No Love
by New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1929. 12mo. 276 pp. $2.50.
ANYONE who has watched sympathetically Mr. Garnett’s work since he wrote Lady Into Fox must find peculiar pleasure and satisfaction in his latest novel, No Love; for it combines the subtle style and sensitive perception of his earlier books with a breadth and intricacy which they all lacked, and which one had almost suspected might be beyond their author’s reach. But here he has traced the history of two families over a span of thirty years, giving us a group of people clearly defined in their characters and relationships, and a very compelling sense of everyday life, which some of his early, essentially solitary figures lacked.
This is the story of two boys, Benedict Lydiate and Simon Keltie, who grow up in the country, neighbors and close friends, but widely different as the influence of their respective parents is more clearly developed. Simon is constantly uneasy, harassed by the stern conventions of his family which force him into the Navy, at a time when Benedict is still happily unconcerned with any scheme of life. Simon is tortured by his inability to understand either himself or other people; he distrusts himself, and Cynthia, the girl he marries; while Benedict accepts calmly and naturally whatever happiness presents itself. Then the war comes, engendering crude passions and emotional turmoil which eventually destroy Benedict’s father, deeprooted as he was in the kindly, secure philosophy of the ‘imminence of a golden age’; and while those of the younger generation survive the catastrophe, it is at the expense of all that had made their parents’ lives worth living. Their roots are shriveled up before they can become at home in any soil. Benedict falls deeply in love with Cynthia, but in the hysteria of a wartime leave he cannot recognize the emotion, and is afraid to assign to his happiness any permanence or stable form. So Cynthia goes back to Simon, who handles the situation with a conventional gesture which tortures all three.
When the war is ended, and they try to start their lives afresh, the sap has dried in the trees. The militaristic traditions of Simon’s upbringing are futile now, though he still clings to them; the sweetness of Benedict’s nature is suddenly sterile. Simon grows increasingly selfish and withdrawn, vainly seeking understanding in the arid desert of psychoanalysis: while Benedict feels that the emotion which might have given shape and depth to his life was abandoned by him unrecognized. Driven by circumstances, they sell to strangers the land on which they were brought up, regretting its passing, yet aware that they themselves lack the zest and courage to work it into life as their fathers had done.
The book is most skillfully written, with a clarity of phrase, economy of incident, and delicacy of characterization exceedingly rare; the countless sketches of country life are bright with life. No Love is as perfect as Lady Into fox, and more profoundly moving.
EILEEN HUGHES