New Novels
13s. 6d.) BLIND DATE. By Leigh Howard. (Longman, 12s. 6d.) MR. WOUK has written an important novel of considerably greater scope and skill than The Caine Mutiny. It is, indeed, damned nearly the Great American Novel (Urban Division); certainly it's closer to that illusory target than anything since Dreiser. Marjorie Morningstar is essential reading for anyone interested in the devel- opment of transatlantic writing.
Mr. Wouk analyses the moral and social values of New York's Jewish bourgeoisie at almost Middlemarch length and certainly with all of George Eliot's seriousness. His Dorothea is Marjorie Morgenstern, a wide-eyed, pretty girl who dreams of escaping
from the humdrum snugness of her parents' plans for her life, from early marriage to a good, solid Max or Louie, into the romantically stormable towers of the Manhattan she watches glittering from
her window-seat. Her beauty and her pleasantness and her talent bring her the lone success in a disastrous college production of The Mikado. Marsha, an eager new friend won by her success,
shows her the first outposts of the Bohemian fortress. At Marsha's urging, Marjorie goes off with her to a summer camp for children tis a theatrical counsellor; only because, across the lake, is South Wind, smartest and wickedest of the adult camps. There Marjorie meets Noel Airman (born Saul Ehrmann), the deracinated, brilliant son of an old friend of the Morgensterns. And Noel it is for Marjorie, through •the three years that follow, a fascinating loquacious, cynical will-o'-the-wisp, who talks better musicals than he writes, but who nevertheless possesses enough scattered talents to be authentically hypnotic. Marjorie's relationship with Noel and itS effect on the rest of her life is the main interest of the book.
So bald a synopsis is unfair to Mr. Wouk. For he makes no such simple statement. The undertones of other value judgements are always implicitly there. No absolute is laid down; it is only for Marjorie herself, for her own environmentally induced needs, that this is right or this is wrong. Indeed, the conclusion is ironically detached. Marjorie moves away to be observed, pityingly but fondly, by an old sweetheart as she reknits the history of her life to her own, and now surburban, pattern.
What is remarkable about Marjorie Morningstar is the breadth and depth of Mr. Wouk's vision. This is novel-writing on an ample, nineteenth-century scale. And the sheer professional achievement of the thing is exhilarating. This is not to say that he succeeds entirely. 638 pages mean sags here and there, and ably as Mr. Walt handles his dialogue, the talk on occasion seems just for the sake of talking. The Shapiro episode; the Airman philosophy of Hits; the continuing ,naivete of Marjorie up to, and through,-Mike Eden —thege are irritations which flaw the surface. They are compel; sated by gratuitous excellences: The Uncle; the wry growth of Wally Wronken; the whole, exciting smell of youth and spring when Marjorie goes riding in Central Park with Sandy—these are Mr. Wouk at his best. And at his best he emerges, in a single, size' able step forward, as one of the most important writers NW working in America.
Mr. Beach is certainly one of the worst. Run Silent, Run DeeP is a classic parody of the amateur war novel. Strong, silent-running Edward G. Richardson goes off to war as captain of Walrus, tt submarine which inevitably houses Jim Bledsoe, who believes that Edward G. ('call me Rich') has wrongly stopped him from having command of his own submarine. Inevitably Japanese ships are, sunk, bushy-eyebrowed Captain Blunt makes bushy-eyebroweg speeches, Jim sees the light and dies in glory to make way for Ricb, to marry sweet, vibrant Laura. The dialogue is one-third technical jargon, one.third banality and one-third bad taste. It is the kind of book in which the hero says (after having' to kill some penPln,
inhumanely): . . deep wracking sobs came boiling up out Or the hard, twisted knot that was my belly.' You know the kind?
Mr. Brophy now, is a professional again; and his belly is never a hard, twisted knot. The Nimble Rabbit is an amiable skedaddle through publishing,and Paris. Nice, promising Jeremy Pine b.unlPs into nice, rich Janet O'Sullivan, a widow whose husband's will directs her to give 100,000 dollars to the best American novelist, Pine likes Mr. Marquand; but Hector Rhodes, a cross between Mr. Hemingway and Mr. Spillane, likes himself. His mistress likes Jeremy; and what with a Convention for Eminent Authors Mall' iced by Miss Britomart Green and Miss Titania Brown—as fey It pair of spinsters as ever Miss Rutherford dreamed of—Mr. Brophy romps through his oddly-priced 13s. 6d.-worth without even getting out of breath. He brings into play a few genuine touches and a deal of wholesome high spirits. The Nimble Rabbit isn't a world-beater; it's just a pleasant, amusing book. And how rare they are. A last word about Mr. Howard. Blind Date works out that fantasy that everyone's had at some time or other: to be innocent of a murder when every scrap of evidence points to your gull!' After an uncertain twenty pages or so, Mr. Howard handles thla theme in a stimulatingly adult way. His dialogue is particularly good. He's a writer who deserves watching. JOHN METCALF
Previous page
