The New Americans. By Alfred Hodder. (Macmillan and Co. 6s.)—In
the space we are able to give to Mr. Alfred Hodder's most cunningly clever novel, The New Americans, it would be barely possible to give a catalogue raisonnd of the extraordinary number and variety of persons who are brought into it. And every character is individual and vital to the finger-tips. Each one is, moreover, defined in a procession of epigrams of which the brilliancy and sharpness give one a. sensation like being pelted with hailstones. From the crowd stand out with special importance Alan Windet's father, who "lived in a plenary inspiration of certitudes, and had a ready scorn for any one who did not," and Alan Windet's mother, who discovered soon after marriage "that whoever takes ideas so seriously as to deviate from the practice of his set,' takes them with a seriousness that may become hateful," and accordingly hated her husband and tried to leave him, but settled down again in his house when she learned that she might not take her boy with her. Alan grew up to love his mother and fear his father, and to be in general outcome a revised edition of both. He muddled his life, however, as far as happiness is concerned, though he lived cleanly, honourably, and affectionately, and by the tragedy of his death achieved a rec. nciliation of all the elements of strife in his family and connection. Brilliant at every point, the novel, though well worth reading as a searching study of American mind and manners, yet oppresses one with a certain monotony in its scenes
and situations. The remark may be trivial, but the English reader craves the relief and perspective that more variety of style and social tradition among the personages would give to an equally crowded canvas with a European objective.
Previous page
