Fiction
Chronicle of Dawn. By Ramon J. Sender. (Jonathan Cape. 7s. 6d.) Gone for a Burton. By Arthur Gwynn-Browne. (Chatto and Windus. 10s. 6d.) Aunt Ansa. By Jean Ross. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 9s.) Chronicle of Dawn is an unusually moving and endearing passage of autobiography. Ramon Sender has written it in the form of reminiscences set down by, in officer of the Spanish Republican Army while he waited for death in the concentration camp at Argeles in 1939. This- man was thirty-six when he died, and .apparently a person of unusually strong and dignified character ; but while he was slowly dying he talked and thought far more of his childhood and his family life than of any later experiences. And this book deals with what he can remember of himself, at home in Zaragoza, in his eleventh year. It presents with touching clarity, and with a very light and understated kind of humour, the dignified, self-conscious and imaginative little boy who was to grow into a heroic and serious soldier, and come only too fully to understanding of the word "Immolation," which preoccupied him so much in childhood.
Pepe Garces came of the provincial middle-class, and was care- fully brought up by a tender, easy-going mother and a dominating, worried father. He was an only son, and had three sisters. The variety, of his conflicts within this .family group is very naturally done, with close reference to the little boy's oddity of character, but without any apparent exaggeration or straining for effect. Pepe is very intelligent, very innocent, and has an enormous and very Spanish sense of his own dignity. In all his adventures—and he is a highly adventurous child—he seeks proof of himself and of his dreams ; and also he seeks expression of his love for the little girl, Valentia. The grave and -unstained passion of these two for each other, which so much amuses, and at times exasperates, their grown-up relatives, is written with a beautifully tender skill. Pepe's 'poems for Valentia are delicious, and his postcards, sent to her when he goes to Zaragoza with his tutor for examinations, and after- wards when he is plunged -in extraordinary holiday adventures in the mountains of Navarre, set out his serious and active character in pure epitome. "Your unforgettable Pepe," he always signs him- ,self to Valentia. He is a gangster, poet, student of life and servant , of love all in one—and when he is packed off to boarding-school we are sorry to part from a grave, -eccentric and refreshing spirit. The scene, of Spanish family life about 1913, comes to us through the child's eyes very clearly, and we consider it sadly, this echo from days and values that will not come. again. The book holds, in its simplicity, a heightened poetic beauty and unforced sorrowfulness —which take weight from our foreknowledge of the matured char- acter and destiny of Pepe, "the lord of power and wisdom."
Gone for a Burton is a lively tale of the adventures of four British airmen who are forced down in Occupied France. It recounts many desperate and anxious happenings as, helped by the under- ground movement, the young men make their terrible journey southwards. As they go their characters are livelily evolved, and the reader gets to know them very well. Mr. Gwynn-Browne's manner of comment and exclamation is not for all tastes, but his story is vivid and touching on the whole.
Aunt Ailsa is a book about English family life between the last war and the presmt time. It is like a great many such books, in being truthful, matter-of-fact, humorous and likeable. Miss Ross has a steady eye for character and an easy naturalistic way in dia- logue, and a great many people will derive entertainment from her
unaffected exploitation of these talents. KATE O'BRIEN.
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