(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Following the iconoclastic spirit of the age, Mr. BARRY PAIN has essayed in
_The Death of Maurice_ (SKEFFINGTON) the revolutionary experiment of a
murder mystery tale that does not contain (_a_) a love interest, (_b_) a
wrongly suspected hero, (_c_) a baffled inspector, (_d_) an amateur, but
inspired, detective. It would be a grateful task to add that the result
proves the superfluity of these time-worn accessories. But the cold fact is
that, to me at least, the proof went the other way. From the first I was
painfully aware of a lack of snap about the whole business, and I am more
than suspicious that the author himself may have shared my unwilling
indifference. _Maurice_ was an artistic bachelor, a landowner, a
manufacturer of jam, a twin (with a bogie gift of knowing at any moment the
relative position of his other half, which might have been worked for far
more effect than is actually obtained from it), and a reputation of making
enemies. He had also an unusual neighbour, in the person of a young woman
whose unconventionality led her to perambulate the common at midnight,
playing the first bars of _Solveig's Song_ upon the flute. One night, at
the close of the first chapter, a gun was heard. But you are wrong to
suppose (however naturally) that the flute-player was the victim. It was
_Maurice_. And of course the problem was, who did it. I have told you my
own experience of the working out; nothing written by Mr. BARRY PAIN can
ever be really dull, just as no story starting with a mysterious murder can
lack a certain intrigue; but the fact remains that my wish, heroically
resisted, to look on to the last chapter was prompted more often by
impatience than by any compelling curiosity. Others may be happier.
* * * * *
The author of _A Journal of Small Things_ has done much to make us
understand the sufferings of stricken France and the more intimate sorrows
of war. _Chill Hours_ (MELROSE) deals with that dark period before the end,
when, to some, it seemed all but certain that the will to victory must
fail. Of the three parts of this gracious little book the first consists of
six sketches of life behind the lines, life both gentle and simple, as
affected by war. "Odette in Pink Taffeta," an episode of bereavement, is in
particular exquisitely visualised. "Their Places" and "The Second Hay"
treat, with a quiet intensity of conviction, of the absolutely deadening
absorption, by overwork and anxiety, of peasant wives and children left to
carry on in the absence of their men. The third part is a series of
hospital vignettes. They do not attempt to be too cheery, but they have the
stamp of realised truth. "Nostalgia," the second part, is in another
mood--recalled memories of the beauties of a loved land and of dear common
things affectionately seen. To those who dare look at war with open eyes
and who take pleasure in sincere and beautifully-phrased writing I commend
Mrs. HELEN MACKAY'S book without reserve.
* * * * *
_Somewhere in Christendom_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) is somewhat embarrassing to a
reviewer, for it has the theme of a great book with the manner of a trivial
one. It is the history of a very much smaller nation, Ethuria, left
despoiled and starving at the end of a nine-years' war, in which its great
neighbours have used it as a battle-ground. Revolution begins, but a woman
prophet steps in and switches it off in an unusual direction. The Ethurians
perfect among themselves that fellowship which is the nice ideal behind
many nasty manifestations in the real world, and, when next they are
invaded by neighbouring nations anxious to use them as an excuse for
belligerency, they resolutely stick to their guns (only the metaphor is
most unsuitable), refuse to find any cause of quarrel with their "foreign
brothers," and finally persuade them to abandon the ideals of war, so that
peace on earth becomes a reality at last. Here is the book's theme; its
working out allows for a boxing match between the President of Hygeia and
the Foreign Secretary of Tritonia as the minimum of hostilities; a wicked
newspaper lord, who pulls strings in both countries, and a faithful butler
to the Royal Family, who becomes assistant state nursemaid and cleans
silver as a hobby. Though I quite agree with Miss EVELYN SHARP and the
Ethurians that it _is_ love that makes the world go round, I am not so sure
that either hers or theirs is the best way of advocating their common
cause.
* * * * *
You may remember an original and striking book of papers about the theatre
under the title of _Buzz-Buzz_. Its author, JAMES E. AGATE, has now
followed it with another, called, rather grimly, _Responsibility_
(RICHARDS). You will be absolutely correct in guessing that this is not a
treatise on revue, being indeed an autobiographical novel of (I feel bound
to add) precisely the same calibre as, in the sister realm of drama, made
the name of Manchester at one period a word of awe. Why do these young
Mancunians recollect to such stupendous purpose? Here is Mr. AGATE, with an
introduction of forty-four pages, all about time and infinity, before he
can get his protagonist so much as started anywhere at all. It is a little
like one of those demon-scenes out of the pantomimes he describes so
lovingly--"_Do so! May safety and success attend on Crusoe._" But of course
the subsequent action is more responsible. I imagine Mr. AGATE'S picture of
young-man life in the Manchester of the nineties to be very much like the
real thing. Relaxation was not wholly remote from it. Cotton and
commandments were broken with equal facility. Also you may be impressed by
the number of Germans in it. Finally, after telling us, sometimes
engagingly, sometimes verbosely, all he can remember about Lancashire, Mr.
AGATE brings his hero to Town, levers him along, year after year, and gets
(almost on his last page) to his big situation. I won't spoil it.
_Responsibility_, which might better have been called "Garrulity," is a
novel containing boredom and charm in about equal proportions; not to
mention promise for the days when its author has learned to discipline his
too-ready pen.
* * * * *
From the early part of 1915 until the end of 1917 Admiral Sir REGINALD
BACON commanded at Dover, and from the preface to _The Dover Patrol_
(HUTCHINSON) we can gather that he is smarting under a considerable sense
of injustice and injury. Of the merits of his case--he frankly describes
his dismissal as brutal--I do not pretend to judge, but can safely assume
that the other side have something to say for themselves, if they care to.
However, you are not to suppose that this is a bitter book. Most generous
are the praises which the Admiral bestows upon his subordinates; his venom
he reserves for just the chosen few who, no doubt, can bear it. Apart from
personal recriminations, of which some of us must be more than tired, these
two portly volumes are of real historical value. You will find in them not
only a record of actual achievements, often carried out under desperately
difficult conditions, but also of projects which for one reason or another
were never fulfilled. "Why don't we try to land on the Belgian coast?" was
a question our amateur strategists were never weary of asking. Well, here
is their answer. Here, too, are countless photographs, charts, plans and
diagrams--a really wonderful collection. Even if you are not in the least
interested in Sir REGINALD'S grievances you will find him a writer who has
a lot of useful things to say and knows how to say them.
* * * * *