(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
During the past few years the plays and stories, especially
the stories, of ANTON TCHEHOV have so triumphantly captured
English-speaking readers that there must be many who will welcome with
eagerness the volume of his _Letters_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS). This happy
chance we owe, of course, directly to Mrs. CONSTANCE GARNETT, who here
proves once again that in her hands translation ranks as a fine art.
Both the _Letters_ and the Biographical Sketch that precedes them are
of extraordinary charm and interest. Because TCHEHOV'S stories are
so conspicuously uncoloured by the personality of their writer (his
method being, as it were, to lead the reader to a window of absolute
transparency and bid him look for himself), it comes almost as a shock
to find how vivid and many-hued that personality in fact was. Nor
is it less astonishing to observe a nature so alive with sympathy
expressing itself in an art so detached. More than once his letters to
literary friends are concerned with a defence of this method: "Let the
jury judge them; it's my job simply to show what sort of people they
are." They are filled also with a thousand instances of the author's
delight in nature, in country sights and scents, and of his love and
understanding for animals (from which of the Tales is it that one
recalls the dog being lifted into the cart "wearing a strained
smile"?) Throughout too, if you have already read the eight little
volumes that contain the stories--which I certainly advise as a
preliminary--you will be continually experiencing the pleasure of
recognising the inspiration for this or that remembered scene. In
short, one of the most fascinating books that has come my way for a
long time.
I needn't pretend that _Bed and Black_ (METHUEN), by GRACE S.
RICHMOND, is what is known to the superior as a serious work of art or
that the men (particularly) of her creating are what would be called
likely. But there's a sincerity about the writing which one has to
respect. Of her two heroes, _Red_ is _Redfield Pepper Burns_, the rude
and rugged doctor, and _Black_ is the _Rev. Robert McPherson Black_,
the perfect paragon of a padre in an American provincial town. The
author's main thesis is that padres are made of the right stuff.
_Black_, who was all for getting into the War from the beginning,
rushes off to Europe as chaplain with the first American drafts, gets
wounded, decorated and married. The conversion of _Red Pepper_, the
doctor, and of _Jane Ray_, who became _Mrs. Black_, is a little too
easily contrived to be very convincing. But this is a simple work for
simple souls who like a wholesome tale with a distinct list to the
side of the angels. Such untoward conduct as here appears is not
put in for its own interesting sake, but merely to bring out the
white-souled nobility of the principals.
* * * * *
If I had to select an author likely to win the long-distance dialogue
race of the British Isles I should, after reading _Uncle Lionel_
(GRANT RICHARDS), unhesitatingly vote for Mr. S.P.B. MAIS. It is not
however so much the verbosity as the gloom of Mr. MAIS'S characters
that leaves me fretful. Nowadays, when a novel begins with a married
hero and heroine, we should be sadly archaic if we expected the course
of their conjugal love to run smoothly; but I protest that _Michael_
and _Patricia_ overdid their quarrels, or, at any rate, that we are
told too many details about them. And when these people were nasty to
each other they could be very horrid. All which would not trouble me
half so much if I were not sure that Mr. MAIS, in his desire to he
forceful and modern, is inflicting a quite unnecessary handicap upon
himself. At present he is in peril of wrecking his craft upon some
dangerous rocks which (though I know it's not the right name for
rocks) I will call "The Doldrums." My advice to him is to cheer up.
And the sooner the better, for all of us.
* * * * *
There be novelists so fertile in literary resource or so catholic in
their choice of subject that the reader is never sure, when he
picks up their latest masterpiece, whether he is to have a comedy of
manners, a proletarian tragedy, a tale of Court intrigue or a satire
on the follies of the age. To the steady-going devotee of fiction--the
reader on the Clapham omnibus--this versatility is a source of
annoyance rather than of attraction, and I accordingly take pleasure
in stating that by those who like a light narrative, in which mystery
and romance are pleasingly blended, the author of _The Pointing Man_
can be relied upon to rill the bill every time. Conformity to type is
a strong point with this author as far as the mystery and romance are
concerned, but within those limits he (or she) provides an admirable
range of scene, character and plot. In _The Further Side of the
Door_ (HUTCHINSON), the once handsome and popular hero emerges from
a war-hospital badly disfigured and is promptly jilted by his fiancée
and avoided, or so he thinks, by his acquaintances. Disgusted he
buries himself in an old haunted house in the wilds of Ireland and
abandons himself to the practice of magic. The result is highly
successful, for he raises, not a spirit indeed, but something much
more desirable to a lonely young man who has been contemplating
suicide. So much for the romance. The mystery is provided by a
villain, an enterprising young married woman, and the sinister
denizens of a creepy boarding-house. I heartily recommend _Punch_
readers who like a mystery to buy the book and find out what happens.
* * * * *
The publishers of _Sir Limpidus_ (COLLINS) call it, in large print,
a "new and amusing novel," but I am not confident about your
subscription to the latter part of that statement; for Mr. MARMADUKE
PICKTHALL'S irony is either so subtle or so heavy (I cannot be
positive which) that one may well imagine a not too dull-witted reader
going from end to end without discovering the hidden intent. The
subject of the tale, which has no special plot, is a numbskull
landowner, _Sir Limpidus_, son of _Sir Busticus_, lord of Clearfount
Abbey, and type (according to Mr. PICKTHALL) of the landowning class
that he evidently considers ripe for abolition. As propaganda to
that end he conducts his hero through the usual career of the
pre-war aristocrat, sending him to public school and Varsity (those
sufficiently broad targets), giving him a marriage, strictly _de
convenance_, with the daughter of a peer, and finishing him off as a
member of the Government, alarmed at Socialist hecklers and welcoming
the War as likely to give a new direction to forces that threaten to
become too strong for his well-meaning incompetence. "It would rouse
the ancient spirit of the people and dispel their madness.... Even
defeat as a united nation would be better than ignoble peace with the
anarchic mob supreme." Of course this may be highly amusing, but--
The fact is that, with a disappointment the greater from having genial
memories of a former book of his, I have to confess myself one of
the dullards for whom Mr. PICKTHALL'S satirical darts fall apparently
pointless. I am sorry.
* * * * *
I am feeling a little peevish about _Ladies in Waiting_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON), because Miss KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN has often charmed me by
her writing in the past, and now she has disappointed me. Her latest
book contains five stories, all nicely written and set in charming
scenes; but their innocent sweetness is very nearly insipid, and
the fact that Miss WIGGIN'S only concern has been to find suitable
husbands for her six heroines (there are two in one story) makes them
curiously unexciting. Of course we all know that in American
fiction the hero and heroine will in the end marry, to their mutual
satisfaction; but unless the author can contrive _en route_ a few
obstacles which will intrigue the reader a marriage announcement in
the newspapers would be more economical and quite as interesting. It
is difficult to be "nice" and "funny," I know, and it was very noble
of Miss WIGGIN if one quality had to be left out to cling to the
niceness; but I hope that in her next book she will manage to be both.
* * * * *
While reading _With the Mad 17th to Italy_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) I could
not help feeling sorry that the public's appetite for war-literature
is reported to have become a little jaded for anything that is not
a book of revelations; and this because Major B.H. HODY, who was in
command of the 17th Divisional Supply Column, describes his trek from
Flanders to Italy with uncommon zest. It is an admirable account of
an achievement well worth recording, and the author in his advice
to C.O.'s, which seems to me full of wisdom and sound common-sense,
explains how it was that "the mad 17th" were from first to last "a
happy family." There is cause for deep sorrow in the thought that
Major HODY died suddenly at Cologne only a few weeks after his preface
was finished. He has left behind him a book which will be valued not
less for what it contains than for the sake of the man who wrote it.
* * * * *
In _Songs of the Links_ (DUCKWORTH) Mr. Punch commends to his readers
the work of two of his contributors, Mr. R.K. RISK and Mr. H.M.
BATEMAN.
[Illustration: GENTLEMAN (LATE OF PARACHUTE SECTION, R.A.F.) AFTER A
BAD WEEK'S RACING LEAVES HIS HOTEL WITHOUT UNNECESSARY OSTENTATION.]