FICTION

By FORREST REID Tins week's batch of novels is not a remarkable one. I have selected four, but I know I shall never want to re-read any of them. Rossetti declared that poetry ought to be amusing, and by " amusing " he did not mean that it should not be serious and express a philosophy of life, but merely that it ought to charm us, so that we read on and on, forgetful of everything else. In this Rossettian sense of the word none of the novels before me is amusing.

Thomas Mann's Joseph in Egypt is the successor to two earlier books, The Tales of Jacob and The Young Joseph, neither of which I have read. Nor is the Joseph saga by any means ended yet, for the present work, which begins when its hero has been rescued from the pit at Dothan, breaks off abruptly after the episode of Potiphar's wife, the false accusation and the sentence to imprisonment. How closely Mrs. Lowe-Porter's translation approaches to the original I cannot tell, but it appears to have been carefully done, therefore I take it that where the language is Biblical this is so in the German text also. It raises a question the answer to which must depend upon individual taste. I think if I were writing a story about ancient Greece (I am unlikely ever, to write one founded on the Bible) I should write it very nearly, though not exactly, as if I were writing a modern novel. That is to say, I should simplify the style slightly by avoiding obvious modemisms, but otherwise write as I am accustomed to, avoiding as far as possible any difference of texture between the narrative and descriptive passages and the dialogue. I cannot claim originality for this method. Anatole France employed it years ago in Le Chanteur de Kyme, a tale about the old age of Homer. But that it is the best and certainly the most pleasing method I am convinced. Le Chanteur de Kyme is not only as nearly Greek in spirit as anything modern can be, but it also has the advantage of being alive, and the beauty and simplicity of its style actually bring it into much closer touch with the Greek genius than if it had been composed in an archaic literary language such as that used by Lang, Leaf and Myers in their translation of the Iliad. All the dialogue in yoseph in Egypt, however, is in the archaic convention, while the descriptive and narrative passages are more modern in style, with (in the English version at any rate) occasional lapses into current colloquialisms and clichés. But even on other grounds, judged as a work of art, it does not seem to me successful. The manner is explanatory ; the author interrupts the narrative to bring us back to the present and to discuss his sources. He keeps reminding us, as Socrates, when he invented a myth, liked to remind his pupils, that if this very thing did not happen, at least something resembling it did. Further, the book is much too long. "Seldom," Herr Mann tells us, when introducing Potiphar's wife, "'have I felt more acutely than in this connexion the harm done to truth by abbreviation and compression." So he does not abbreviate, does not compress. On the other hand, he writes round his subject, rarely presents it dramatically. I do not say that the remarks on Egyptian gods, ritual, and religion, are uninteresting, only that the author's erudition teiads to imother the human element in his story. The background dwarfs the figures, catches and holds ' the attention. There is no selection, no form, the method is to set down everything, and at full length.

Much, in the second Volume, is made of the episode of Potiphar's wife. This is an instance of Herr Mann's determina- tion not to sacrifice truth to compression. Euripides, in his treatment of Phaedra's infatuation for the young Hippolytus— a very similar theme—compressed a good deal, yet he got his effect. Herr Mann's treatment is that of the sentimental advocate, pleading extenuating circumstances. Yet the failure here again, I think, is partly due to an artificial diction, intended to create the atmosphere of a primitive age, but actually only creating a sense of unreality. Still, this is a work of vast learn- ing, presenting an interesting picture of a bygone civilisation.

To the remaining novels on my list no exacting literary standards need be applied. Waiting for Joanna is the best of them, though its characters and incidents have a somewhat-

familiar ring. But Mr. Alington has an easy style, and his book, I imagine, is not intended to be more than an entertain- ment. I found the earlier chapters, picturing life in the 'nineties, the most enjoyable. Indeed, so successfully is the past recaptured in these that one might almost be reading a novel of the period. Both the hero and heroine, Andrew and Joanna, are pleasant people, and their love story is sym- pathetically told. It is natural, probable, and the scenes are presented with a light touch. Unfortunately, with the entrance of Hickory a more conventional note is sounded. For Hickory, though in a way quite possible, nevertheless is related to the stock villains of fiction, and we feel that any tale in which he figures is bound to turn to melodrama. He is there for one purpose only, to interrupt the romance of Andrew and Joanna, to marry Joanna against her will, to leave Andrew a faithful bachelor lover who grows old watching, while powerless to check, the tragic course of Joanna's fate.

The years pass ; we reach modern days ; Hickory, at first only mildly sadistic, has now developed into a half-insane beast ; the end is near. On the wrapper we are told that the novel is "presented in a way that is at once unusual and

intriguing." It is the " way " used by Tourgueneff in Torrents of Spring. Andrew at the age of fifty-five is sitting

waiting for Joanna, and while he waits the story takes place in his memory. But Tourganeff allows his hero to remember nothing except what he must have brooded over often in the past : Mr. Alington soon reaches a point when things have to be explained, things have to happen, of which Andrew could have had no knowledge. An artist like Mr. Westerby,

whose Quiet Streets I reviewed a fortnight ago, would either have solved this technical problem or else have invented a new scheme. Mr. Alington simply ignores it. But I know these points only interest a few people like myself, and I recommend the book as one which most readers will enjoy.

Not so many will enjoy Their Eyes Were Watching God, and where they do, it will hardly be for the sake of the story.

It is a novel of negro life written by a negress, and in this fact, perhaps, lies its chief interest. One must be prepared for grammatical peculiarities—the use of " lay " for "lie," of "off of" for "off," and similar lapses—also the negro dialect, in which the bulk of the book is composed, is not always easy reading. But Zora Hurston understands her own people and can make them live ; there are flashes of both poetry and humour in the book ; while, with the exception of the mad dog incident and its consequences, the whole thing 'struck me as authentic and convincing. There are no whites in the tale. Janie, the heroine, leaves her first husband for Joe Starks, and finds the change not much better, though Joe is prosperous and becomes Mayor of the negro town of

Eatonville. Twenty years later, on Joe's death, she takes up with the much younger and more volatile Tea Cake, And

now for the first time she falls in love. One expects tragedy ;

Janie indeed, who is no fool, half expects it ; but actually, in spite of the disparity of age between them, they are perfectly,

happy together, and though the story does end tragically, that is the result of accident. The characters are uneducated, simple people, rather like grown-up children. Except that they have not been idealised they belong distinctly to the world of Uncle Remus, therefore they are very much what I should have expected them to be.

They appealed to me ; I liked them a great deal more than the clever people in Miss May Sarton's The Single Houn.r. This is a carefully written novel, and I dare say will described as charming, whimsical, and poetic. Three old ladies are running a school in Belgium ; the "little owls they are playfully called, and that is typical of the book. On: of these "little owls," under the pseudonym of Jean Latoui writes poetry. She is so considerable a poet, indeed, tha young English author, who has found even adultery powerle- - to renew lost ideals, comes out to Belgium to sit at her fec He breathes with her the spiritual atmosphere he has alwa.: longed for, his difficulties are removed, his path made and that is the whole story. We are given specimens of ti verses of Jean Latour and her disciple, but they did n, impress me. Jean Latoiir did not impress me ; the cliscip!-: did not impress me ; .the book did not impress me.