MY DAUGUTEIt H.ELEN.t THERE is only one way of beginning
a novel : the reader must be made to feel that something is going to happen. But there
• The Beturs. By Walter de la Mare. Landon : w. Collins. [7s. Orl. net.] t ere DowilAr Heim B,y Alfas liculthause. Dineen: Jonathan Cape, [se. net.]
are two ways of ending it. Either something happens or it does not. In the first case, that something must exceed the reader's expectation ; but it is the second, the Chekovian method of surprising the reader, which is now most in vogue. Mr. Monkhouse falls between the two. The early part of his book is admirably calculated to make one expect something to happen. He writes in a tense, rather breathless style, which nevertheless gives an impression of size to his theme. His subject—a daughter seen through the eyes of her father—is com- paratively =hackneyed, his treatment of it convincing, and there is a slowly-accumulating atmosphere of impending tragedy. If he was a Grecian in tradition he would have burst upon us 'some cataclysmal catastrophe : if a Russian, he would have skilfully filched away the bomb just before the explosion took place. As it is, he gives us a mere calamity, woefully mean. To change the metaphor, when play begins he is seen to have bidden higher than his hand warranted ; he plays skilfully for the lead, but cannot make his tricks.
One is logically bound, then, to call the book a. failure, but that is no reason for not recommending it to the reading public. It is more interesting than a great many successes ; it is its very hold on the reader's attention that makes him disappointed in the event. Mr. Monkhouse has attempted a -very difficult task, and attempted it singularly well.
Previous page
