_Book Reviews_
_Jean Huguenot._ By STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT. (Henry Holt.)
Flowers in writing are like flowers on a grave: they commemorate death.
And Benét’s first novel was a little too prone to floral decoration. In
his third book, _Jean Huguenot_, his work as a stylist is noticeably
improved. He still remains all poet in his prose, and, as ever, reads
the better for it. Yet he has reached a saner manner of writing that
does not overwhelm and cloy as did parts of _The Beginning of Wisdom_.
Despite mechanical improvement _Jean Huguenot_ marks a lull in the
author’s literary progress. You are moved along for two hundred or so
pages by glowing language and well-drawn situations. And just when
the book has become really enjoyable--well, all pleasure in it begins
to subside. You are dropped, like a deflated balloon, into a flat and
tasteless completion. Why, oh, why, you say, couldn’t he have given us
something else--anything else? The spectacle of Jean Huguenot Ashley
turned _cocotte_ is neither appealing nor revolting; it is just plain
drab. Perhaps Benét is true to nature in his picture, but--read it and
see if it doesn’t affect you in the same fashion. The story is worth
while for three-quarters of its course--and then, being so near the
end, one might as well finish it, anyway.