"THE GLASSHOUSE"

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 57, 7 March 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

"THE GLASSHOUSE"

AN OUTSTANDING NOViiU

Over six years ago tlie "Bulletin's" £100 prize competition was won by a no\el entitled "A House is Built," by M. Barnard Eldersliaw, which, It became known was the penname not of one writer but of two Miss Marjorie Barnard and Miss Flora Eldersliaw. They have continued to collaborate and their third novel, The Glasshouse," has been published in London by Harrop. As the late Arnold Bennett remarked of "A House is Built, there is in this latest novel "no external sign of collaborationj it is an entity and a unity.".

"The Glasshouse" is the story of a sea voyage from Antwerp to Perth and it is told by Stirling Armstrong, a youngish woman, by profession a novelist. Hie ship was a Norwegian cargo vessel and it carried only a few passengers, who were thrown close together, with the results familiar to all who have made long sea voyages. Stirling, who was a woman completely self-possessed, sophisticated without being cynical and reserved but not unfriendly, relieved the tedium of the voyage by writing imaginative histories of the lives of se\ - eral of her fellow passengers, histories based on their various characters as she observed them (and as the leader, through her eyes, observes them) on the ship. These historical sketches, if done superficially, would be tiresome, but they are done with unusual insight, so that the various passengers become exceedingly well known to and understood by tiie reader. It is an interesting technical device similar (filmgoers may recall) to that used in a film, "Friday the Thirteenth," in which one saw a number of passengers in a London bus and then was informed how each came to be there at that time. In this novel, however, the reader all the while is learning more and more of the author, who assumes more and more importance, until at the end she and the silent Norwegian captain are the centre of interest. Those who like a novel to have substance. without being (self-consciously or not) "highbrow," and who are interested primarily in character will enjoy "The Glasshouse" thoroughly. Viewed superficially the voyage it describes was a dull one. but "M. Barnard F.ldershaw" makes it uncommonly interesting.