New Novels
MR. TOYNBEE'S hero is in four parts—Noel, innocent, in the Garden of Eden (we do not hear much from him), Adam the sad young man, deserted by his wife, becoming a little tedious in a familiar situation ; but often the quick bright word pulls life into the picture. Tom is the man of action, the airman, up in the sky and away, with thoughts for the charred remains of fighting companions. There is also Charley, liveliest of the lot, the grand down to earth low one, a true God-fearing Goethe-Mephistophelian one, perpetually in a respectful clinch with Beard. Now Beard is Charley's vision of God. He is a gusty God Almighty-Cheiron-First-Cguse Creator, with flowing beard and flailing hooves. Did Charley think he was going to get the better of Beard ? No, he did not, he knows Beard's cunning and Beard's power and knows those holy hooves are coming up smack . on Charley's shabby hopes. The book is couched in speech form, the speaker's name printed large. But do not skip to 'Charley, because that would be to miss a great deal of beauty, the beauty of • ! the high island scenery, the fierce brightness of the faces, Daisy-the- r lady's, so crumpled and pouting when the sun of that marriage has • set ; the young Willy-face in the. Daisy-lap ; Willy, the gifted down- and-out boy poor Adam took pity on, inviting him home ; the little worm that ate up his wife. In the end the integrated character speaks with authority but it is the voice of Adam. This is a high flying novel one must salute.
Mr. Massingham is a most witty and entertaining novelist with a true respect for human feelings, a civilised writer. His hero in this novel—possessor of the wandering eye—is Mr. Brockhurst, a middle- aged rich person with a weak heart, making for Nice in charge of his chauffeur, a firm character called William who does not like the French, or the food, or the women. William loves his employer and tries to keep the women off and he loves the car which he calls " the old lady." An irreplaceable missed part holds them up in a charming village. But it was here.twenty years ago that the then young Mr. Brockhurst had two love affairs which, in spite of William, are going to drag him down. The lady at the dishevelled chateau, Marie de Lisle, is no longer young, and when she was young she used to say : " Tell me, is it true that in England Roman Catholics have no vote ? " She has the charm of being single-minded and good. The other love affair was with a voracious peasant girl who seduced the young Brockhurst and is now Madame at the inn with a daughter she says is his. Mr. Brockhurst notes uneasily that this young woman leaps across the room as if about to take part in a lacrosse match. The days pass pleasantly, a visitor from Paris, Madame Dupay, invites all men to love her for herself (Mr. Brockhurst responds). At 'the château all is black catholicism and mourning for martyred ancestors. Mr. Brockhurst now decides he will marry Marie and this does not seem odd because the author gives depth to the comical feelings they have for each other. But he dies immediately after the bedside wedding so he will not be able to go on lending money to M. de Lisle and watching Marie's aristocratic mother slicing french beans as if they were January peaches. Mr. Calvin Tompkins, a twenty-five-year-old American writer, is very good. There are two rich young Atherican brothers, Elliot and Jay. Jay is twenty-three and tells the story. He is very concerned about Elliot, his older brother. They have never " got on," there is jealousy about their father, an austere gentleman who loves being alone and reading, " my father had done nothing for twenty years " ; he might be English. Their mother is dead. At first Elliot and Jay are visiting in Santa Fe for the skiing. Elliot's peculiar friend Roger is there, and Roger's peculiar mistress Camilla, and Camilla's peculiar first husband Louis who " loves young people". These peculiarities are never fully explained but the atmosphere is powerful. In the rich New York suburban house with Father, the friends and the friends of the friends meet again, and there are the rich young college girls and the black cook Minerva, all leading up to the embar- rassing wedding customs when Elliot marries Jean. This author is very clever in the matter of the American young and their rituals • and shibboleths and he can point the youth of the story-telling Jay without diminishing the boy's beautiful intelligence and odd worldly know- ledge...." I was about to propose we go off somewhere but 1 put it off too long and her date came round and watched us for a few minutes and she went away with him. She really played a lovely game of billiards." He admires the " brightly dressed brightly mannered young girls of Smith, Vassar and Bryn Mawr " but finds true comfort in Camilla's arms. We should like to have known the nature of Camilla's deadly power (Circe is mentioned, along with the provocative statement that she " not only turned men into pigs ") and what it was she did to the chilly, sarcastic and finally ruined Roger. Mr. Tomkins cheats on this. Miss Ruiner Godden's Sophie seems very much the English- woman abroad. She is an idealist and a woman of action, resource- ful, rebellious and strong-minded. She is the sort of woman that, if pretty, men find aggravating, if not pretty, intolerable. Her husband, ineffectually representing his firm in India, has died and Sophie brings her two young children, Teresa aged eight and the baby Moo, to a dilapidated house in a remote Kashmiri village. People say, with a resignation inseparable from the opinion, that it will be the death of them. Boldly the author shows how wrong one can go, in a small primitive and hierarchic community, where religious feelings run high and what is and is not done are matters of life and death. Boldly too she shows that what Sophie wanted was right, though at first it seemed to bring nothing but uproar and ruin. The house boy tries to rouse her affection with powdered glass and marijuana (it was a misunderstanding, he did not understand those bottles in Sophie's herb factory) and .both he and the fine young Nabir Dar stand accused of attempted murder. Step by step Sophie Works to undo the mistakes and in the end, forced to leave the country, forced by her redoubtable heart to leave also the egregious suitor from home, she is met too late by the love and admiration of the village people, who see her off with a rich variety of presents, including a goose. This is a truthful and courageous story, the scenery beautifully painted, the characters fully seen and contrasted. Sophie's relationship with her little daughter is particularly good.
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