Fiction

By L. A. G. STRONG TUE author of The Pony-Second Parallel has more than earned his right to use any form he chooses, and we must accept the manner of his new book as an integral part of what he has to say. Nineteen-Nineteen consists of six or seven brief fictional biographies, so presented as to overlap, interspersed with short sections Called " Newsreel " and others called The Camerars Eye." The biographies are written in traditional, straightforward English : the " Newsreels " purport to be cuttings : the " Camera's Eye" sections are for the most purl written in imitation Joyce.

There would be a case for the critic who represented that the author had tried to make the best of both worlds, writing the main part of his book in straightforward, intelli- gible American. and then, realizing that seven biographies did not make a novel, pasting up the joins with matter which would keep him in with the modernists. The critic would be wrong, for the man who could write The Forty- Second Parallel must be sincere, and sufficiently expert to know what he is doing. We must therefore take Mr. Dos Passos' book for what it is, and, dismissing all precon- ceptions, try to understand what exactly he has set out to do.

The biographies illustrate different types, all rather pessi- mistically, Joe Williams, a sailor, is twice torpedoed, has innumerable sordid adventures, and marries his Del, prin- cipally because she reminds him of his sister. Del keeps their relationship to that level, until she has learned to reciprocate, from others : and finally, poor bewildered oaf, Joe gets his quietus from a bottle. Dick Savage, a typical undergraduate, lays the small foundations of a literary career, then goes to France in the volunteer ambulance service. From there he is sent to Italy, is indiscreet, and is shipped home. He returns to France with . a commission, is once more sent to Italy, and loves Ann Elizabeth neither wisely nor well. Evelina Hutchins also went to France : "When they'd climbed into a thirdelass compartment they sat silent bolt upright facing each other, their knees touching, looking out of the window without seeing the suburbs of Paris, not saying anything. At last Eveline said with a tight throat, ' I want to have the little brat, Paul.' Paul nodded. Then she couldn't see his face anymore. The train had gone into a tunnel."

Daughter" went to France too. Linking his characters by this device, Mr. Dos Passos contrives to give us a cross- section of American life as it was affected by the War. The interpolated " Newsreels " and "Camera's Eyes" are part of his pattern, though personally I believe he could have got his effect more convincingly in another way. The reason for all this palaver about the form of the book is simply that there are a number of English readers who would be deeply interested in it, if they could once get over the initial difficulties the form presents. Nineteen-Nineteen is not for weak stomachs, but, with this warning, I strongly recommend it.

The Professional Christian describes, with irony and bitterness, the career of a successful parson. The Rev. J. C. Hardwick is a journalist of experience, and his novel is a first-class advertisement for journalism as a literary training. Tom Crewe happened one day to read that facilities would be offered to ex-officers desiring to be trained for the ministry of the Church of England :

" Though no lese relieved than other people that the War was safely over , „ he was inclined to regret the termination of his career as a gentleman."

He was not altogether mercenary, since he was a keen Churchman :

that is to say, he believed in the Apostolical Succession, in the true Catholicity of the Church of England, in the Real Presence, and so on—so far as he understood these doctrines."

This disquieting history tells, with a minimum of com- ment, how a decent but unintelligent and utterly common. place man "got on" in the Church, and how his more gifted Companions did not, It is very well written, and admirably

serves its author's purpose. Mr. Hardwick does not hold up his narrative to preach, but he gets in a number of telling aphorisms. "A bad memory is often the first condition of professional success " : "The behaviour and talk of very religious people always seems blasphemous to the semi- religious " ; and, at greater length : "Crews rightly held that the ideal curate is not the one who will perpetually be setting up his own views against the viear's, or who will seduce the people's allegiance by an excessive popularity, or by superior ability in preaching, but one who will order himself lowly and reverently. A man, in short, who will do jobs which 'have to be done, but which it is not worth the vicar's while to attempt. For example, the reading of daily services at the parish church; the baptizing of poor people's children ; the marrying and burying of persons of no social importance ; the visiting of people upon whom one does not leave cards ; the running of clubs for adolescents; the supervision of mothers' meetings ; preaching in the mission church, and even in the parish church when the vicar feels too tired. In short, a hard-working, conscientious man, not too gifted, and preferably not too much of a gentleman."

Everybody who is interested in the Church of England should read A Professional Christian.

Miss Naomi Royde-Smith's short stories are all concerned with what is best called the unexplained. "Seen of Men," for instance, is not a tale of the occult, though its central incident is not explicable in terms of ordinary three-dimen- sional reality. Some of the stories go further in this direction : others get little beyond the queer. All arc interesting, and none are exactly easy. Their quality is hard to define. Each paragraph is perfectly explicit, but the sum of them often produces a strange, deliberate uncertainty which hypnotizes the reader into that state in which the whole story can make its intangible but definite effect. As usual, the thought and texture of Miss Royde-Smith's writing are a delight to the sensitive reader :

"As he went the tide of his emotions ebbed, leaving a suffused happiness that lit the hour's walk along the river to Milton Chambers. It rose again with a surge of content as he slipped his latchkey into the narrow slot of the Yale lock on his door.'

Few writers are cleverer at crystallizing sensation and emotion by the use of ordinary images. Of the individual stories; "The Pattern" seems to me the most successful, and "The Proof" the least.

The next volume, likewise a collection of short stories, is in as great contrast as could well be imagined. Mr. Gilpatric is that excellent phenomenon, a good lowbrow writer. The term implies nothing derogatory : 0. Henry, Jack London and Mr. Wodchouse come under it. The humorous seafaring story we have always with us, but Mr. Gilpatric gets real novelty into his work, and even his most rambling, stories are written round an excellent central idea. The first, with its loot from the sunken German battleship 'Essen,' is a case in point ; so is the last. Mr. Glencannon, the hero of them all, is a most adaptable character. He can even make a set of false teeth—and from the most improbable materials.

He is exceedingly loquacious. "Humour is one thing," he once observed, "but conk impairtinenee is another." i

must admit that occasionally, in reading these pages, I felt inclined to paraphrase his dictum : but that is a matter of taste. At any rate, he works on good broad lines, and I enjoyed the book, as a whole, very much indeed.

Mr. Feverel is a writer worth a welcome. There are several things wrong with his first novel, but they are of little account compared to what is right with it. Chief item on the debit side is the wishy-washy uninterestingness of Dennis, the main character, a young painter who, dissatisfied with himself for no particular reason, achieves nothing definite until his unpremeditated suicide. Others are a tendency to make the characters debate subjects interesting to the author, but irrelevant to the book : and a refusal to study even Dennis in terms of cause and effect. On the credit side are a number of excellently described scenes and episodes, of which the truncated week-end of Betty and Paul is perhaps the best a real interest in character, with the power to convey it ; and the ability to write simple and natural dialogue. Mr; Feverel's name should be noted, and -a look-out kept for his future work.