Times Literary Supplement, February 26, 1954solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/pdf/tls/meansandends26february1954.pdf · down vi olcnlty on to a low chest. Throughout Signor Rombi

(c) 1954, Times NewspapersSins of the Son<br->Perdu and his Father<br->Harp on the Willow

Doc ref: TLS-1954-0226             Date: February 26, 1954

THE TIMES LITERARY SliPPLEMENT FRIDAY FEBRUARY 26 1954

Fiction . EMOTIONAL ENTANGLEMENTS MEANS AND ENDS

MARK ScHORER: The WlIlrs of Love. Eyre and Spottiswoode. lOs. 6d. WILLIAM SA-ROYAN: The LAughing Maller. Faber and Faber. 125.6<1. SHOLEM AseH : A Passage in Ihe NiKht. Translated by Maurice SamueL

LEONE Snw ART: Sins of tM SOli, Hutch.inson. lOs. 6d.

PAIUDE ROMBI: Perdu and his Fa/her. Translated. from the Italian by Henry Reed. Rupert Ha<t-Davis. lOs- 6d.

Macdonald. ISs. CJLuu.Es MITCHELL: H.,p.n Ihe Will.",. M~oDald. 90. 6d.

Mr. Schorer's The Wars of Love, the asks the very serious question: Wh at The first two of the three novels in best of three intense anii somewhat should a husband, who loves his wife question succeed, in their <3ilferent laborious novels dealing with differ- and two children, do when, at the ways, because both have that com­ent kinds of emotional impasse in start o[ their holiday; she tells him .... passion and understanding without

present-da y America, tells the story ~hheeyiS ar;;;:a~aD~o b10::0~~~h ~~~~~. ~~~e~sfu~. chTh~~:r~r~wi~~h~:~ ~f of a vampire woman who exerts her equall y, and the wife's feeling for Dickens in Miss Stewart's novel, and dominion over ' three men by ruling and relationship with the other man an evident knowledge of the problems the heart of one. the mind of another, play no part in the book. Mr. of juvenile delinqu:ncy lies behind and the body of the third. The book Saroyan gives no hint as to what her descriptions of the circumstances opens in the 1 920s, when all are kind of people are involved, and the in whiCh adolescents drift from petty children frolick.ing together through only clue to the wife's character is crime and the probation offic~r 10 hot country summers'. The relation· that she calls her small daughter by more serious offences and long ships between Millie, the girl, and the nickname of Sexy. So the pro- periods in prison. This is, however, the three boys who are her constant blem is not given a very engrossing no roman ti lhese, except that the companions undergo a number of context. The husband and wife, reader is brought to realize how much changes, but only Grant. the narrator, struggling to make their love suffi- has still to be done to avoid an has any sort of sexua l encounter with cient decide to have an abortion per~ insufficient education and a lack of her. Yet she rules the group by the form~d, which, as the ~ife ~ies, prop:r facilities leading young men, power of her personality. Ten years . appears not to be the solution. Smce, barely out of school, to seek excite· pass. and the hard, boyish girl of like Shakespeare, Mr. Saroyan, once ment and easy money in petty thiev~ sixteen has become an assured beauty emba rked on killing off his char· ing whieh, sooner or later, must end whom Grant one day meets by acters, seems to prefer a clean ~weep, in violence. The plot is well con­accident, only to discover that she a car accident does a neat Job of ceived. By the end of the first chap­j$ married to one of the old group, tying up the loose ends. This trite ier the reader knows well that Nick Daniel, and curiously involved with talc is dressed up in a lot of prelen- Hubbard will return to prison, what­the other. In spite of this, Grant, tious and sententious moralizing, but ever h~ tries to do. It is not that falling in love with her, Succeeds in the decay of Mr. Saroyan's talent is society is, in hi s mind, bad or cruel,

r=::ina; b:rait~~;v:~h~~~ i~th~; ;:~ not disguised at any stage. ~~ ~v~ne;;hee~Cih~t, ~~~ thaa~:~~~gS ei~~ The exact nature o[ her hold on all In A Passage in Ihe Night Mr. involved has the intelligence: or the of them is never quite made plain, Sholem Asch traces the career of courage to break free. SillS 0/ fhe though it turns out thar she trapped Isaac Grossman, owner of a chain SOli has considerable power. Th: Daniel into marriage after he had of luxury hotels, from his earl.y characters are alive and their moth. become attracted to a nurse in the poverty in New York, through hiS like incapacity to remove themselves sanatorium whither he had repaired long. ha ppy marriage and business from the fire and their blind fum­after the death of his parents in an successes, to his blea k winter of old blihgs and efforts to achieve happi­appalling motor accident, and that age, when, h is wife dead, only !in ness in their own unhappy way are with Frederick, the fourth of the understanding secretary saves him memorable. This is not a major group, she had kept him in a from worrying himself into the grave. work , but it is of our time an d it suc­state of continued and dependent The reason for his worry? When he ceeds to a consid~rable extent in pre­convalescence. was starting he stole a wallet from a senting a disturbing picture of one

Though r .... lr. Scharer fails to give Pole who had come into a shop to buy aspect of our society. any of his characters coherence. he a suit for his daughter's wedding. The Signor Ro:nbi's first novel, admir· has created the situations between Pole cam~ to a bad end and, stricken ably translated by Mr. Henry Reed, ·them sk.ilfully enough; though their half a century late with a crisis of deals in remarkably pure and simple motives remain vague. their actions conscience, Grossman determines to language with a theme which is as and background - the art·dea ling expiate his sin by seeking out the old as the Mediterranean civilization world of New York-are described man's relatives and by a. display of in which it is set. In the story o[ the with a competence that, fo r all the philanthropy that amazes and ho~ri- child Perdu. at first merely puzzled melodrama of its ending. makes The fies those nearest and dearest to him. by his lack of a father and, later, Wars of Love very read<t.ble. Mr. Asch tells this sad talc with tortured and horrified by the con-

Mr. Sa royan's new novel has the g.reat thoroughness, little originality viction Ihat the fa ther he seeks is sub-tille .. a serious story," and it and no wit. none other than his grandfather,there

is a st rong sense of the inevitable. Only death can put an end to th is

"Informed with imagination and :l

pJ.ssionalc sense of human destiny .• • There is a quality of serenity, of seeing tbings whole, with individ ual characters presented lhrouah a medium or complete yet relent less $ y m p u I h Y I reminiscent of the

atmosphere of Middlf!lIItJrc"~ '

NORAH

LOFTS her story of a house through four centuries

BLESS this

HOUSE

misery and terror. A number of delightful descriptions of the Sar­dinian landscape are set in admirable contrast to scenes of violence such as this ~

Suddenly. as he had done twice before, he hurl.:d himself a third time on Ihe

~?~d~y nl~; V~~lt ~i~~ :I~i~~: ~~llirt~a;~i~ up in one hand, in til .: way peasants on a threshin& floor lest the weiGht of a bag of corn. and when the child WilS level with his own race. he drew him towards himself. spal in his face and threw· him down vi olcnlty on to a low chest. Throughout Signor Rombi writes with a formidable calm a nd an absence of emotion which leaves a s trong impression of the controlled power of the Hellenic world ..

Harp 011 lilt! Willow is a well-told story of some charm which describes the-rise and fall of a brilliant concert pianist whose genius peters out

through lack. of application, a passion for playing the great man and too great an aptitude for enjoyment ; but who is saved from destitution by the discovery that he has a talent for the composition of musical comedy.

CECa. ROBERTS : The RemarkRble Young Mall. Hodder and Stoughton. 125. 6d.

LIN YtlTANO : The Vermilion Gau. A Novel of a Far Land. Heinemann. ISs,

Although these two novels have very differenl settings. the one taking place in the aristocratic Rome of the 1820s, the other in the Chinese civil wars of the 1930s, they both suffer, in spite of the ioterest of their themes, from a somewhat pedestrian tone, and each is marred by an overcrowded back­ground. loseph Severn is the Remark­able Young Man. His rise in forh~ne is described from bis devoted nursLOg of Keats on his death-bed to the sudden marriage with the ward of his patron, Lady Westmorlan~. The st~ry borrows some of the realIty of a blO­grllphy; we follow with amusement his reliat)ce on Lady WestmQrland and with sympathy his forsaking hu for Elizabeth Montgomerie. The background consists of the balls, the personalities and the weather. Mr. Roberts is fully at ease in Rome. He describes its architecture, recounts the gossip and shows the likenesses of its famous visitors like a guide 10 a family album. They are aU here, from the Duchess of Devonshire,

. Trelawny and the .. Blessington Circus" to Bancroft. The romance of the good-hearted Severn's relation· ship with the fiery Lady Westmorland is obscured rather tha.n brightened by this detailed panorama of the life and scandals of post-Napoleonic Rome.

The long de~riptions of the Chinese way of life and its compli­cated wars impede Mr. Lin's loV""e story of the journalist, Li Fei. and the high-born student, 10·an . The plod­ding style robs the sudden d~aths of tragedy and the wars of ex-cII.em~nt. Again, only the charactus whIch im­mediately surround the lovers ~em alive. The Vermilion Gale leads Into Ihe palatial home of lo-an's family. They make their wealth from, fish, and their wrangle over th e ethics of building a dam is reminiscent of the family quarrels of our industrial North. lo-an's noble father. whg opposes the dam, is tenderly portrayed and his part in the culmi nation of their dispute has drama. Th.!reafter the lovers take their course through the Muslim war in Sinkiang and their story is brought to a suitable conclusion. In spite of the hectic background and the lovers' tribulations the story leaves a mild impression. Apart from the dislocating impact of the West, we do not feel that we have visited China. The love·story. though it has-as much interest as most of its kind, might have taken place almost anywhere.

• J OHN O'LONDON'S WEEKLY

re\liewing it liS their monthly choice. 112i6J PAST AFFAIRS

LORD

DUNSANY JORKENS BORROWS

ANOTHER WHISKEY [12;61

II Grateful admirers will hardly need to l.x: told how omniscienl, resourceful, wcll·travelled, and

. quietly amusiA!:: Jorkens is" THE TIMES

.. Most can be read with a lauGh, Do few with .. shudder. and all with respect for his ereator's dauling ingenu ity" JUliAN SYMONS (MWI­c/l('!,('r £l'('1/illg Ncw~)

BARBARA

WORSLEY­GOUGH

ALIBI INN INGS [IO{61

.. A deft. coolly sop"histicat~d and most agreeable whodunit ... Mesdemoiselles Sayers, Spain and the rest had better dust up their laurels" JOHN CONNt::U .. (Evrll;l/g News) .

"No one could fail to enjoy this sunny. midsummer nightmare" FIlANC"IS IUS (Sul/duy Tilll(,s)

MAODALEN KINO-HALL: The Venetiall Bride. Peter Davies. 12o. 6d.

KENNETH FENWICK: The Lof/iest Star. Hutchinson. 125. 6d.

Miss Magdalen King-Hall is the author of that excellent pastiche Diary of a Youllg Lady of Fashion, which at its first appearance was not iced by some reviewers as a genuine document of the eighteenth century. So the background of her latest story may be accepted without reserve. But it is a story which con­sists almost entirely of background, transporting the reader from eighteenth-tcntury Ireland, through London and Paris, to Venice and back again. Tne differing social

BUS H VEL D, BAN A N A S ~~~fa~:dor ~~,'" 1~~;c~J!'r~:.~ra~~~ AND BOUNTY . ~~n::: o}h~ve~Ohis~~~ic!:l~~vet~~

KAY COWIN ~c~i~~=1 :~~:. t~~~ ~~~tit~~egi!~~; Four years ago the author and her husband thJ'lcw up theircomrorlable to carry conviction. As a guide to a lire in Johannesburg to go rarmin.e in undeveloped Transvaal. This vanished socielY this book is of SIOry of their enterprise, with its Robinson Crusoe-like flavour, interest; but the action, which taIls mak.es excellen.t reaclina. lIIustru/~d. lS/~ . into the separate episodes of the

~ ----------------------1 typical serial story, is fiat and entirely

M I C H A E L J 0 S E P H pr~:;:~kS have been wrillen aboul tho Emperor Napoleon than. about

any other subject in the world. Per­haps there is room for -yet anolher, on Napoleon the amorist; but only just room. Mr. Kenneth Fenwick traces his career from the .adventures of young Lieutenant Buonaparte in the alleys behind the Palais Royale to the final embarcation of General Bonaparte for St. Helena. The inter­vening pages contain a catalogue of mistre;;ses, mterspersed with accounts of political and military affairs written on a uniform lcvel of detraction. This is what the MomiJlg Post thought of the Corsican Ogre in 1810, but must we have it all again in 1954? A Frenchman of the eighteenth century, Napoleon regarded constant sexual enjoyment merely as a need to be gratificd. He was in fact interested in more important affairs; he was usually short of sleep, short of food, and short of time; he was matter·of­fact and unchivalrous, and perhaps as undersexed as many great intellec­tuals. "All this made him a boorish and boring lover, as the author proves in great detail. But the interest. jng thing about Napoleon was his military sk.iU. lfthat is too hackneyed a subject, why not write on Napoleon the patron of the: arts. or even Napoleon as an influence on fashion in men's wear 1 The pity of it is that Mr. Fenwick really knows his subject; it jUSl hippens to be a dun..ubj"'"

133

I ANDRE DEUTSCH r 8f)

GERMANY: KEY TO PEACE

JAMES P. WARBURG

At once a record and an indictment of American policy towards Germany. Jusl published 25/-

THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF EUROPE

The papers of the Second Wt"Stminster Conference, JUSI published 15/-

LAte March

·THE AGE OF SUSPICION

JAMES A. WECHSLER

The editor of the New York Post was called before the Un-Am:rican Activities Committee in 1953. His tussle with McCarthyism has resulted in this book: an auto· biography describing the growth' of liberal princi. pIes from a Communist youth, and culminating in an incisive analysis of Senator McCarthy's methods as the writer experienced them. 16/-

NOVELS

A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS

WOLF MAN KOWITZ

'It has absolute enchant­ment.' - B.B.C. CRITICS.

Illustrated by James Boswen. Book Society Recommends.

2nd impression. 7/6

COORINNA ERLE WILSON

• The finest, and deepest, account of the 'lives and deaths of wild creatur~s that I have ever read.'-NEW STATESMAN.

2nd impression. 8/6

A TIME TO LAUGH

LAURENCE THOMPSON

, Delightful, and most ably done .' -MANCH ES TER

GUARDIAN. Book Society Recommends. 8/6

THE HOLY FOOT ROBERT ROMAN IS

I This charming book •.• must be very highly com­mended:-uNIVERSE. 9/6

I SAID TO MY WIFE

JEAN DUCHE

Nicolas Bentley drew the pictures. I The drawings are as witty as the text.' -THE TIMES. 9/6

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