Fiction
By L. A. G. STRONG.
Os finishing Mr. Edward Thompson's new novel, one lays it dawn reluctantly, with mixed emotions. First is a sense of gratitude at having been in communion with an impas- sioned and scholarly mind. Secondly, the sense of having been drawn back, as few books beside Way of Revelation and Mr. G.:P. Robinson's The Debt have been able to draw one back, into the atmosphere of unforgettable years—an atmosphere which seems somehow to have been the same on all fronts and at home. Last, a sense of regret that so noble a testament rims the risk, through what are only mannerisms of its author, of missing the generation which has most to learn from it.
Lament for Ackmis is a tale of the time immediately pre- ceding Allenby's victorious drive in Palestine, and of the drive itself. Two English officers, " Bunny " Remfry and Martin Chapman, meet in Palestine a couple of American girls, one of whom comes from Virginia, the other from Pennsylvania. The first part of the book sustains the rather uneven course of true love, against a background of outings in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem and cricket matches on Mount Olivet. Then Bunny's regiment is ordered to France, and despite all efforts to detain him, for he has more than earned a peaceful job, he insists on following. He is killed ; and the girl who loved him does her best to bring together Martin and Valerie. Finally, after Allenby has struck and won, she succeeds in her aim.
It is difficult to convey the authority and the slow charm of this story. Mr. Thompson does not hide the horrors of war : his account of the carnage after the Turkish defeat, and of the sufferings of the sick and wounded in Damascus, is as strong a pacifist document as could be desired. At the same time, he emphasizes most strongly that sense of com- radeship which so many now feel has vanished from the world, and his eye is fixed, not on horror, but on the nobler achievements of the human spirit in extremity. "Those who imagine that war brings degradation only know nothing of the thing they presume to discuss." In fact, but for one thing, Mr. Thompson would be the ideal interpreter of the War years to those who know nothing of them. What that one thing is, the following excerpt will show better than anything I can say about it :
"She held up her face to his. And / think that you're my own darling boy. It's the only thing I can think just now. Good night, Bunny ! ' 'Good night, Cynthia sweetheart ! Until Kantara.' Good night, darling. My own dear dear splendid Bunnykins ! ' Everything ends, even lovers' partings. Yet after this one had ended he reappeared. Sweetheart !
' Darling ! ' I forgot to say—in case you are asked, your berth is taken in the name of Miss Falconbridge.' 'Miss Who, darling ? ' Miss Falconbridge.' He went a deeper red. 'It was my mother's name.' "
Now the generation which Mr. Thompson has hopes of addressing may find difficulty in taking this passage seriously. This is not because they are hard of heart, and cannot under- stand its emotion ; but because they are sophisticated, and express themselves differently. I, planted midway between • thein and Mr. Thompson, can feel with both. I knew the War years, and lost the friends of my schooldays : think I may say without presumption that I understand most of the things which Mr. Thompson feels. At the same time, I wince every now and then at something in his pages .hich reads a little avuncularly. It is a matter of phrasing, othing more : but phrasing, as those who have heard rmons in school chapels will agree, can make all the differ- ence. This, and a dislike for the lady from Virginia, made the only flaws in my enjoyment of a noble, authoritative, and often humorous piece of work.
Mr. Thompson asks his reader to accept Lament for Adonis as fiction, "and not assume, as many readers do, that what an author calls fiction is in fact diluted autobiography." Lord Allenby appears in his pages, but sparingly, and his utterances are treated as history. Mr. VVaytemore, in The Profiteer, goes further than this to make what does not seem a very satisfactory blend. Part of his story is fiction, and part of it professes to be fact. The jacket advises us that Mr. Waytemore "does justice for the first time to a great English statesman's services in the World War." The career of Lord Reggland, hero of The Profiteer, bears striking resemblances to the career of a certain highly distinguished statesman. In the latter part of the book, the statesman appears in person, and Lord Reggland is pushed into the Lackground. Each part of the book is competently done, but the method has obvious disadvantages, and puts the reviewer of fiction in a difficulty.
The shadow of the War is still heavy upon the next book on our list. The gulf of which Herr Ebermayer writes lay between the generation which knew the War (typified by Toni Forster) and the generation, typified by Jurgen Reid, which did not. The two are extreme types, Forster a nervous wreck, Jurgen young and unthinkingly optimistic. They meet at the small German university where Jurgen is a freshman. Tom, desperate for friendship, forces himself upon the younger man, and, strangely enough, they become friends.
The friendship, though curious, has about it nothing abnormal. All goes well till the arrival of Gerd Fink, who had known Torn when he was a boy. He gets hold of Jurgen, and makes suggestions about Tom which break the friendship. Torn tries to commit suicide. Then, by an irony, it is Fink who
reconciles the two before Tom's death. Herr Ebermayer presents a careful and convincing study of the two men, and avoids the sentimentality which, as the synopsis shows, WAS the chief pitfall for this story. Its one weakness is that the pattern seems to have been chosen before the characters.
The Mulberry Tree has a liberal allowance of faults, but more than sufficient virtues to outweigh them. The characters are inclined to talk at the reader, especially In the early chapters. The story of Leah, told in retrospect, has little to do with the advancing story of Alison and Anthony, and the stage is set for Francis' final exploit with a thoroughness which robs it of significance. An interesting thesis could be written upon the amount of preparation for an event which stimulates the reader's mind, as contrasted with the amount which makes the event, as here, an anti-climax. Failing such a document, however, I am still quite sure that Miss Wilkinson errs heavily on the side of excess. There is, however, no fault in The Mulberry Tree which experience cannot cure, and there is a great deal which mere experience could never give ; a feeling for character, sensitive perceptions, and, above all, the ability to savour life and to record it. The actual story simply tells us how Alison met Anthony, and finally took him over from Jean, and this in itself, without Leah's Irish child- hood, without Mama and the deplorable Francis, would be enough to mark Miss Wilkinson as a writer of unusual sincerity. Now for lighter themes. A country house, with an old husband and a young wife—a handsome explorer on a visit- s beautiful parlourmaid, recruited from the New Poor : with these ingredients, we may have two or three guesses at what to expect. We know also that we can expect a lively and readable story from the authors of The Rowforest Plot, and we are not disappointed.
Mr. Beeston labours at a similar mixture of ingredients, but his hand is not so deft. Kind hearts may be more than coronets, but one feels the combination of family life in the Euston Road with the mystery of Lord Ripplingsea's pearls to be injudicious. True, the Earl's son can disguise his rank and his powers of detection, be loved by the daughter of the family for himself alone, and put everything right with his lordship by producing the pearls ; but we are not satisfied. To 'read nappy- gvei After' makes one realize how good the Weekeses are,
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