Shorter Notices
My Father Before Me. By Norman Good- land. (Hutchinson. 12s. 6d.) Tins is a strange and wholesome book, fresh as the open air itself and as heavy with 'the nostalgia for things past as the writings of Marcel Proust. It is sad ; but its sadness is that of an exquisite and minor bucolic comedy, and Mr. Goodland writes with a very sure touch. His simple anecdotes of family life are woven together with an intensity which is almost painful, and the world he evokes—his father was a master thatcher—is one of poverty and pride, stern discipline, country lore and subtle social dis- tinctions. How well the book starts and how sad it becomes I And yet, such is Mr. Good- land's skill, he is able to present the annals of the parish so that the reader has to go on reading them willy-nilly, unable to put the book down as he watches the survival of a family which could, all too easily, have been socially destroyed. It is a most sincere book, and one of the most beautiful passages it contains describes the hero's terrible anxiety for his mother during her last confinement and, also, the almost miraculous cure she obtained for her dropsy by taking a gipsy's advice. The gipsy was a little unwilling to accept, pay- ment for the herb which, when properly prepared, drove the dropsy away. She did so, however, in spite of the pitiful illness of her client. And what was the sum asked for that initial bundle of yarrow? ft was a world of poverty: the sum was one penny. D. S.
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