Fiction

THE chief problem of the historical novel lies in the dialogue • it is not so much a matter of whether or not to use obsolete and archaic words as of the " run " of the phrasing. In a novel with -a seven- teenth-century setting, such as The Island Feud, the author could have stuck to words and phrases in current use both then and at the present day, and the result would have been at the same time natural and characteristic. (The best example of this treatment is Fr. Hugh Benson's Oddsfish.) As it is, the characters in this book seem sometimes to speak in a seventeenth- and sometimes in a

twentieth-century ,idiom, which is a little disturbing. The isolation of Wales, the Montagu-Capulet-Civil-War theme and the romantic

beauty of the scene are concisely defined ; the characters themselves —notably Gelly, the lame ferryman, a Charonesque link between the two sets of personages—are less clear. The murder trial, which should set the tone for the whole conflict of the novel, is not suffi- ciently " worked up." The style is easy, distinguished and straightforward.

-Private Enterprise is the only book of Miss Thirkell's that I have

read ; it left me with a desire to read at least two of her seventeen other novels. I seem to remember that she has a large public, but has received "-a bad Press" from the more esoteric reviewers ; these

two factors alone give her work a certain interest. What is it about her writing that delights a mass of readers while it infuriates a few

critics? Let us begin by looking at her from the point of view of her admirers. First of all, Private Enterprise is a long book with a great many characters ; nearly all of these are familiar, and no mental effort is required to envisage them. There is the well-bred, middle- aged woman who has been and still is very attractive, though her looks have lost their surface polish. (Oddy enough, none of the younger women in the story has either the charm or the mystery of these aging ladies.)

"You know Mrs. Brandon, who lives at Pomfret. Madrigal. She's rather like mother, pretty and soft. I don't mean silly. I mean she - looks as if your finger might go right in if you ',Coked her."

There is the mocking but well-mannered young man who makes fun of his mother but, of course, adores her ; then there are three

kinds of comic characters, all of the working-class. One is the elderly Nanny whose gnomic utterances embody the commonsense and wisdom withheld from her social superiors ; and there are a jobbing gardener who is " almost a half-wit " and a young electrician

who takes his work very seriously. I think we are all agreed that these types are highly diverting. I am told by a friend who has

read every single one of Miss Thirkell's novels that she has a special gift for recording the difficulties, disappointments and frustrations of the upper-middle-class housewife. Certainly, if space and volubility count as support, Miss Thirkell has not failed this part of ber public. Out of 38o pages of close print there are innumerable passages of this kind:

" Mr. Brown at the Red Lion, she said, could be relied upon to provide such beer as was available and occasionally spirits. Mrs.

Dingle, a respectable widow who worked at Adelina Cottage three days a week, would oblige with help on. three other mornings and really understood turning a room out. The man who did Miss

Hampton's garden on Wednesday afternoons, Maria, (cottage) on Monday and Tuesday, Louisa on Thursday and Friday, would continue to do Editha on Saturday afternoons. The laundry called on Monday once a fortnight and Mrs. Dingle would take home any personal washing once a week."

It would not have been thus that Trollope—whose "Barret" and " Barchester " Miss Thirkell has borrowed for her setting—would have entertained his readers in 5947. Indeed, in the matter of place-names has she not been both arch and presumptuous ? I find it difficult to understand the point of view of those whom this author has irritated, as I recall it, to madness. The Labour Government seems to worry her a bit, and every now and then there is a nostalgic reference to Mr. Churchill and his days of power (Ah! those Were the times, when we were all killing one another), while foreigners, intellectuals and working-class folk are treated as figures of fun. But what of it? This is one of the traditions of English humour. In this respect Miss Thirkell takes her place beside the music-hall comedian of today and the court jester of the Middle Ages. As long as she confines herself to " broad" comedy, it would be priggish to criticise her ; it is only when a serious, or moral, attitude seems to shadow her rather hysterical high spirits that one

wants to skip or read something else ; but this is not so often as you would think. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that there is some sort of ideal, of message, behind such passages as this, and that if there is it will be a bore.

" We need a more eighteenth century set to see us through this

mess. . . If they were gentlemen in the proper sense of the word, if they, drank and gambled and .whored . . . and put people in the pillory or cut their ears off and encouraged child-labour, I'd feel some faint hope for England. But as their idea appear. to be that everyone should do no work, and be highly paid for not doing it, I don't see where we are going.'

"' What I really mind is their trying to burst up the Empire,' said Lydia. . . .` I mean like leaving Egypt and trying to give India to the natives.' " My own criticism of Miss Thirkell's work is that to bring on a great many personages in a confined space, as she does, requires a more highly developed technique than she at present possesses. Not all the characters are sufficiently defined ; some—Colonel the Reverend E. F. Crofts, for instance—are transparent. And finally an author who sets out to entertain, distract and soothe the reader must beware of clumsy writing and'commonplace thinking—as thus : " But the insidious demoralisation which six years of war followed by a peace which except for bombs and bloodshed had every malignity of war had brought to almost every British citizen, could not be escaped." In spite of all 'these faults Miss Thirkell remains readable, because she has a point of view. Varying between the crude and the naive, with passages of perfectly forthright and simple description, her book makes an impression, and a memorable one.

HESTER W. CHAPMAN.