Fiction
New Novels
A NOVEL which makes you muse over it, and which seems to let down roots into life, so that musing over the book and considering life seem much the same thing, is a novel which has achieved whatever the purpose of a novel may
be. Otherwise it is a story, a distraction, possibly excellent of its kind : but after reading it you say to yourself, "Very well, but what of it ? " In this sense of the word there aro not many novels written in a year, but Mrs. Muir's is undoubtedly one of them. It is not that it gives you life ; no book can do that : but it does give you the feeling that what happens to these people is important, not only to themselves (and that is more than one feels in most works of fiction), but also to you. These inhabitants of a Scotch town—the successful business man and his shallow wife, his wastrel half- brother ; his amazing, "wicked," sensible, even wise sister ; his enthusiastic, intuitive, clumsy sister-in-law, are all driven by real impulsions ; and so are the members of the parson's group : the parson bewildered by his struggles to arrive at God, his brother who has to be sent to an asylum, his worried sister : while the minor figures, the doctor and his wife, the shopkeepers and so on, are skilfully sketched in with exactly the right solidity. One of the amazing things about this first novel is the way in which the groups are naturally interwoven, and the balance held. The book, you feel the whole time, is written by someone of great intelligence, power of perception and connexion, and of sensibility. There is no theme, but there is an attitude towards life. No intrusion of the personality, the thing remains a novel the whole
time, and extremely vivid. You do not want to miss a word, and the book kept at least one reviewer out of his bed till
two o'clock in the morning—a thing very few books have the power to do.
A work of genius? No. One reserves the terms for books
like Wuthering Heights. Brilliant ? Again, no ; the epithet seirves for such things as The Egoist. Equisite writing ? Yet again, no ; there is Henry James to think of. And it is time we reviewers ceased from competing with one another in superlatives. But good art ? Yes : a soanil and even deep grasp of material ? Yes : an ability to keep the matter alive by an adept use of language ? Yes. It is emphatically worth reading : it is in the first class among the novels of the year. It would be better still if Mrs. Muir had paid more attention to the dramatic qualities of her " scenes " : though the movement of the book is well handled, it would be more trenchant if the scenes were more static : the dramatic portions are admirably dynamic. But by taking the scenes at too much the same pace as the rest a certain intensity, poignancy perhaps, is missed : and there is no opportunity for those little touches or gestures, those profound probes which seem so small, but which imprint a picture indelibly on the mind, crystallize an emotion for ever.
Miss Holland's Country Tune lacks a good many of the qualities Mrs. Muir's book has ; nevertheless, it is a pleasant book. Two girls, painters, take a cottage in the country, and all goes happily until one of them is pursued by a relentless religio-maniac and possessive mother, who shatters their delightful existence. Miss Holland can handle prose ; she uses the most ordinary words, she never strains after effect ; but by a rhythm, obviously natural to her, she manages to impart a kind of lyrical quality to the whole. After the first chapter you say to yourself, "This is a good book," but later the impression fades. The country tune is .delicious, it is lilting, melodious, well felt ; but, like many country tunes, it goes on too long, and becomes monotonous and repetitive. You find yourself skipping. Many things can hold the attention : excitement in the story, change of pace (why will not novelists realize this ?), or a magic of words. There is also a fourth thing, profound revelation of humanity, to make one muse. In Country Tune there is only material for a long short story ; the pace is uniform ; the style, though charming, is not outstanding enough to hold the mind : we do not learn anything new about humanity. But, on the other hand, the pleasant thing shout the book is its consistently outside view. A psychologist might say that Miss Holland is a pure extrovert. That is very refreshing, and makes her descriptions of the countryside delightful ; but she repeats the same mood in us too often.
The late Donn Byrne's short stories show him to have been a man of generous sympathies, of indignation readily aroused against all things that are hateful and mean. But they are rather too simple-minded, to the point of senti- mentality. As a result there seems to be no general intuition of life behind them ; they are anecdotes, not stories. You say at the end : " Yes ; and what of it ? " They are really higher-powered magazine stories, good stories, pleasant to read, well written (except for an occasional lapse into the " literary ") ; but they arc no more than that. Yet Mr. Byrne had a keen sense of life, knew the ways of many men and delighted in them : he does not seem to have been so falniliar with women, for his women are all angels with corn-coloured hair, marvellous in soul and body, the divine part of humanity. He was an efficient craftsman, and his stories are easy reading.
Slaves is a forthright, crude and genial book, a certain sadism, perhaps inseparable from the theme, tempered by an atmosphere of farce. Mr. Pollard takes us among the slave traders at the time of the French Revolution ; he obviously knows all about them, how they lived, how they worked their ships, and what the ships were like they had to work. The characters are well sketched out in a work- manlike way, the story carries us along, and, though we may sometimes be horrified, we are never bored. There is no tiresome attempt at " costume " English : the people talk like normal beings of to:clay—a great relief—yet never step out of their period. But, of course, the standard to which all such books must still be referred is Merimee's Tataango ; it is much shorter, but what a powerful story ! What a glimpse into hell 1 It makes us muse with a ven-
geance. Mr. Pollard's story has actuality enough, and we accept it : but at the end we ask : " Well ; what of it ? "
BONAMY DOBRiEw
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