New Fiction
MISS MARGARET STORM JAMESON has always been acutely aware of the element of hostility that exists between humah beings—not only between such as are naturally enemies, but also between those whi) like or even love each other. In her latest novel, A Cup of Tea for Mr. Thorgill, these hostile reactions are increased tenfold by another factor making for disagreement: Com- munism. The scene is the University of Oxford, and most of the characters, from the master downwards, belong to or are connected with the staff of one particular college. So although it is not almost exclusively a man's world, as was the case in C. P. Snow's unforgettable novel, The Masters, it is a world in which men are dominant, and moreover an enclosed world, with a separate, intensive life of its own which (in this instance) touches the outside world, chiefly by its impact with Communism.
Nevil Rigden, a clever young don with a back- ground of slum life, is the figure in whom most of the action centres. He has been a member of the Communist Party and is understood to have left it, but secretly he is still working for it. Almost equally vital to the story is Henry Gur- ney, the senior tutor, ironical, observant, de- tached (as far as any of the characters can be called detached); for it is he whose sensibility colours the book. The happenings are sensa- tional and include rape, suicide and attempted murder; but violence of thought, word and deed is the keynote. Every conversation is an encoun- ter and if it does not end in a scene it is only because the standard of rudeness, or at any rate of plain speaking, is so general and so high.
Miss Jameson in this novel is a 'committed' writer if ever there was one—committed to the cause of anti-Communism; and though she does not let it affect, or not much, her judgment of her characters, it inspires her with an unflagging passion surely unique in contemporary fiction. And not only her, but her characters; scarcely one who does not quiver and vibrate with emotional tension—with anger or resentment or wounded vanity. When someone offers the dying Mr. Thorgill a cup of tea, he replies, 'Thanks, but I'll pay for it m'self'—asserting the Yorkshire- man's independence of outlook which (it's implied) we should all share.
To read this noyel is like watching a battle in which one's interests are at stake but in which one does not have to fight. I enjoyed it tremendously, and not only for its passionate affirmation of moral and spiritual values. But doubts remained. Are dons so rude to each other? Does Communism produce this witch-hunt at- mosphere in Oxford?
The title of -Miss Diana Marr-Johnson's novel Goodnight Pelican suggests Bonjour Tristesse, and the likeness does not end there, for it is the story of a young girl's awakening to love in France—in the Paris of the 1920s, to be exact. But was Clara really in love? That is the ques- tion; and on the answer depends not one's en- joyment of the book, for it is extremely enjoy- able, but one's estimate of Clara's character. Her well-to-do parents in Cambridge have sent her to Paris to 'finish' her education and to develop her musical talents. Through her uncle, a worldly, well-groomed, but by no means heartless, dilet- tante, she is given the entrée to fashionable I' It is parties and couturiers which engage het terest, not the piano. Thus she comes 3 Andre, a very eligible young diplomat, the of a widowed Russian Princess. He is un hog serieux; he devotes a portion of his income. his time, to social work. Clara is revolted V scenes of squalor into which he takes her. worse still—from her point of view—he is u drawn; Clara (who writes in the first person)1' the domination of his mother. Maria is verY her every justice. But she sees that as a mother"' law she will be a menace. Andre explains that Latin countries the tie between sons and molt/ is a very close one. Clara, precociously, invoi Freud and CEdipus. In vain. Andre promises to` adrift from maternal tutelage, but Clara see doesn't mean to. There has to be a showdown' • Is Clara hard, egotistical and callous, 01 sensible young woman intent on securing her n' rights? The story is a lesson in self-discover) a dramatic and painful one. The minor charact` are well and subtly drawn, and we feel Paris around us. The book has entertainment value e high order;' it is civilised and deftly written. it is really a short story expanded to novel lag' The Habit of Living is a collection of sOcl teen short stories that show a remarkable varl' of subject, scene, mood and treatment—and focus and perspective, too. Some, like Tunnel' (to my mind one of the best), are el° ups: Mrs. Lessing's insight into the feelings the boy who is determined to prove himself swimming through the tunnel is as acute as t event itself is exciting. 'A Mild Attack Locusts' is a straightforward and vivid stun the onset of a horde of locusts on to a PI near the Zambesi : one feels one , has through the experience. Others, such as the II story, which describes the almost autoira affairs of an elderly man who cannot help fall' in love, are more extended and tentative in Ire; ment. The Words He Said,' another of the AI can stories, is so allusive and unaccented as be almost obscure. 'The Woman,' in which II veterans of the First World War, an Engl' colonel and a German, exchange reminiscent while the pretty waitress who has attracted till both hovers in the background, is a charmil ironical comedy with more than a touch pathos. The last, longest and most ambiti4 story, 'The Eye of God in Paradise,' is not I most successful, for, despite its Kafka-il quality of horror and frustration and the genious symbolism by which Mrs. Lessing trates her theme of German schizophrenia, I circumstances and the characters seem contrh for that special end. But on the whole this a very distinguished collection.
The Main Chance is a wild and whirl' comedy, at times approaching farce, based on idea of a child prodigy whose extraordiui ib memory wins him something like a fortune. Il money and goods, as a TV quiz challenger. Ir comes from the East End of London; but ? Peter Wildeblood's knowledge of the newspaI and television worlds enables him to explc happily and hilariously, an extensive cross-5 tion of contemporary social life.
L. P.
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