Short Stories
IN The Tailors' Cake we find the Kafka influence assimilated so that it has become part of the nerves and sinews of a new body. That is as it should be. M. Devaulx's world is his own nightmare—a religious not a bureaucratic nightmare—and his escape from its frustrating intractability is into dreams, visions and metaphysics that are entirely his own. Devaulx, like Kafka, is a writer -who develops in his readers a taste for himself. His elaborately poetic and intimate style (admirably conveyed in Miss Betty Askwith's translation) and his leisurely method that at first maddened even his advocate, Jean Paulhan, can at last so fascinate the reader that he accepts for their sake a story as difficult as Anthony Suberbordes. As to what Devaulx is telling us—the author evades any definite statement—the reader can work it out for himself.
A commercial traveller in the Montagnoles walks cheerfully into a scene of horror from which it takes him three days to recover ; two people, lost in "a country without shade or water, inhabited by were-wolves," come upon a village of ancients ; the inhabitants of a seaport from which the sea has retreated adopt a life of symbols. What does it all mean? M. Paulhan, in a postscript, tries to help us out, but we soon realise our guess is as good as his. Most of the stories have no explanatory rounding-off but are brought to an inconclusive stop as life is cut short by death, a fact which is possibly a clue to the author's intention. Here, for the first time for many years since it fell into its present Cinderella state, is the short story treated not as an anecdote or a slice of life but as a microcosm. M. Devaulx has observed his world through his own eyes, and has experienced from the inside its peculiar pain, mystery and terror.
Unlike M. Devaulx, Mr. O'Faolain is a conventional writer. It is unfortunate that when, a long time ago, he changed his name into Irish, he was unable to take on with its resonance some of the notable fire, poetry and rebellion of the Gad. These stories, though competent, are pedestrian, and lack throughout depth of characterisa- tion or intention. In the first, Teresa, a young novice, doubting her vocation, suddenly determines to join the strict Carmelite order, but instead runs away to London and marries. The possibilities of such a theme are obvious, but it is here treated so superficially that its conclusion comes like a trick ending. The conclusion also of The Man Who Invented Sin, probably the most successful story in the book, strikes one as clever rather than inevitable. What has Mr. O'Faolain to tell us about the development of Ireland since the troubled '2os? In The Silence of the Valley there is an attempt to introduce a modern type, but the result is cardboard. Some of the characters are shown learning the Irish language, but, apart from that touch, the author does little more for Ireland than cash in on a picturesque background.
Of the genuine, if arch, artistry which made Mr. Coppard's earlier reputation, little remains in this new volume but a certain coy light- ness of touch. Most of the stories fall into the category of "rattling good yarns," and judged as such are entertaining enough. Where deeper themes are touched upon, as in the story of a blind woman, Dark-eyed Lady, and The Sullens Sisters, a study of maternal jealousy, the touch is altogether too light for the emotions involved. The title story, also, is surprisingly clumsy in construction. If we are to accept the blurb-given assurances that Mr. Coppard is still a master-craftsman and that in Mr. O'Faolain's work can be dis- cerned a " satisfying mixture of intelligence and sensibility," then, on behalf of the benighted short story in these islaneR, we have a right to demand that such writers do not slide into the easy tricks
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