Fiction
THIS time, Mr. Nigel Balchin turns his quizzing-glass upon.a married couple. Jill has not enough to do, and so is apt to leave small things undone. James is considerate and civilised, but she feels that he is chivalrously making allowances. She cannot reach his standards, and, except for anxious spurts, stops trying. There is nothing chivalrous about the titled bachelor whom both of them call the Honbill. He has no standards, and so does not criticise her. The affair with him into which she subsides is a rest, until a road accident uncovers it. James is irritated rather than outraged. He behaves according to his own standards, except for helping to 900- ceal Jill's part in the accident. She promises to give up the Honbill, and promptly defaults on her promise. A great deal of civilised conduct ensues, the police are headed off, and James allows the pair to go off on a continental holiday, in order that Jill may get the Honbill out of her system. Things do not work out as James intended:
Mr. Balchin deploys his material so cunningly that one is apt to admire his skill, which after all is secondary, and take the material for granted. But, M a story so concentrated as this—there are very few characters—the material is all-important. Jill was bored because James asked too little of her. Agreed. But why did she not tell him ? Mr. Balchin does not say. He offers only the general explanation given to James by that amiable exhibitionist Loo ; wht...11, though as a man I tread on delicate ground, I take to be over-simplified. If Jill had once said; "I'm bored," the Honbill situation need not have arisen. Why did she not say it ? I think I know: but Mr. Balchin should not have left me to guess. Nor should he leave us in doubt, at the end, whether James understood Jill. He accepted what she did: so does Mr. Balchin-: but thattis not the same thing. James finally realised that, if he wanted to keep her, he should nothave let her get used to the Honbill's ways at the breakfast-table. But did he want to keep her ? Could he have kept her ? Would she be happier with the simple, selfish, comfort. loving unscrupulous, attractive cad, or the fair-minded, considerate, efficient prig ?
To put these questions is to advertise the interest and the intelli- gence of Mr. Balchin's brilliantly told story. He may have meant to raise questions rather than to answer them: but the slickness of the telling, the deft finality with which episode after episode is flicked into its place, makes one instinctively look for a similar authority at the book's core. This is an excellent novel. It is called A Way Through the Wood—my italic: one way only. I enjoyed it greatly, and I admire it as one admires a man who is a little too well-dressed.
Mr. Jeb Stuart's story is not at all well-dressed. The Objector, a first novel, stands out for its honesty.- It would have been so easy to make Heath a paragon, a Mr. Deeds come to a very wicked town. Instead, this obstinate, callow young conscript who refuses to carry a gun is presented in all his awkwardness and crudity. Generous, muddled, self-centred, clinging to his one maxim, he blunders through the story, calling out the best and the worst in those who have to deal with him. On the whole, the army shows him remark- able forbearance. True, his, blood is on the head of one malignant hater of oddity: but the army is a machine, a machine has parts, and, once he is caught up in it, the individual is at the mercy of any part he encounters. The writing is spare, athletic, and uncompromising in language and episode. The people are deeply perndered and honestly drawn. Any muddle in the story seems to belong to the army rather than to the author. The Objector is the epitaph of one more silly, honest man lost to a world which would have cured his silliness and will badly miss his honesty. Night Journey has been highly praised. With reservations, I' can join the chorus. In terms of military law the case was complicated by the
fact that Paul Haldan had not been arrested for any particular violation of the rules and articles of war.... He was guilty, yes. But certain peculiarities of his case were npt covered by military law."
Call the book, if you will, a sharply projected nightmare; since thq nor* of army life is orders, system, and knowing where you ai-c, air assignment in which you are unclassified, disowned, from which you return and ask to be arrested for your own safety, has all t r. horrors of army life and none of its advantages. The telling is sometinies pretentious, but at his best Mr. Gerard has lucidity and
power." . ' Mr. McCourt takes us back to matrimony. Nora, an Irish girl, marries Jim, a Canadian airman, and goes to live on the prairt. Two short quotations will tell you anything further you need to know.
• "' Pleased to meet you, Ma'am,' Weary said. 'Mighty pleased. Figger everybody's tickled. to get a gander at wh..t Jim here picked up.—
and, 62 pages later, .- "She was glad she had let Brian kiss her, grad that she Incl • pressed her body close to his. . . . Jim, she was sure, felt ti.: same way about Gail. Life was suddenly simplified...."
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