Tree of Liberty
by
[Farrar and Rinehart, $3.00]
IN the formative period of America, from mid-eighteenth century to Jefferson’s reign, the leaders loomed larger than life and seemed to mould the events. In turn, the events obscure the nameless men and women. Either they move in shadow or they stand as stiff and characterless as chromos. Here are Washington’s Tattered Soldiers, or Stiffnecked Tories, there are Rich Merchants supporting the Federalists or Poor Farmers turning their faces west. We know so much about their times and their general patterns. and so little of them as individuals.
Elizabeth Page, in her nearly thousand-page novel covering this period, has been unable to disentangle her main characters from the type-patterns of their time and section. The hero is hill-country Virginian, and he possesses every trait labeled from time immemorial upon the men of new lands in opposition to the settled lowlanders. His wife is a lowlander. She could be anyone of a group painting of Colonial Tidewater Virginia. replete with pride, puffed panniers, and the Peyton honor. She speaks and moves only while you watch.
In the face of the truly magnificent research out of which the author has built this book, it might seem unfair to carp first at the relatively stock characters. As it happens, they carry the researched material through their lives, and the mighty events seldom rise above them. The events are further muffled by the screen of dialogue. Miss Page has been perhaps too faithful to the documents which serve as guides to the spoken word of the times. The rounded sentences of aptly chosen words seem stilted in conveying passion and emotion. Also many words used in those days have since become so worn by costume romance and caricature that they destroy the illusion of reality. As with so much of this material. the proper use does not always evoke life.
This is unfortunate in a book which so soundly depicts the growth of the colonies into a country and portrait ures many of the great men who were part of the growing. Most of these are brought in through relations with the sons and friends of the two central characters. The most, successfully treated is Thomas Jefferson. He is a neighbor and lifelong friend of the hero, Matthew Howard. Matt himself lives from boyhood to maturity through what might be called the boyhood and maturity of Liberty. This begins with the French and Indian Wars and ends with the defeat of the Federalists, when friend Jefferson comes into power. Though all the great figures appear in action, and all the events are humanized, the book-remains more a fictionized version of the period than the story of people living through it.
It would be dishonest to analyze Miss Page’s novel in terms of another, or in any other terms except her intent. I am not asking that she make her characters compelling or her narrative exciting if her intent is so evidently to personalize this phase of American history. I am only saying that in writing honestly of such a crowded period she risked being swamped by the history as much as the people she is writing about have been swamped ever since it happened. She is writing honestly, with unfailing integrity, and we are indebted for the enormous amount of work she has done on a very worthwhile project.
CLIFFORD DOWDEY