(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
I can't help thinking that _Gyp_, the central figure in Mr. JOHN
GALSWORTHY'S new story, _Beyond_ (HEINEMANN), was unhappy in her
encounters with the opposite sex. But if memory serves me this is an
experience familiar to Mr. GALSWORTHY'S heroines. Men were always
wanting to kiss _Gyp_, or to marry her, or both, and after a time kept
going off and repeating the process with somebody else; so that one
can't fairly be astonished if towards the end of the book her outlook
had become rather cynical. The character who might have preserved her
estimate of mankind in general, and the best and most sympathetically
drawn figure in the book, is _Gyp's_ perfectly delightful old father,
who throughout the conspicuous failure of her two unions, legitimate
and other, retained his fine and chivalrous regard and unfailing
care for a daughter who might well have been a thorn in the flesh of
a conventional parent. But the relations of these two were never
conventional. _Gyp_ had been herself a love-child, and the knowledge
of this is shown very clearly in its influence upon their mutual
attitude. As for her own affairs, these were, first--to her father's
unbounded astonishment--marriage with a temperamental violinist, who
ran rapidly down the scale from adoration of his own wife to intrigue
with another's; second, clandestine relations with a man of her own
race and breed, who loved her to idolatry, and within a few months was
found embracing his cousin. Poor _Gyp_! I jest; but you will need no
telling that for sincerity and beauty of writing here is a book that
you cannot afford to miss. Sometimes I am a little uncertain what Mr.
GALSWORTHY is driving at, but I never fail to admire his drive.
* * * * *
Unless Mr. S.P.B. MAIS learns to curb his enthusiasms and to rid
himself of certain prejudices he will be wantonly seeking trouble.
_Rebellion_ (GRANT RICHARDS) is in some respects a more thoughtful and
promising book than _Interlude_, but it is marred by what can only be
called the same narrow point of view. With everybody and everything
modern Mr. MAIS shows an ardent sympathy, but if he is ever to give a
comprehensive picture of life he must contrive to be more patient with
the old-fashioned. Here his strong personality obtrudes itself too
often, and he is inclined to forget that he is a novelist and not a
preacher. I could imagine him throwing off a fine comminatory sermon
from the text, "Cursed be he who does not admire the genius of Mr.
COMPTON MACKENZIE." This homily is drawn from me with reluctance,
because in the main I am a strong believer in Mr. MAIS, and (with
his connivance) have every intention of retaining that attitude.
With all its faults _Rebellion_ remains gloriously distinct from the
rubbish-heap of fiction by virtue of its intense sincerity and its
frequent flashes of fine descriptive writing. The question of sex
dominates it, and those of us who still think that such problems are
merely sustenance for the prurient-minded may cast it impatiently
aside. But others who like to watch a clever man feeling his way
towards the light, and regard a novel as neither a bait nor a bauble,
can be confidently advised to read it. They may be irritated, but they
will be intrigued.
* * * * *
On the cover of _One Woman's Hero_ (METHUEN) you will read that "This
book has been designed to cheer and strengthen those for whom, from
bereavement owing to the War, the days and nights are sometimes only
a procession of sad and torturing visions." Which of course disarms
criticism, other than what may be expressed in a question whether a
book less exclusively preoccupied by the War might not more surely
have attained this end. But again, of course, maybe it wouldn't. The
tale (for all our pretendings) is not yet written that can actually
bring oblivion to bereavement, so perhaps the next best thing is
topical chatter of the bright and unsentimental kind with which SYBIL
CAMPBELL LETHBRIDGE has filled her entertaining pages. Chatter is
the only term for it, though it is quite good of its style; the form
being a series of letters written to a friend by the young wife of a
soldier at the front. Her neighbours, their households and dinners and
affectations and courage, are what she writes about; especially do I
commend her handling of the "Let us Forget and Forgive" tribe. To all
such (and most of us know at least one) I should suggest the posting
of a copy of _One Woman's Hero_, with the page turned down (an act
permissible in so good a cause) at the report of the annihilation
of one of these well-intentioned but infuriating philosophers. The
combined logic and equity of this suggest that the Government might
do worse than commandeer the services of Miss LETHBRIDGE as a
dinner-table propagandist.
* * * * *
I think BEATRICE GRIMSHAW tortures overmuch her tough bronzed
Australian hero, who "could fight his weight in wild cats," and
her beautiful slender heroine, "daughter of castles, descendant of
crusaders." First the twain fall desperately in love, and _Edith_,
the Catholic, discovers _Ben_ to be an innocent _divorcé_. Marriage
impossible, they part. But it is apparently quite in order for her to
marry, without loving, a cocoa king who drinks--anything but cocoa;
which done, to add to the bitterness of the cup, _Ben's_ wife is
reported dead. Whereafter the king in a drunken fit poisons himself,
and the widow, fearing to be suspect, flies with her big _Ben_ to his
secret _Nobody's Island_ (HURST AND BLACKETT), off the New Guinea
coast, where they live comfortably off ambergris. Eventually tracked
down by the dead king's brother, who allows himself to be persuaded of
_Edith's_ innocence on what seems to me the most inadequate evidence,
the lovers, after protracted mental agonies and physical dangers,
are about to enjoy deserved peace when _Ben's_ wife turns up again,
necessitating further separation; till finally _Edith_, with a
handsome babe and the news that after all _Ben's_ first wife wasn't
a wife at all, finds her way back to Nobody's Island. Now that does
seem to be rather overdoing it. But I hasten to credit the writer with
a very happy gift of description, which brings the Papuan forests
and mountains (or something plausibly like them) vividly before the
reader, while the characters, including a boy villain ingenuously
bizarre, are amusing puppets capably manipulated.
* * * * *
Mrs. BARNES-GRUNDY possesses a wonderful supply of sprightly humour.
_Her Mad Month_ (HUTCHINSON) is funny without being flippant, and
although the heroine is very naughty she is never naughty enough to
shock her creator's unhyphened namesake. Perhaps _Charmian's_ exploits
in escaping from a severe grandmother, and going unchaperoned to
Harrogate (where a very pretty piece of philandering ensued), do
not amount to much when seriously considered, but it is one of Mrs.
BARNES-GRUNDY'S strong points that you cannot take her seriously. I am
on her side all the time when she is giving me light comedy, but when
she leaves that vein and bathes her heroine in tears I cannot conjure
up any real sympathy. I never for a moment doubted that _Charmian's_
lover, though reported as having "died from wounds," would turn up
again. I am afraid the War is responsible for a great deal of rather
obvious fiction.
* * * * *
Miss MARIE HARRISON has investigated the condition of Ireland, and in
_Dawn in Ireland_ (MELROSE) she presents the results of her studies.
The book is inspired by a great deal of the right kind of enthusiasm,
and the advice given is so excellent as to arouse the fear that it
will not be taken. Yet Miss HARRISON is justified of her endeavours.
She shows how often the English governors of Ireland have failed, in
spite of the best intentions, only because they applied their remedy
too late and thus, to their own great surprise, wasted the generosity
of which they were perhaps too conscious. According to Miss HARRISON
the gombeenman is the curse of Ireland, the serpent whose presence, if
only he can be reduced to being an absentee, warrants us in regarding
Ireland as a possible Eden. Miss HARRISON will please to take the
preceding sentence as proving my entire sympathy with Irish modes
of thought and expression and, generally, with Ireland. Against
the gombeener (who is a shop-keeper running his business on the
long-credit system) she invokes a vision of the blessings of
co-operation. One of her heroes is Sir HORACE PLUNKETT, and, indeed,
the work of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, over which
he has presided, has been an unmixed benefit to Ireland. I heartily
endorse Miss HARRISON'S hope that "at no distant period all will
be well with Ireland." Her book should certainly help towards this
result.
* * * * *
Captain VERE SHORTT fell at Loos in September of 1915, and left twelve
chapters of a story, _The Rod of the Snake_ (LANE), which his sister
has finished and very capably finished; helped by the recollection of
many intimate conversations about the plot and its development. It
tells how young _Charlie Shandross_, bidding his preposterous soldier
uncle be hanged, shook the stale dust of Ballybar off his feet, served
three years in the C.M.R., and so prepared himself for the deadly
adventure of the rod of the snake, the image of the ape, the Haytian
attaché and the sinister priestess of Voodoo rites--Paris its setting.
I won't spoil your pleasure by giving the details away; I will only
say it is all very splendidly incredible, but not unplausible, and the
authors do take pains with their puzzles, as where the hero and his
party find the secret spring of the panel in the vault by the blood
tracks of their enemy, who has been thoughtfully wounded in the hand.
A small point but significant; too many writers in this kind being
given to whisking their favourites out of danger in the most arbitrary
manner. A good railway book, of the sort you can confidently pass on
to the soldiers' hospitals after reading it.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE LAST VISITOR AND THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.]