FICTION.
THE BELLS OF PARADISE.*
THERE are ninny interesting points in Mr. Geoffrey N'Vhitworth's novel which, if it be his first, is quite an achievement—his study of the woman suffrage movement before and on the outbreak of war, and his description of film-play writing, to say nothing of his careful portraiture of the amiable, impressionable Robin West,the central figure in a novel without a hero. But by far the most impressive passage in the book is the episode of Robin's casual meeting with an English Roman Catholic priest at Bruges. Had the book been written before the war, this would have been an astonishing effort in vati cinati on. But, even regal de d as a prophecy after the event, Father Smith's views on the growth and workings of the war spirit in peace, his defence of dogma, his explanation of Norman Angellism and the powerlessness of democracy to stop war, his theories on the unreality and realism of modern art, and above all his convictions as to the intimate relation between national strength and the observance of the Roman Catholic religion, are expressed with remarkable power and literary skill. It is only a chance meeting, and the two never meet again, btr, the impression abides on the reader, though the interview failed to restrain Robin at a critical point of his career. But then Robin was a weakling, not devoid of genuine impulses, but fated to do the right thing when it was too late to make full reparation. With the exception of the priest, the women are stronger than the men ; yet the author is no uncompromising " feminist," and preserves on the whole an attitude of critical detachment on the broader and non-political influences of suffragism. And if the story is painful, it is not wantonly so ; the disaster is implicit in the interaction of the characters of the principal actors. Nor should we fail to recognize the vitality of the minor characters, notably the vulgar cinema organizer and his angular assistant•, and the admirable contrast between the two girls, the self-protective Adrian and the self-sacrificing Avis, or the gradual regeneration of the former. Mr. Whitworth ought cer- tainly to be heard of again, for he is equipped with the gift of style as well as observation, and handles the element of surprise so as to make it organic.
Previous page
