considerable defect. His eye for people is sharp but not penetrating ; he has invention but little imagina- tion, so that existence never falls into a new perspective because of the construction he puts upon it. The book is steadily middle- brow, and it is no good people who care for Miss Compton Burnett' trying to read it. It would make a thrilling film of the English, Cronin kind, where a certain sentimentality in the scenes with the English doctors, and their improbable readiness to adopt an untried tuberculin, would not seem out of place
Dutch Interior is misnamed. It consists of loosely connected passages in the lives of some Irish of the artisan and clerk class, beginning with their childhood and taking them, with large gaps, into middle age. I found it fascinating. The varying aspects of the riverside town, beautiful and squalid, are excellently and lightly done ; so are the relations between the children and their elders, and their adolescent relations to each other. There are a good many obscurities due, not to the writing, which is pellucid, but to the author's unwillingness to comment, to explain, to obtrude himself. For instance, it is disconcerting, in the middle of a chapter, to discover that sixteen years have elapsed since the last. And yet the atmosphere, the fluidity of the book, the curious elusive vividness, depend so much on the method adopted that one is loath to complain and more inclined to accuse oneself of density. A more serious complaint is that Mr. O'Connor is not successful when dealing with adult love affairs ; the scene in which Eileen discusses with Stevie whether to leave her husband for him carries no conviction. But, though not fault- less, Dutch Interior is a work of art, compared with which The Fire and the Wood seems but a painstaking though exciting document. The books exist in different realms, for Mr. O'Connor is in a relation to his subject-matter of which Mr. Hutchinson may have had glimpses, but which he has not achieved. If Dutch Interior were to be filmed without being ruined—and the Dalton household, as well as the three disreputable " beautiful Miss Maddens " could contribute to an unusual film—it would have to be played and directed by the French.
A reviewer has constantly to allow for his own prejudices as well as try to combine his critical faculty with a relaxed receptiveness. In dealing with Town and Haven I must allow for my aversion from municipal politics, whose intrigues, unlike the intrigues of private life, appear to me inexpressibly dreary ; and for my boredom with money-makiiig and commercial enter- prise. These things are the main preoccupation of Mr. Harland's novel about a town which - might be Scarborough. As Miss Phyllis Bentley says in her enthusiastic preface (in which " Yorkshire " as an adjective occurs twelve times) " the love interest is rather sketchy." I cannot, however, agree with her that the author " has created two interesting women," for he has not the creative faculty and, apart from some minor grotesques such as the derelict crank doctor a hundred and three years old, his characters, of whom there are many, made no impression on me whatever. But it may appeal to readers who are not daunted by the frequency of phrases like " prices are down," and " I have the figures here," and who like solid, carefully-written books with a lot of conversation. It covers the period from 1878 to the early nineteen hundreds.
E. B. C. Jones.
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