Fiction

011a Podrida

The Career of Julian Stanley-Williams. By Adrian Alington. (Chatto and Windus. 8s. 6d.)

Ma. ALINGTON is one of the few who ca i follow up a successful first novel. No intelligent reader of Slowbags and Arethusa will be disappointed by its more euphonious successor. It is the story of an entirely contemptible and insincere human being, whom Mr. Alington has managed so to link up with the mountebank in us all that we come to be sorry for the wretch, and can derive no satisfaction from his misfortunes. Such an achievement deserves examination.

Julian Williams—the Stanley and the hyphen were added later for professhinal reasons—grew by natural stages from a conceited and untruthful little boy to a conceited and un- truthful young man. Acting was in his blood, but as a poison ; he possessed no qualifications for the stage except good looks. Amateur theatricals led to the Shakespeaiian company of Ma Bunter-Westbury : a further and better engagement led to Winifred. Of Winifred, a girl of rare charm and beauty, the knowing ones prophesied that she would go far. She proceeded to falsify their prophecy by marrying Julian. For a while the pair acted together, but Julian grew more and more jealous of her success, till her career had been sacrificed to his insufficiency. He went on tour, was unfaithful to her, with varying degrees of humiliation, and at last, when all chance of her return to the stage was gone, left her for the " sympathetic and under- standing " Isobel. Till then a figure of derision, Julian takes on somehow the dignity of tragedy. The horror of being tied to an unloved exacting woman, the hatred that becomes an obsession, is set down with real power : but Julian cannot sustain the tragic role, and the curtain falls on a figure restored by death to his essential shoddiness.

As a novelist, Mr. Alington has great virtues, and only amiable weaknesses. He has observation, humour, a quick sense of character, and a kindly eye for all God's creatures ; yet he can be moved to an almost savage mockery. He has the real story-teller's power of holding our attention, and every- thing he writes is lit by the curious personal quality which, for want of a better name, we call charm. • The Career of Julian Manley-Willianth triumphs easily over its defects : but it has defects. 'Shute ill-inspired person once likened Mr. Alington's first book to The Good Companions. It would be a great pity if the faintest idea of such a kinship were, even subconsciously, to influence Mr. Alington. His new novel would be much strengthened by compression. Some of its characters are irrelevant : some of its drama is a little easy. Lack of material will never be Mr. Alington's trouble. If he will tighten his inspiiational belt, English literature may well be enriched by " a fine writer of comedy. Meanwhile, here is a

delightful and story, ' which deserves wide success. .

" Farewell Manchester, noble town farewell." Mr. Monkhouse's clear, thoughtful, melancholy novel sounds, explicitly and in* parable, a lament foi the vanished glories Of the tanea:shii.e' cotton tra4C. • John -Henry Tunstall had a daUghter and two sons. -Waftei. could not believe that what he liked-was good for him. He gaVe up boxing, cricket; and

his ambition to be an actor, because he liked them too much. Jack was less easy to classify.

" If you take me into the business it must be with your eyes open—to what I am, I mean.'

' But what the devil are you f ' said John Henry."

The young people of Chowburn thought they knew what both brothers were. The called them " the Two Prigs." Both love the same girl : and when, at a meeting of operatives, Walter's control breaks and he kills a man, whereupon Jack refuses the girl's love, in order to stand by his brother, the

young people of Chowburn seem to have a little reason on their side. Mr. Monkhouse never raises his voice, but every word goes home. Farewell Manchester is a wise, even book, full of "quiet authority, aimpelling thought, which will be remem-

' bered long after it is Out down. - Since Solange possessed a special intuition of evil, which

precludes the possibility of surprise in her Solange Stories, Miss Tennyson Jesse explains that they must be called crime and not detective stories. So be it : but when a short story is as skilfully handled as,- foi instance, " The Reprieve," only a lunatic will bother his head about its category. Miss Tennyson Jesse is an expert criminologist, and her technique is beyond

praise. I take off my hat to Solange, and recommend her and all her works without reserve.

Mr. Warre B. Wells has done English readers a service by his admirable translation from the Spanish writer Azorfn. Everyone who is interested in the art of the short story should get hold of The Syrens, and read, for a start, " Rose, Lily and

Carnation," "The Lady Unsure of Herself," and " The Moth and the Flame." It may be that others, which differ less from conventional models—an irony like " Children On The Shore," a straight tale like " The First Miracle "—will better please the average reader : but the three first mentioned make a con- venient half-way house on the road to the more extreme " Gestation " or " The Balance." For Azorin, the world of phenomena is an expression, more or less misunderstood, of an abiding reality. The thing seen is not the vision, nor the thing heard the message. Both need interpreting. Tentatively, beneath a trapping of old custom, superstition, and coincidence, he hints an occasional interpretation, a correspondence between the seen and the unseen. If most American and many English editors could read the best of these stories, they might wonder uneasily whether they had been right all these years. But this is fantasy, and all too easily interpreted. '

L. A. G. STRONG.