First Novels
We rely on Marshall Best, a most knowledgeable reader of fiction native and European, for an early appraisal of some promising ‘first, books.’
FIRST novels have an advantage over others in that the reader is ready to make allowances. Even if none of the books considered here were important in itself, it would have a certain interest because it introduces a young new writer and offers a sign of what may be expected from him. And, either in technical skill or in the personality disclosed, each of these three is encouraging.
The Secret Image, by Laurence Oliver (Simon and Schuster, $2.00), has none of the earmarks of a first attempt. It is a tragedy of character, developed with skill and insight, successfully employing a technical trick which gives it the sustained interest of a mystery story. The trick is simple without being obvious: Charlotte Irskine is rescued from a burning house on one of the small Channel Islands, and tended by kindly neighbors who have known her during her years on the island only as an object of vague scandal. The man who lived with her there is lost in the fire. When she recovers from her injuries her memory is gone; the islanders are unable to help her win it back, as they know nothing of her life. But one small event upon another restores it to her, beginning with her earlier years and leaving the later ones to be revealed little by little up to the final mystery of the lire. Thus the reader relives her past with her in the order in which she experienced it, with the intensified interest gained by knowing something of its outcome. The tale unfolded is the hitter disintegration of an idyllic love. It is told subjectively, as the woman recollects it, with a subtle and close understanding. The gradual transfer of her affections from her lover to her personal possessions is one of the moving and natural touches in a story that is full of such touches. Some of the stages in her recovery come about a little too conveniently for life — chance meetings which open new vistas into her past are too clearly of the author’s rather than of fate’s contriving; and a layman may doubt whether a case of amnesia would normally take just such a course. But these matters are of secondary importance: they help along the telling of the story, but do not affect its tragic conclusion.
No Goodness in the Worm, by Gay Taylor (Hareourt, Brace, $2.50), has for its chief merits an invigorating prose style, compounded of fresh language and lively observation, and a complete acceptance of the point of view of the post-war generation. But there its merit becomes its chief defect; for the author sees no farther than her characters, and the more honestly she presents their honesty and disillusionment, the more she fails to see the underlying shallowness. For the young women of this story are the victims of a sort of psychological romanticism as far removed from truth as the adventurous romanticism of Scott. When the wayward wife discovers that her best friend rather than herself is to he the mother of her lover’s child, and when she goes to live with that friend through the birth and rearing of the child, the situation is melodrama, no matter how much the characters may insist that they act in enlightened honesty. The author treats as tragedy what ought to have been travesty, and makes serious bones about human vagaries that an Aldous Huxley would mock with healthy cynicism, lint there are telling scenes and touches — the ebb and flow of love, pull of habit, little dialogues of the women in league against man — that redeem the book and make it notable.
It is often said that every novelist must first write his autobiography, and should usually then destroy it. Of the first novels in this group, A River Goes with Heaven, by Howell Vines (Atlantic Monthly Press and Little, Brown, $2.00), is the most clearly a self-portrait, and so the least satisfactory as a novel. Yet it is infinitely the most interesting in its disclosure of a personality. In fact if must be regarded as one of the curiosities of recent literature. Those who read the passages which appeared in the Atlantic are aware of its charm and of the crudity which is part of the charm. The autobiography of a boy in the Alabama highlands, ‘at the pairing time of life,’ it teems with love of his corner of earth, its traditions, its two Warrior rivers, its redbirds and beech trees, and the girl Haltna, who shares these loved objects with him. Spring and nature are in his blood; like a young ram he goes about butting Ins head against the smooth bark of lurches and snuffing up the lush air from the river bank. At its best it has the quality of an ecstatic idyll. But behind its simple awareness is a mind groping eagerly for ideas, the portrait of an artist not yet disillusioned, who dreams of greatness and surprises himself with his own long thoughts. In his playing with words and phrases he is a workman with a bright new tool: many of the dialogues are painfully overwritten; yet others, such as his talks with the knowing old grandfather, have a racy tang and naturalness. One’s pleasure in the book is derived not so much from what it tries to do as from what it does unconsciously. As yet the author has no perspective on his material, and exercises none of the trained novelist’s selection. In winning these powers, it will be interesting to see whether he can retain the fresh perceptions and the electric warmth of mood that give such charm to A River Goes with Heaven.
MARSHALL A. BEST
To the casual observer the book business seems to be in a happier condition.
Books that established themselves some time ago, such asThe Story of San Michele, The Adams Family, and Angel Pavement, continue to call for new editions, while such a newcomer as Education of a Princess is reported to have broken records in its January sale. Incidentally this hook, which was passed over by several New York publishers, has been renamed — by one of the disgruntled rejectors — ‘Education of a Publisher.'
To judge from a bookseller’s barometer, Soviet Russia is the subject about which the public is most seriously concerned. That extraordinary experiment, the Five-Year Plan, is already making itself felt, and in at least five instances I know of manuscripts that arc being rushed from pen to press in order to be on the market before spring. Elsewhere rumor, always busy about new books, reports now that Sinclair Lewis has begun work on a novel about the trade-unions, and. again, that he lias discontinued it. Before the end of March we shall have I he sequel toAll Quiet on the Western Front. By way of experiment, a number of publishers have collaborated in the make-up of a volume which is to contain single chapters from twenty-one of the spring’s most likely uovels. It is to be calledThe Pool’ Show, will carry an introduction by Harry Hansen, and is, I suppose, to be used as an apéritif. Some publisher (presumably the highest bidder) is to have the honor of bringing out in the early summer the versatile correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and Ellen Terry. And James Truslow Adams is putting the finishing touches to his American Epic, the story of the American people from the beginning to yesterday, interpreted in one volume. As for the reprints, the publisher ot the Modern Library tells me that the lour most popular titles at present are The Profilers Karamazov, The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, Of Human Pondage, and Sons and Lovers.
Speaking of titles, which I could do at length, it seems to me that, the silliest caption among recent books isNaked on Roller Skates, by Maxwell Bodenheim. It seems to me a title should seek to epitomize the book, not hit the reader in the eye with so much custard pastry. And as for blurbs, about which one can’t expect much, — the prize should go to the phrase advertising Palm Reach, by Cornelius “Vanderbilt, Jr.: ‘The boy who can snitch on the idle rich.’ With your permission I shall nominate these for the Wliat. Rot Club.
