EPITHALAMIUM. By Jacques Chardonne. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d. net.) L'Epithalame won
the Northcliffe Prize for the best French novel in 1922: it is a book which brings upon its author no discredit. It shows a continual accuracy of observation, and indeed almost every page seems definitely a transcript from life. But this life-like appearance is in some measure due to inartistic methods of composition—partly to the disconnexion of its episodes, partly to the complete emptiness of its conversations. No one ever makes a witty or pregnant or evressive remark. Sometimes M. Chardonne's charac- terization is neat " ' What's that you're saying ? ' cried M. Quatrefage, who made people around him repeat everything to save himself the trouble of listening " ; sometimes we are amused by the items of general behaviour that he brings to our attention, as when he begins a paragraph : "Thinking the water would get cold, Bertha jumped out of bed " ; but the novel, on the whole, is steady and dull. The heaviness of the dialogue is aggravated by the formality of the translation, an authorized and nameless translation, sound but without freedom of idiom. We are surprised that the publishers should announce on the dust-jacket : "So complete and vivid an account of the irritations and perils of the post-honeymoon period of marriage could never have been recorded by an Englishman." The book is reticent, and its avoidance of sensationalism is perhaps its chief virtue.
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