The Bright Shawl
by New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1922. 12mo. 220 pp. $2.00.
THOSE readers who found Cytherea a ‘cruel novel,’ as one well-known reviewer called it, need have no fear of The Bright Shawl. About the only resemblance between them is that, like the final chapters of Cytherea, the present story is laid in Cuba. It is, however, the Cuba of forty years ago as remembered by an American, Charles Abbott, now well past sixty. Going as a young man to Havana, determined to die for Cuban liberty, he lived through a year of ardent idealisms, of patriotism, friendship, and love, so heartwarming in the retrospect that the rationalisms of the youth of to-day seem to him a subject for pity. This memory of a fervent year, ‘like a flare in the dusk of the past,’ is evoked by a strain of music, and by a shawl of barbaric color which to him is a symbol of tropical fire and youthful ardor, aspiration and self-sacrifice, brains highblooded and hearts romantic — everything that to his aging mind is lacking in the world to-day.
The earlier chapters, dealing with Charles Abbott’s dedication of himself to possible martyrdom, are full of lurking comedy, in which one hardly knows whether to admire more the delicacy and tenderness of the portrayal or the quiet strength of the style. Only one or two other American novelists write English of such distinction, and for that reason one hesitates to speak of a possible blemish. It seems to the present reader, however, that many a passage otherwise perfect is defective in rhythm, that some abruptness or slight distortion of phrasing detracts from the complete satisfaction that would otherwise be felt. This may be a small matter, but in a man who is so completely an artist, nothing is negligible.
The plot raises many interesting questions and some doubts, but it would take too long to discuss them. As for the characters, Mr. Hergesheimer has long since shown his ability to portray women, and La Clavel must be added to bis gallery. She is a powerful conception though perhaps her power lies more in the suggestions of her personality than in anything she says or docs but that, though many of our novelists have not discovered the truth, is true of the best characters in fiction generally. One thing that she does, her desperate combat with the Spaniard, Santicilla, is so remarkably narrated that it not only enthralls during the reading but haunts the memory. Of the men, Santicilla, half mad and wholly depraved, alone strikes the mind deeply.
Though The Bright Shawl, because of its brevity, may seem to some readers only an interlude between longer works, there is about it a charm that has enticed one reviewer back to it again and again. He had not been accustomed to associate tenderness with the name of the author, but tenderness is here, always controlled and mostly under the surface, but still felt, and with gratitude.
R. M. GAY.