New Novels
Man and Two Gods. By Jean Morris. (Cassell. 12s. 6d.) The Story of Esther Costello. By Nicholas Monsarrat. (Cassell. 10s. 6d.) THE handicap of injured feelings is a theme to which Miss Olivia Manning in this new novel gives the very best of her outstanding gifts—a consistent and sombre vision, a use of words most elegant and strict ("all afternoon" appears now to be King's English as well as President's). She has Hugo Fletcher for her hero. He has come back from a teaching post in Egypt to the seaside town of Coldmouth—"the light from the ice-white sky gave an edge to the harbour's chill and choppy waters." This town is hideous for him, partly because of an unhappy childhood spent in the poor part of it (his father, a retired naval officer, lost his wife's money and decided to sulk in a slum) and partly because, as we soon perceive, Hugo is a man who lusts after insult and injury. Hugo has bought a partnership in the prep school. But the Headmaster, the gentle and well born Charles Martyn—Hugo notes with resentment that the family portraits are genuine, the family crest rightfully used—tells him his son Brian has stolen all the money and so Hugo is a pauper. The atmosphere in this book is very powerful, the figures move as if they were in hell on icy drifts, there is Martyn's wife, obsessed with fancied past glories, her brother, Brian's demon friend, whose behaviour caused the Ministry to withdraw their grant, only Martyn has nobility. Hugo, seeking the tomb-shelter in which his mother- " always a fool"—was killed in an air raid and sealed in burial, notes on a shop front a changed name—"So Lawson was dead? Well, that made one enemy the less"—remembers that even in Egypt it was only his half-despised Arab friend who came to see him off, wishes here in Coldmouth he could be Quids-In, that popular good sport, killed in a drunken car ride, with Hugo driving. . ... How well the author puts the weather in pace with the general temper—"As November set in, a sort of permanent fog of cold filled the house so that the walls and woodwork had the icy dampness of a toad." Hugo at last, his money, by a brilliant and gruesome climax again Within reach, sets off for London with only sixteen shillings (why?) leaving Martyn, for whom he seemed about to have an unselfish affection to come out of hospital, deserted by his wife, to an empty house. This hero is no Bovary to his creator, plainly Miss Manning's feelings are sympathetic, so the question may justly be asked, Are ours? Not very sympathetic, one fears, not for all the book's great beauty and interest.
Mr. O'Brian is a new young writer though one would not suppose so from this accomplished novel. He has something of the French genius in his writing, the prose fresh, supple and precise, the point of view objective without being heartless (a rare thing among those who write in English). "Marcel was devoted to his own person . . and this devotion extended even to his own smell. Often when he appeared to be listening . . . he would be taking secret gusts of himself, bowed over his own bosom." The Roig family, peasant in origin, have become important in their little French Catalonian coastal town. Xavier Roig, a middle aged widower and a lawyer, is Mayor. He mourns his inability to love anybody. He bought a dog but it was un-house-trainable and mean; his child, consciously aping the charms of childhood, could be driven to learn only by blows. Dr. Alain Roig has tome back from the Far East, largely at Aunt Margot's insistence, to rescue Xavier (and the family fortunes) from his infatuation with Madeleine. Xavier intends to marry this young girl of poor family but gentle and resolute character, when he has arranged her divorce for her. There are family conversations and pesterings against a background of daily work in beautiful surroundings, the grape gathering and the pagan-Christian customs, the lawyer's office and the crude church statues. But it is the worldy wise kindly doctor who marries Madeleine, and as Xavier watches the ship take them off he is sorry he cannot feel even the warmth of true anger. The author's sympathy with human frivolity and passion and suffering, his humour that sets things truly in proportion, make this book remarkable and beautiful.
Another new writer of astonishing accomplishment is Miss Jean Morris who also shows unusual familiarity with legal and military matters. Two imaginary nations in Europe, the one small and of a sensible political tradition, the other large, self-conscious and aggressive, face each other across fine mountainous scenery . . . about to be at war. Richard shoots Julian and is worried by guilty feelings. In true pragmatic modesty there should be no problem here. Richard is a soldier, his orders are to prevent, at all cost, this Julian, uneasy peace-time enemy from over the frontier, making off with information about air-strips which contravene the Treaty. For security reasons Julian was shot, and for Security reasons Richard, tried for murder in the Civil Courts, can receive no help from the War Office, who must deny involvement. War breaks out before Richard is hanged and at once what was murder becomes an act of heroism in defence of his country. This existence of a double standard—the "Two Gods" of the title—works on Richard's mind; he deserts on active service, is captured and shot. The hero, his excellent advocate Blumenthal, Blumenthal's shy little daughter Miriam and certainly the author herself, see in these events and in Richard's moral distress and Oresteian situation. Who shall play Pallas and bring him the final judging answer? It is hinted that the Mercy Seat, however remote and hypothetical, must be the last Court of Appeal. This interesting and highly intelligent author has a dry humour that does well with the spy's practical brother and with Bronya, Deputy Direct of Education—a fine portrait of an executive lady cloaking in bad temper a conscious lack of emotional experience. But the careful arguments, on the highest moral level, tend to obscure what, if Richard had been less tainted with hubris —odd that the author with her Grecian roots does not see this—would have made mincemeat of the Aeschylean parallel. Orestes was in no position to cry "Security, you fools!" to the baying hounds. Greed and vulgarity are Mr. Monsarrat's theme. Esther Costello aged twelve playing in a feckless Irish village is left blind deaf and dumb by the explosion of an old I.R.A. dump. Her lackadaisical parents leave their injured child to a filthy existence in the garden shed, fixing a rope so that she can find her way to the privy. Two years later, in her fine car, along comes Mrs. Bannister, grown rich in America, born in this village. Her impulse is affectionate, she takes the child, now cleaned up and handsome, back to America. After experimental treatment in various hospitals including the suggestion, vetoed because she is too young, of a therapeutical forced pregnancy, Esther is declared incurable. The case has received a great deal of publicity, Mrs. Bannister is much admired. She begins to exploit the child and is soon joined by her deserting husband who sees a gold mine in the situation. He seduces Esther and this seduction, we are told, brings back her lost faculties, but she is forced to go on feigning blindness. The vulgarity of the book lies in its total lack
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