Under the Influence
A Disturbing Influence. By Julian Mitchell. (Hutchinson, 16s.)
AF1'L•R all the pseudo-poetry, metaplasm, beat- nik guff, half-baked metaphysics and general Brummagem by which so many young writers try to evade the sheer hard work of novel writ- ing, it is a delight to come upon a novelist under the age of thirty who can organise his thoughts and present them with style. Mr. Mitchell's first novel was one of the successes of the New Authors series. His second fulfils its promise.
A Disturbing Influence gives us a picture of Cartersfield, a small town between Reading and London, which once lay in the path of history. Now the new by-pass carries the uproar of life away at a safe distance and Cartersfield, content in its isolation, has become a backwater of local gossip. The fetid between Drysdale, the school- master, irascible, ironical and advanced, and the old reactionary Brigadier Hobson provides as much excitement as most people need. But there is Harry, the young radical grocer, who manages l divert the Aldermaston March into the High Street and for a glorious brief span leads it with his banner: 'Cartersfield says ban the bomb.'
In the first part of the book the chapters are contributed, by the main characters, each of whom conveys his individuality through his style and attitude. In the second, the author takes over to implant in his rock-pool a small mine, no more than a booby-trap but one vShich is a chain-reactor. The vicar who has jibbed at nature (`It seemed to me that it was hardly setting an example to have a girl pregnant with an illegi- timate child working in a vicar's house, and really carrying charitableness too far') is com- pletely unaware when real evil enters his home in the person of his nephew David. David is convalescing after a mysterious illness that is, we begin to suspect, a sickness of the soul. Self- assured, remote but taking part in everything 'with a graceless lack of enjoyment,' he Is a cold-blooded destroyer. Though he doe.: no more than break up a love affair and lead the village boys in sorties of pointless violence, he is a bacillus and, when he leaves, he has inoculated the youth of the town with his own moral decay. He has also wiped out Hobson, symbol of dying values, who, having sat up all night to catch the hooligans, develops pneumonia and dies. Drys- dale's threnody over his old enemy gives depth and point to the book, which in its originality of structure, three-dimensional character drawing and atmosphere is an impressive achievement.
While Mr. Mitchell, with his unpretentious exactitude and technical skill, gives us what we had hoped for from him, Mr. Malamud, whose first novel and short stories have placed him among the foremost Jewish writers in the United States, gives us a great deal less. A New Life has sporadic brilliance, but as a successor to The Assistant it is a disappointment. The in- cisive quality of the opening pages justifies our expectations. It is only gradually that one begins to realise that the nullity of the hero, Levin, is defeating its creator.
A reformed drunkard seeking a new life, Levin is appointed instructor in a small Oregon university. He has been appointed by Dr. Gilley, but, in fact, it is Gilley's discontented wife, Pauline, who has picked out Levin's photograph. We anticipate the inevitable affair. We are told that 'Levin's protective coloration was to pre- tend he thought like everyone else'; but for most of the book there is little evidence that Levin thinks at all. When their intimacy develops, he confesses to Pauline that the emotion of his youth was humiliation. His father was a thief, his mother went mad and killed herself, his mistress threw him over and he took to drink. 'I drank, I stank. I was filthy, skin on bone, maybe a hundred ten pounds. My eyes looked
as though they had been pissed on. I saw the world through a yellow light.'
It is true that the dedicated drinker divorced from drink is liable to find in life nothing but emptiness. In this case, however, one feels that Levin himself is emptiness. His passion for Pauline, his frustrated loneliness when they separate, are treated on a level of high poetry in the midst of which there is no recognisable human sufferer. The author, one feels, is using up his commonplace book. Levin turned philo- sopher, dissertating on love, guilt, duty, is a symbol which can be adjusted to any attitude.
A half-hearted sub-plot is provided by a college election in which Levin, reformer, is a candidate. Devious and ambitious now, he evades Pauline when she wants to divorce Gilley and marry him. He would prefer to win the election. We are likely to agree with Gilley when he says: 'You goddam, two-faced, two-assed, tin-saint hypocrite, preaching reform all the while you were committing adultery with my wife I ' Realising she is pregnant by him, Pauline sweeps up Levin and carries him off to another new life as he protests, 'I failed this town.' The reader is left as dissatisfied as Pauline is likely to be.
Mr. Epstein's third novel is also something of a disappointment. The first chapter of The Successor shows us the boy Ray Tolchin—a con- vincing, sympathetic and resourceful character who, during a time of economic depression, manages to find a job when others fail. Once established in Altman's firm, Ray displaces the son, marries the niece and eventually becomes so powerful he is able to override Altman him- self. All too soon we realise this is another ver- sion of the standby American novel about the man who puts success before human relation- ships. There is an original touch. When Ray reaches the top, he does not regret it.
OLIVIA MANNING
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