Shorter Notices
The Smacksmen. By George Goldsmith Carter. (Constable. 9s. 6d.) The Smacksnien is virtually a " documentary " novel, a long, closely observed record of the tires of three generations of East Anglian fishermen. It is worthy of respect if only because of the author's integrity, his obvious reluctance to make any concession to the senti- mentality of the reader. Here at least is a narrative that carries conviction. The smell of salt water, the harsh resonance of the Suffolk dialect, the undisciplined recital of the adventures that com- prise a fisherman's life may not be especially satisfying as art, but they are quite indisputably life. And it is a life that Mr. Carter describes extremely well. For the sake of making a book there is, of course, a story of a kind, but it is with his characters that Mr. Carter is really concerned, and the reader shares his concern. They are characters of "a bold, artful, surly, savage race," in the words
of George Crabbe, quoted' by the author on the title page ; but that is to ignore the other half without which the picture would be in- complete, the courage and the steadfastness and the essential kindli- ness, qualities in a man which the sea is apt to bring out. Mr. Carter does not milke the mistake of forgetting this side. As one who is obviously steeped in the 1:fe and traditions of those of whom he writes, he is unlikely to do so. It has been said that the story is incidentat In so far as it is the record of incident, the tale of what could and probably of what does happen to those who pursue the hard life of fishermen this is true. For it is a tale of storms and drownings, pubs and fights, love and destitution, as they affected a small fishing community from the days of the Iceland smacksmen at the end of the last century until the coming of the steam trawlers which put the small man almost out of business. If these things had not happened to the characters in this book it is almost cerium that they must at some time have happened to somebody else. But behind the presentation of the narrative lies an uncommon ability to write vividly, so that one closes the book conscious that here is an author capable and worthy of depicting the spirit and movement of the sea which he so clearly loves.
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