The Clean Heart. By A. S. M. Hutchinson. (Hodder and
Stoughton. 6s.)—Mr. Hutchinson has written a most curious novel—a novel difficult to review, difficult to classify under
any heading. At first it seemed as though it were an unsatisfactory imitation of some of Mr. Chesterton's work, as though its freedom from carelessness and convention were due mainly to the force of that example. Then, half-way through, we discovered the thread of a moral—how a man, to find himself, must seek, not in egoistical unselfishness, not in
a life free from all bounds and cares, but in the realization of the principle of sacrifice—and this thread is held and followed to the end. The book is seriously marred by the writer's affected and staccato style. He indulges in an ill-judged use of the present tense and in a reiteration of single words, which loses its effect through familiarity. Here is an example of what we mean : "Felt things in my heart so I was always in a torment, and always tying myself up tighter and tighter and tighter—not doing this because I thought it was unkind to this person; and doing that because I thought I ought to do it for that person—messing, messing, messing round and spoiling my life with rotten sentiment and rotten ideas of rotten duty." Apart from these defects, the story is strong and clever, and sometimes inspired by a genuine feeling of tragedy.
Previous page
