FICTION
By FORREST REID Judas. By Eric Linklater. (Cape. 6s.)
FOR me astronomical romances have always had a peculiar
fascination. I get from them a thrill quite different in kind from that which even the most exciting mystery story pro- duces. And this, I think, is understandable, since the success- ful writing of an astronomical romance postulates not mere inventiveness and ingenuity, but imagination and a sense of poetry. There are, it is true, certain feeble specimens wherein imagination and a sense of poetry are replaced by the intro- duction of a starry heroine whose duty it is to supply a love
interest, but these I do not count. No such weakness mars the early tales of H. G. Wells, and I can assure the reader that The Hopkins Manuscript, by Mr. R. C. Sherriff, is equally
free from it. Mr. Sherriff's story is neither so poetic nor so
exciting as the best of Mr. Wells's romances—it is not, in short, a masterpiece, like The Time Machine or The First Men in the Moon—but it is, to my mind, much better than In the Days of the Comet, to which its central idea, perhaps,
bears some slight resemblance.
Edgar Hopkins, its author, flourished in the twentieth cen- tury. His manuscript, however, preserved in a thermos flask and buried beneath his own hearthstone, was not discovered till some goo years later, when England had become a waste land of swamps and marshes, and the whole Western civilisa- tion had long since been wiped out by the nations of the East. The other European countries had been colonised, but Great Britain, owing to its climate, had not attracted settlers ; in fact, had been left for a long period practically unexplored. Yet the Hopkins manuscript alone furnished a first-hand description of the frightful catastrophe that brought about this change in world history, and though Hopkins himself is no scientist, but merely a foolish, vain, and consequential little man, who breeds poultry and writes letters to the newspapers, his account is of the greatest interest.
So far, you may say, there is nothing astronomical in all this, but wait a moment. The first sinister note is sounded on August 24th, 1940. On that date there was an eclipse of the sun and—the moon was three seconds late in its arrival. Of course, facetious comments appeared in the Press, and the scientists, having made their report, waited, not unduly per- turbed. But in 1945 many of them journeyed to California to observe another eclipse. The conditions this time were perfect—and the moon was twelve seconds late. Doubt was no longer possible. On February 12th " the moon had drawn nearer to the earth by 3,583 miles "; on the 13th it was 128 miles nearer still ; while subsequent observations showed that it was continuing to approach at a speed increasing steadily by eight miles a day. Catastrophe was inevitable. Drawn out of its path by some gigantic force, the moon, if it did not strike the earth directly, must at any rate graze it. This appalling news was communicated privately to the leading statesmen of the world, who decided to keep it from the public as long as possible—that is to say, until the moon's approach should become visible to the naked eye. The actual calamity would happen at eight o'clock on May 3rd, 1946, and the secret might possibly be kept until after Christmas, 1945, but no longer. Then the truth must be told, and in the meantime the only thing to do was to construct special dug- outs on hillsides : not in valleys because of inevitable floods, nor on hilltops because of tornadoes.
From this may be gleaned some idea of the nature of the story, and in my ignorance of science I can only say that to me Mr. Sherriff has made it quite plausible. But its strange- ness and excitement are not its only qualities ; the humour and the character-drawing are alike excellent. The portrait of Hopkins is a triumph of unconscious self-revelation, and nothing could be truer than the way private little disappoint- ments and jealousies keep cropping up in his mind in spite of the major disaster which he knows is going to obliterate every- thing. He even, to the astonishment of his stockbrokers, sells £2,000 worth of railway shares, and buys 4,000 shares in Wigglesworth and Smirkin, the big manufacturers of china crockery. This, of course, is some months prior to the genera. scare, for, being a member of the British Lunar Society, he has received early information. It is a touch of farce, and there are others, but they do not detract from the tragic march of the tale ; on the contrary, they make it more convincing. Hopkins, full of self-confidence and utterly devoid of humour. is certainly no hero, but we never dislike him, and when, after the catastrophe, he emerges as a completely sympathetic character, the transformation is quite credible. In his Hamp- shire village, he and a pleasant boy and girl, and an old man of eighty alone survive. For various reasons none of these has taken refuge in the Government dugout, and they bravely pick up life again in a devastated world.
I suspect, in fact, I know, that Mr. Sherriff has more than the yarn I have adumbrated in view. If one were politically minded it would be easy to find a text for an excursion on the present international situation. But all that comes after the main story is over—when the survivors, scattered throughout Europe, begin to quarrel. They quarrel over the moon which, now safely embedded in the Atlantic, proves to he rich in oils and minerals. Few as they are, they go to war ; and the Assyrian, waiting till they have reduced their numbers still further, finally comes down like a wolf on the fold, to ex- terminate the lot.
The Hopkins Manuscript is among the best novels the present season has produced. Of the remaining tales in this week's batch, I found Old Haven readable, The House of Tavelinck exhaustively conscientious, and Judas a failure. The first is a domestic tale of modern life in Holland, depicting the fortunes of the Mellema family—grandparents, parents, and children. Mr. De Jong, taking great pains over his characters and scenes, has produced a novel rich in local colour. His canvas is broad, but his primary figures are not too numerous, for he is concerned chiefly with the three brothers, Maarten, Tjerk and Klaas, whom he follows from childhood to manhood. The most interesting of these is Tjerk. As a sensitive and imaginative small boy with a talent for drawing, he seemed to me destined to become an artist, but this does not happen, he settles down soberly in the family business. Maarten, on the other hand, becomes a sailor, while Klaas, precocious and perverse, is, from his earliest years, definitely a black sheep. In the background are the older folk—narrowly puritanical on one side of the family, worldly wise on the other. It is a discursive tale, more pictorial than dramatic, but the pictures of Dutch life have an attractive freshness.
Holland also is the scene of The House of Tavelinck, though this time it is Holland at the end of the eighteenth century, and the subject is the struggle between the Patriots and the supporters of the House of Orange. The novel is a monument of careful research, also it is most ably written; yet it bored me. It would, I think, make an excellent bedside book, and if taken in judicious doses ought to last for months. Old Haven is lengthy—perhaps too lengthy—but it is short compared with this romance of Jo Van Ammers-Kiiller's, which seemed to me to go on and on for ever, till on page 749 (large and closely-printed pages) I reached the ominous words, "Here end the first seven books of The House of Tavelinck." I admit that I have not much historic sense, but even those most gifted in that direction—the members of the Book Society, say, who have recommended the work —can hardly claim it to be light reading. And yet it runs so smoothly (the translators are to be congratulated), is so consistently competent, careful, thorough, that I feel I ought to be more enthusiastic. I am not enthusiastic. I ploughed. skipped, plodded, and finally closed the volume with the resolve that the second seven books should not be read by me.
Of Mr. Linldater's Judas perhaps the least said the better. It is the story of the betrayal of Christ, who figures as one of the characters. His words are quoted from the Bible, but the conversation of Mary Magdalene and others is Mr. Link- later's invention and enlivened with plenty of " Why the hells " and " Bloody bastards." Anatole France once suggested that the mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost might be bad taste Mr. Linldater's vulgar little novel inclines me to accept this theory.
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