Fiction
Ma Wei Slope. By Keith West. (The Cressct Press. 71. 6d.) Robert and Helen. By Elizabeth Jenkins. (Gollancz. 8s. 6d.) Proud Heaven. By Ethel Mannin. (Jarrolds. 8s. 6d.)
Ma Wei Slope, unlike the Chinese novel of tradition, is quite brief. Mr. Keith West (whose earlier novels I have missed) goes back to the T'ang Dynasty for the material from which the romantic story of a palace girl, Winter Cherry, is drawn. Chinese culture flourishes. richly in the eighth century and at the court of Hsiian Tsung the humble Winter Cherry was able to meet and succour the great Li Po. The Emperor's passion for the Imperial concubine Yang Kuei-fei was so great that he neglected state affairs for her : his throne was trembling when the story opens. After an encounter with Hsiian Tsung the girl Winter Cherry decides on escape ; with her go the poet, his nephew Ah Lai, and a palace official. The girl is disguised as a boy and the poet's nephew is already in love with her. They have not been long at their retreat before news comes that An Lu Shan, governor of a northern prefecture, has started a rebellion. The Emperor and his favourite are in flight. Presently Ah Lai find& himself escorting Yang Kuei-fei on another stage of her journey, while poor Winter Cherry joins the slower entourage of the Emperor. Soon she finds herself back in her old home on Ghost Horse Hill (with her relations, the Emperor, his mistress and their body-guard) while her lover goes on ahead in order to find provisions for the refugees. Soon the soldiers in the Imperial train resolve on the death of Hsiian Tsung's mistress ; her once powerful brothers and sisters have already been massacred. Here for the needs of his story Mr. West departs from historical accuracy, by allowing the favourite to commit suicide in anticipation of the fate awaiting her. Not knowing this, Winter Cherry, gaudy in Yang Kuei-fei's robes, goes to meet the brutal soldiery ; but in the nick of time she is rescued by her old friend, the court official. And it is on the dead body of the favourite that the guards vent their rage. The saddened Emperor proceeds on his way, leaving Winter Cherry in the bosom of her family. But her adventures are by no means over, for a meeting she has with An Lu Shan and his son is fraught with danger. Ultimately the rebels are over- thrown, and by the ingenuity of a benevolent priest the Emperor releases Winter Cherry from her allegiance to him, so that she can marry the poet's nephew honourably. Mr. West tells his story with a great deal of charm and skill, but perhaps the end is weakened by the tying of too many small neat hows. This novel is a Book Society choice.
Robert and Helen is the story of a brother and sister, told against a background of England in the years between the wars. The Coburnes have come down in the world, not too desperately, for the happily married Robert, an'ex-army man, has built up a business which shows every sign of flourishing. He is selfish and opinionated, but manages to remain a charmer just the same. Helen is one of those young women of the leisured classes with too much time on her hands and too few ideas in her head. She is vague, a little irresponsible, charming, but unselfish. Brother and sister are quite fond of each other, and Robert's wife is devoted to them both. Horatia is a kind, well-meaning, interfering, patronising woman of the would-be Miniver class. Some day perhaps a serious student will trace the evolution- of Mrs. Miniver through the pages of the English novel. Does she begin with Mrs. Hauksbee? Or is the type earlier than Kipling? Horatia (known as Racey) is a more than usually entertaining variant of the class, since she has several handicaps in the shape of an exacting husband, a small lively son, and a most ungracious domestic-help who must be constantly bribed and placated. Helen (usually called Kitten) is on the verge of a foolish marriage to a young man, when, through the unkind activities of the hand-proud Doris, George. is discovered to be a philanderer of the most unsatisfactory kind: For the time being Helen is per- suaded to make her home with the Coburnes. Soon the indefatigable Racey is busy with the theory of matchmaking again, and then Robert meets an old school friend. He, it seems, is the perfect mate for Helen; he has position, money and character, and he falls straight in love. Helen is for a brief period pleased and happy, but she has bought experience hard. She has suddenly developed character too, and with it comes the bitter knowledge that between Edmund and herself compromise and adjustment are utterly impossible. Miss Jenkins' novel conveys the sense of unrest proper to its period. Her characterisation is less satisfactory, for Robert, in spite of his dog and his tears, never seems more than a type, and Helen _remains almost to the end a shadowy figure of a dreamy adolescent girl, rather than a sensitive but adult young woman. Having complained of Mr. West's tidiness, it is only fair to blame Miss Jenkins for too many loose ends.
Proud Heaven is an exercise in sentimentality ; but to find Miss Mannin preaching the virtues of frustration will give many of her fans -something of a shock. After the death of Lucian Allington, a noted sociologist, his devoted secretary and his distinguished mistress com- bine in an effort to prevent his widow from telling the world a few facts about the great man's private life. Having failed to pull the wool over Mrs. Allington's eyes on the subject of the mistress, the secretary is 'wondering what he can do next, when the widow is fortunately killed in a car smash. Stealing the incriminating letters from the dead woman's heirs presents no great problems.. He nest helps the mistress to secure the ancestral home for their hero's bastard. Though they love each other, secretary and mistress decide that they must honour the dead by sacrificing themselves.
JOHN HAMMON.
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