OLD NEW ENGLAND
THE number of soldiers who served in the Confederate army has long been a matter of controversy among historians, but whatever may be the final decision, it seems probable that they were less numerous than the pages of fiction devoted to the lost cause in modern America. It is an agreeable novelty, then, to encounter an American historical novel that is not another variant on the theme of the Stars and Bars Forever. Miss Forbes has laid her scene not among roses and magnolias, but in the more austere setting of seventeenth- century New England. She has ingeniously woven together the fortunes of a family and of a nascent society ; the lives of the Parres and of the Massachusetts Bay colony are carefully and -cleverly related. Miss- Forbes has obviously taken great pains with her local colour and her conversations ; though the happy mean between Wardour Street and modern speech is not always attained ; and, in the narrative, such words as " hoodlum " seem a little out of place in the grave style which is usually and successfully employed here.
Paradise, then, as an historical reconstruction is a success. As a novel its rank is lower and less certain. The most dramatic episode in the book is a branding for adultery And it may be literary snobbery but scarlet letters, for some -readers, are already patented, by a great artist. But the account of the new settlement of Canaan, of the dealings with the Indians (including that landmark in New England history, King Philip's war), of such standard ingredients in the New England historical boiled dinner as bundling (which was not, as may seem to be implied, unknown in Old England) is likely to evoke interest in a side of history that has its own fascination. On the other hand, one reader found it difficult to take a deep interest in the persons of the drama. Rape or attempted rape, Indian wars and suicides, sadistic outrages, all are narrated with skill and clarity but in an excessively objective way., They are seen not in summer heat but in the dear light, of Fall as Monadnock is seen. Perhaps, after all, this is how one should write about New England whose clear cool Fall days are among the climatic glories of the world. But Paradise, which will interest and inform any intelligent reader, will hardly fascinate any but those to whom anything about New England comes with a private appeal.
---D.- W. BRCGiN.-
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