FICTION

By FORREST REID Aunt Betty. By Morchard Bishop. (Cape. 7s. 6d.)

Despair and Delight. By Ralph Arnold. (Constable. 7s. 6d.) Survival of the Slickest. By Cresswell Curtis. (Cape. 7s. 6d.) I HAVE a suspicion that Under the Long Barrow may have reached me by chance, owing to the blurb, which describes it as a serious novel within the framework of a thriller. This description is true, but the seriousness, being based trustfully on the doctrines of Freud, has not increased the tale's proba- bility. Still, Under the Long Barrow interested me, for it is some time since I read a book of this kind—containing four murders, three murderers, a detective, and a group of suspects all, morally, more or less below par. Normal, decent humanity is represented by the detective himself and a couple of butlers, while the whole is set forth by Sir Christopher Haddon, the hero, which incidentally means that the novel is pseudonymous. It is in the form of a memoir, and this would be all very well had not the plot demanded that at a certain point the memoir should become a confession, and of course it is nothing of the sort. Last confessions are not written with the technique of a crime story whose ingenious aim is to keep us as long as possible guessing at the identity of the criminal. Yet a novel may be serious without being realistic, so let us glance for a moment at the psychology.

When Haddon, still unsuspected, is confronted with the body of his victim—the young girl he had passionately loved and whom he once believed to be his daughter—what is his first reaction, the first thought to arise in his mind? I dare say you will expect it to be one prompted by fear, or remorse, or even pity. But no; incredible as it may seem, it is a literary quotation : "0 ill-starred wench, pale as thy smock ! " Even granting that he has committed the murder in a kind of trance, so false a note is fatal; and when it is added that the crime itself has been partly suggested by a reading aloud of Othello on the previous night, it will become clear that we are not in the world of actuality, but in some "misty mid• region" of Freudian fairy-tale. So it is hardly surprising to find that the methods of Inspector Rawlins are based much more on a study of morbid psychology than on those of Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Thorndyke. •He has been sent by Scotland Yard to inquire into certain murders that have taken place, apparently the work of a homicidal maniac, the "Dorset Killer," since the crimes are motiveless and the victims 'marked with a curious incision on their foreheads. Sir Christopher puts him up at -the Manor, and while he is there two more murders are committed, though only one body bears the Killer's sign. It may look as if I had given the story away, but really I haven't.* On the other hand, perhaps I have judged it by the wrong standards. For a thriller, I suppose, has its own laws, yet in this case I cannot help thinking that the influence of the German professor has not been helpful. There is plenty of humour, plenty of irony, in Mr. Morchard Bishop's Aunt Betty, and plenty of truth. Not all the characters in the tale are pleasant, but the unpleasant are the most amusing, because Mr. Bishop views them tolerantly, and not with the macabre eye of the psycho-analyst. The story, too, suits his style, which has easiness, lightness, and charm. It is the story of a family—always a dull subject for a humour- less writer, and a delightful one when treated as Mr. Bishop ueats it. Three generations are presented, but not after the tedious. chronological method usually adopted; ,here they are on the stage together, with the exception. of Aunt Betty, who,

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in the flesh, is never really on the stage at all, since she dies at the beginning. Nevertheless the title. is justified, for Aunt Betty's ghost haunts the book. While she lived she Wis, the link uniting the various members of the family, their affection for her holding them precariouily together in a state of armed neutrality, mutually suspicious, yet not act1Vely "hostile. Im- mediately after her death this peace is broken, and they separate into their several camps.

For those who take a pleasure in such things, I may say that the novel has form. Personally, I take a great pleasure in them; I like to watch the skill with which the conscious artist—by selection, foreshortening, and manipulation—shapes

his material into a preconceived pattern. Mr. Bishop I, a conscious artist. To borrow a comparison from music, his first theme is briefly stated in the opening chapter by old Mn. Bryant, Aunt Lydia, who is ninety-four, and can no longer leave her rooms, where she sits surrounded by her collections of photographs and newspaper-cuttings. Apart from a very natural, if slightly frivolous, desire to live to be a hundred, these collections represent her sole surviving interest in life, which is centred on two families, her own and the Royal.

With the entries of nephews and nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces, variations on this theme are developed; while the second and more dramatic theme is introduced with the funeral of Aunt Betty. Now barriers are broken down, and to some extent even decencies. In spite of internal dissensions, two main opposing armies are established, the Davidson group and the Bowman group—both matriarchal, since the husbands are dead—with Laura Davidson at the head of one, and her

sister, Beatrice Bowman, at the head of the other. Only, the Bowmans, owing to a supposed likeness between Beatrice and the Widow Twankey in Aladdin, are rarely given their legiti- mate name; the book has a definite and, as we get to know the

characters, perfectly understandable Davidson bias. A solo by Arthur Davidson, recalling memories of childhood and the

shade of Aunt Betty, contrasts the leisurely spirit of the old days with the restless discontent of the present. Then the first theme is repeated in a minor key, as old Mrs. Bryant gradually drops asleep, her desire to reach her hundredth birthday forgotten, and never to be fulfilled. .

It is a distinguished novel, and an entertaining one. Perhaps I can better suggest its manner by a quotation:

"Uncle Lionel feebly waved an ineffective hand. He wanted the drink, but he didn't want to seem to want the drink. Mrs. Davidson comprehended the subtlety of his gesture, and poured him out a stiff one.

"The Widow Twankey shot a dagger-glance at her sister, and said : 'Surely unnecessary, my dear ! With the body of our dear one still in the house.'"

Mr. Arnold's Despair and Delight is a less realistic and much slighter tale; but it, too, is gay and witty, though with a hint of fantastic tragedy hovering in the background—a kind of haunting really, for it is the influence, at once beautiful and

malign, of a house. Coming at first in the form of mere rumour, as the story progresses this sinister element takes more definite and ominous shave, lending a strange fascination to a brilliant comedy. Until the very end I did not know what the climax would be, though doubtless the title of the book should have told me. But one forgets these things, and the theme was

capable of, and at last seemed definitely to point to, the most sombre development. The novel is graceful and attractive,

the characters are of the landowning class, and the scene is rural. Above all, Mr. Arnold has an excellent story to tell and knows how to tell it. His solution did not entirely satisfy

me, but the tale itself opens a door to the imagination, and the supernatural element is kept in key with the delicate charm of the surroundings.

Charm and humour are not prominent in Survival of the Slickest, which belongs to the proletarian school of fiction. The strong point of the book is that it is written out of a first-hand

knowledge of the life described; its weakness that one some- how seems to have read it, or something very like it, before.

Preston and Fleming, the two heroes, are employed in the great IMPS motor factory, but Preston is "slick," unscrupu- lous, a toady who makes his way by flattering his superiors;

Fleming is more or less a Red, has vague ideals, and realises that he is only a very minor cog in a huge commercial machine.

Both are uneducated, and the picture is the more depressing because drink and the pursuit of women seem to offer the only escape from the monotonous daily grind. The drama contains an implied social criticism, and this criticism quite impartial. For the whole aspect would have been altered had Fleming not married Miriam, and Evelyn not

married Preston. Yet these mistakes can hardly be attributed to the industrial system, though in effect they colour the indict- ment. The book is not free from slips in grammar, and faults of taste, but 'it is at least intelligent and sincere.