Fiction

Death of a Man. By Kay Boyle. (Faber and Faber. 7s. 6d.) And Then You Wish. By John van pruten. . (Michael Joseph, ss. Od ) Midnight. By. Julian Green. Translated by Vyvyan Holland.

(Heineinann. 7s. 64.) - - " Europa. By Robert Briffault. (.1-;,ohert Hale. Se. 6d.) Giant's Stride. By Brian Penton. (Cassell. 8s. 6d.). The Gentleman of -the Party. By A. G. Street. (Faber and

Faber. 7s. 6d.)

Ix handling such distinctive work as Miss Kay Boyle's while it is still in its corriparatively early stages;:ft-seems best to refrain from any kind of critical estimate and rather to describe, as simply as one may, how it differs: from that of the everyday popular novelist.. For such a purpose Mr. John van Druten's And'-Thea-Yon •TiTish- ehanceS to serve very well. Acre is a story. that may charm -many..but will

surprise nobody. It belongs to the favourite " special- individual " class and the interest you take in it must depend on the interest you can muster in the pathetic attempt-to-live

of a sweet old stage-struck nonentity. BeyOnd that-'there is little that can-hold you, -neither wit, nor imagination, nor information, nor even iroblenis raised (therein differing from

most of this writer's plays). How pOor old Blanche helped

young Gly-ir to success with his Play,- and how he thererifter just couldn't be bothered with her any more, is told at length

with patience, observaikin; and a great deal of circumstantial detail. Will Blanche ask a friend -to.. supper Any day but Thursday will do, because that • is Emma's - evening out, although Ernma would change it if . &e:, &c. So day

in and evening out, we are initiated-intOthe existences of what we gather in apassing allusion-=the author understands by " real people."

Miss Boyle cannot be -bothered about - the maid's evening out or any such matter unless it bears some vital connexion

with principle issues, or unless beautiful for its own sake in a scene. For having a poet's mind, and vigor- ously eschewing that naturalism of style which Mr. van Druten so deliberately studieS,, she can invest any detail that happens

to strike her—the wet rings left by beer mugs on a wooden table, for example—with a fascinating importance. Here is the paradox of art, that while. Mr. van- Diuten's, minutely representational version of things never elicits from ns any cry of recognition, MiSs Boyle, a conscious . and selective

artist, if ever there was one, succeeds on every page. The

contrast is the more noticeable in that Miss Boyle's characters also seem to - be rather " special " ones, though never, it is true, so laboriously particularised as Mr. van Drutien's. Death of a Man is set in the Austrian Tyrol. A young doctor, Prochaska, who is a secret agent of the Nazi cause in his

country, falls in love with a young American girl whom he meets walking up a mountain with her Rnglish husband. It is typical of Miss Boyle's wholesome impatience with dull details fliat she manages to get the husband off the scene and :show .its the .girl accepting the dOefor's loVe without ever pausing to disclose how these important matters are, brought about. The narrative is elliptical at such moments almost to the point of obscurity ; but how refreshing it is to be served with nothing but what has passed:through a process of poetic distillation in the writer's mind. Not that the authoress herself is anywhere in evidence in the book. Its almost frigid anonymity. is a significant achievement in view of its controversial political background. When the doctor speaks with fanatical devotion of his- leader and " saviour " we remain aware of the utter inadequacy of the sentimental unreason which he is preaching, and yet are dazzled by his sincerity. The girl,at times burns with enthusiasm, at times is furious at the attempted invasion of her liberty.

But even though no shadow of the writer falls between us and her pictures, there remains the obstacle of her style, which, in spite of its complete digestion of influences, and its great strength and , charm, draws our..attention at pre- sent too consciously to itself instead of to its subject. It is intended more as a description than criticism if I suggest further how Miss Boyle's apprenticeship as a short-story writer affects the construction of her novel, which tends to fall by chapters into short stories. Finally, a vague suspicion.

Has she really any very interesting ideaa siboUt the scenes and individuals which she presents-so vividly The same question is left at .the end of -Midnight. We are led enchanted, it seems, to the Very verge of some immense truth, and then; rather giddy at the chasm's edge, discover nothing but a beautiful prospect. Biit there is no anti-climax in the story itself which .holds/ one in almost desperate excitement up to the 'Very last instant. The -first part of the book, in which an interesting orphan, Elizabeth,

is left to the mercies of her crazy aunts, is Etronte'-esque in . its drenching of pathos in the macabre ; and so is the short

second part with its-grave shocks. But the third, which is set in an ancient monastery that is now used 'for another, and, until the last chapter, completely enigmatic, purpose, is a veritable Udolpho. The crescendo of horror and fantasy moves from point to point with grim inevitability because the author never allows our imagination a moment's escape into supernatural explanations, but pins us doon with impudently ironical and casual reminders that here is a real world.

" Between these two motionless people the red flame 'of the candle flickered as though some sinister being were breathing on it and it lent the scene an odd character of fantastic unreality."

This at a point when not that scene only but the whole story has passed further into appearances of fantasy than Mrs. Radcliffe ever went. And whereas Mrs. Radcliffe's explanation was invariably an ineffective bathos, Mr. Green employs even bathos with telling effect. Nothing could be more bitterly humorous than the commonplace explanation of the mysterious warning giVen to Elizabeth to escape. The book remains elusive, because the key to it is given in vague dream-terms ; and the figure of M. Edme, in whom all the parts and persons of the story become so brilliantly united in the end, still remains an enigma. In the beauty and humour of it we may look for fables, but whatever their meaning, Mr. Green, like Miss Boyle, has created a myth that is a complete work of art. •- • Such myths must always secure more admiration 'than ones which have been found ready to hand: In Europa, a long novel whose English edition seems to be a good, deal more discreet than the original American one, Mr. Briffault has taken the ready-made myth of pre-War Europe, and attempted to re-create the glamour _.of those days of ignorance" on a panoramic scale. When all is said and • done—and there is a great deal of both—the glamour remains the thing, and the main characters, Julian Benn and Princess Zena, are little more than the links in a cavalcade of glittering scenes. We move in the palaces and great houses of Rothe, Nice, London and Berlin, where the royal, the rich, and the famous fignres of the day pass before our eyes-,;1 some, lingeringly, but most in a hurry. Mr. Briffault's scheme is --encyclopaedic, and from the Arts and _§ciences, down to the &intents- of the Rose catalogue, au immense' parade of !knowledge is made which does effectively suggest the cultural background of such a world: But it is not con- sistently impressive ; Mozart's Symphony in G flat would have been worth hearing, but the rendering of Beethoven's third symphony by a violin and piano in an apartment on the Kurfiirstendam can hardly have deserved the attention given it. The characters themselves do :not seem much the weightier for their author's. culture, though Julian is attractive, and his untiring - prophecies against " that callous unscrupulous criminal monster-the established social world " provide at /east a definite leit-Mohf, Giant's Stride takes the myth of growing Australia in the last century and by acquainting. us-at length with a number ! of grim characters vigorously suggests the grimness of that adventure. Mr. Street, for his part, makes in his latest I book a survey of farming in Wiltshire from 1872 to the-present day. Story and character- are entirely subservient to docu- inentationhut usefidly at, its service—and, the penultimate chapter is a veritable indignation meeting. His cavalcade of scenes is linked by the figure of a wage-earning labourer, who alone gives to the earth more than he expects from it, land picturesquely fits the title of.. the book.