BIOGRAPHY
Raw Material
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson: The Scholar- Naturalist 1860-1948. By His Daughter Ruth D'Arcy Thompson. (O.U.P., 25s.) Parachutes and Petticoats. By Brigitte Friang. Jarrolds, 21s.)
BIOGRAPHIES and autobiographies are supposed to be more popular nowadays than novels. One can see why. They are raw material and one can make one's own novel out of them. Ruth D'Arcy Thompson's biography of her father who was Professor of Natural History in Dundee and St. Andrews for more than sixty years gives a fine picture of past times-1860 to 1948—and of that vanishing noble creature the man of science who is also a classicist and a humanist, a man of affairs and conversation, an affectionate man. The photo- graphs are delightful, especially the one of Miss Clementina Gamgee facing the little boy D'Arcy; she was his aunt and brought him up lovingly. There is a postscript-essay by Professor Medawar on Sir D'Arcy's famous work On Growth and Form and a genealogical table showing that the Gamgees were farm bailiffs in the eighteenth cen- tury but now are professors. A novel out of this material could be straightforward. With I ti ycelf Not Least the hunting novelist had better conic slantwise and beware of fallings into farce. *Rudi' has such a bouncing personality. He is very amorous but has a natural cunning and avoids troubles, and he likes excitement and be- lieves the Lord is with him. He even thinks the Lord, given a hint—and he does give Him a hint— will help him find a nice house . . . and fix his military commitments (in the First World War) so that his sweetheart can stay by his side ... and keep him off trains that are going to be wrecked • and give him warning messages by dreams and phantoms. Ostensibly the book is the life- history of an Austrian medical doctor who takes to psychology, has some encounters with Freud, claims first to have cornered that fast friend of doctors in a fix—the psychosomatic ailment—and lives a gay old Viennese life in a rich way when young. The case histories are, as always, 41 ground of rich cropping for novelists: 'Mrs. Brown complained of piercing pains in the abdomen.' It was because of wanting to murder her daughter. Asthma, bedwetting and backaches are traced to such infant disturbances as rape, divorce and coming third among siblings. True enough, I dare say, but it is Rudi's cures that stick —they come so pat. For instance, at the age of twelve he is suffering from nervousness and de- pression. He begins an 'innocent' affaire with Lili, aged eighteen. As a result Rudi becomes 'sparkling with life and joy.' Lili, he tells us, 'also profited by this treatment. She changed to a beautiful radiant girl, and the many pimples on her face disap- peared.' Dr. Rudi is such a splendid mixture of Baron Munchausen and Casanova, with Moll Flanders thrown in for the pietism, that novelists really would have to be careful.
Parachute and Petticoats (help!) calls for deep psychological treatment . . . loose Graham Greene at it. This girl parachutist is too bright, even under torture. With one lung left, she volun- teers for more fighting fun in Indo-China, being there brightly dubbed 'the mascot of the French army.' This lady may have been bright and was certainly brave, but the tale is cheap.
STEVIE SMITH
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