A MODERN COMEDY. By John Galsworthy. (Heineman. 8s. 6d.)—It is
not long since the last of the novels included in this volume was published separately—and, of course, re- viewed in these columns. Obviously, then, A Modern Comedy is to be considered in the main as a timely commercial under- taking—and a highly successful one it has been. Those who did not get the separate novels as they appeared will certainly find it worth their while to possess this : that is to say, if they already have the Forsyte Saga, which is immeasurably the more important of the two. Nor, in fact, can the second be considered without reference to the first ; for taken by itself A Modern Comedy, when all its merits have been enumerated; has hardly the qualities of real greatness, but together with,the Forsyte Saga it becomes an epic about the comparative great- ness of which (in these times when novelists are as common as magpies and as acquisitive) there can be no doubt whatever : an epic only a little -weak and uncertain towards the close. Soames, yes, Soames is magnificent to the day of his rather surprisingly arranged death ; and when will the very-moderns admit that in the matter of writ" ,as it were through the mind of Soames, Galsworthy has been their master ? But the youngpeo people—well, can we always quite believe in them ? there he re are passages here which bore us to the extent of skipping half-a-dozen pages in the hope of finding something interesting : which never happened with the Forsyte Saga. But what an achievement the whole thing is
Previous page
