New Novels
To. Seize a Dream. By Virginia Hersch. (Hutchinson. t HOVERING obscurely between the worlds of history and imagination, the historical novel risks everything if it comes too near to either. The pull of a 'fully documented life-story—Napoleon's or Rousseau's— seems to. be no less dangerous than the blank features of a Shakespeare or Akhnaton. ,Rtather _-it is the maze of Lecinardo's Notebooks or the jigsaw of Pompeii which offers the ambiguous element needed for development by the artists imagination.
In her foreword to her reconstructed life of Eugene Delacroix, Mrs. VirginiaHerschshows herself keenly aware of the extent of the material: the journal, " 1,435 pages in the-full French edition," and the collected letters, "1,846- large- closely printed .pages of them dating from the age of six to one week before his death." Here, she admits, it was scissors and paste that were needed, rather than imagination, for Delacroix tells his own story. The, journal is indeed an overwhelmingly vivid and complete record of the' integration of an artist's character by application to his art. The sense of power and liberation which come from this achievement may be a subject for art. critcism or, psychoanalYtic comment; but Mrs. Hersch as a novelist has inevitably less to say about them than the dreary tale of his unsuccessful love affairs. We appreciate these more emphatically than Delacroix allows us to do in the journal, and with a more acute embarrassment_ at his callous shuffling out of responsibilities, but the victory of sustained work, which is the positive story which Delacroix had to tell, reaches us unconvincingly in terms of poses at the easel and acceptance by the committee of the Salon. When she had once chosen the most self-revealing of artists as her subject, Mrs. Hersch had no alternative but to use the scissors and leave us with the paste.
Distance in time is alone a certain guarantee that the imagination will have, room to play without conflicting with the known facts, and Miss Jean Plaidy showed the wisdom of experience in choosing the French Renaissance. Enough is known of the State marriages and mistresses, of the executions, prison sentences, and tortures which made up the mechanism of government, to provide a solidly founded basis to her story. But what, in our terms, "were the emotiods. of those who were married for the State, just how did the private mistress control the public strings, where was poison bought and how was spying conducted in a Renaissance palace ? These are the questions which the historical novelist can answer with an enthusiastic pride of ownership, for her answers are as good as anyone's, and if she is Miss Jean Plaidy then they are likely to be better and more interesting than most. Moreover, Catherine :de Medicis, her heroine, has that ambiguous quality as an individual which inVites'explanation ; 'her sense of diplomacy and self-restraint was acquired' in -yeari of suffering ; her ruthlessness and speed-of decision- were not inconsistent with complexity and a passionately warm heart. On the whole Madame Serpent is the best kind of historical noVel: one into which we sink with pleasure and a feeling of undeserved education.
The. Relentless Marriage by Mortan Lambert is a first novel staged against a late Regency and early Victorian background. As a story it is too intent on its own untrammelled growth and fruition'to have time for anything but the scenery of its time; Lord Melbourne and the young Queen are less important than stage-coaches, aristocratic receptiontand a ruined castle on the Welsh border. The period allows a dog Irreorne-on as a " small associate," and discovers heartache and ecstasy in the comings and goings at a coach inn. But the distance of a century and a half performs a more funda- mental service to the story than such minor luxuries of sensibility, for the earl who marries a mishandled orphan, and the orphan who triumphs over family skeletons and sophisticated surroundings, are symbols of all that-We should wish to happen in a world that was unconstrained by reality. The- Relentless Marriage is a pleasurable
escape into fantasy. _
Another first novel which has _talent of a. rebellious and untidy kind is Mr. Antony Crawford's Quadruped Island. With half a dozen characters from fantastically' assorted ranks of life Mr. Crawford manages to comment on out post-war civilisation with a caustic insight which will leave little room for the sentiment of historical novelists of the future. His victims are most impressive
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