EYEWITNESS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23361, 21 June 1941, Page 5

EYEWITNESS

THE WAS

European Sprinf. By Glare Boothe. Hamish Hamilton. 352 pp. (HA-.) Through Whitcoxnbe' >»nd Tomb* Ltd. ■ ■'V l '-;- ■

, Miss Boothe, the author of that bit* ferly intelligent comedy, “The Women,” took her intelligence ajid. her ignorance to Europe, early in 1940, to find: out what really was going on over 'there, and why.’ Her -ignorance was part of her, declared baggage; _ she exaggerates the Weighty of it; it didn t hahdicap her. This book issoundly informative, judicious and penetrating, and jvitty. .. . . And witty; which doesn’t mean that it’s full,'of pert, superficial wisecracks. . Miss Boothes wit blisters, or exposes, or sums up. As, for example, it sums up, acutely and sadly, conditions in Paris during the Sitzkrieg, when, “fortified by many a logical but false deduction of ultimate victory, France, in the spring marked time, and talked- and talked and talked.” She moved to England where she heard too much' of losing every battle but the last, too muct of muddling through, too much of th* past, too much ill-informed,-patronis-ing criticism of America. -But she heard, also, a grand tea-table, outburs of Garvin’s against incompetence ant complacency; and she heard and sav| enough to show her that, though England might have “a head of clay,” hei “feet were firm and'unfaltering.” Sh( weni to the Low Countries and fount the statesmen of the Netherlands fumb ling theories of peace by . negotiation while ’doom was gathering over them She returned to Paris, where “rumour riding- frightened, .unleashed tongue like a mad jockey, told of counsel! divided in the highest places,” and thej the terror of ‘ the fifth-columnists be gan. She was back in England in'tiro to witness the jubilation over Ounkirl and to reflect upon its revelation bot] of strength and pf blindness still. (M Churchill had to say: fiercely: “Ai evacuation is not a victory.”) She spoki to an American oil-man: “I don’t understand-the ; British at ai at all. it just makes' me sp ill and mac Don’t they, for God’s sake. Jcnow whs they’re,ln for?” . , .

"How would It help., them •If they did? he asked. - * ■'

• I-answered miserably: “I- don’t know. He' said: "Exactly. Do you think they' take it when it comes?” . \ ,1 replied impatiently: ‘‘Why yes, c course.”

“I mean really take It, from John .( Groats to Land's End, .until there's hard! an English home standing or an Engllsl man left alive.”

I said: “You know X think.-they will He said: “Then you’ve found out ;tl only ; fact* worth knotting here.” Miss Boothe carried back with hi to the United States the brilliant ,61 servations and impressions! that ai

organised in this book. She carrii more. She carried the. material • £ that searching last chapter in whic she challenges her countrymen—“Wt the real trouble that even after tf Allies knew what, they had to face the didn’t get ready in . time? Do you thin that even if'; we not, ready- hot of course we will he ,in plenty of time Isn’t that what they were saying?”and thrusts home the charge: “This: the unhappy truth: like the Allies t have no counter-revolutionary' idea no dynamic ideals, at : all to set fa £(gainst that of the- Nazis.” There is: the victorious’answer to Nazism! not in the dead phrases ut but in its living faith and. 'purpo* But for that discovery and. its hop this book could not have been caile in its inner sense, “European Spring?

NEW NOVELS ' ■ I

VICTORIA RISING ; Immortal Rase. 'By Kathleen - Coyl Gollancz. 447 pp.’ (9/- net.l J ■' Miss Coyle has attempted ah almc impossible task, to depict genius; in she has dofibled' thfe- attempt and tK difficulty; Victoria Rising, lrish-Am( ricah poet, is a She v lifts tl critics of the United , States ' off the feet. Lloyd Folg&tes); the -man si .deeply, and ; faithfully and,-tragical -loxgs, is another genius, whose field one tbit. lies.behind ti froftt of politics.* there he; moves n hir Secret errands of pbwet; 1 and the great spirits meet, only to. be’ kc Spirt byu his., unswerving, loyalty that forbid him any other bon The'stressesof this.frustrated love a pot resolved without cost to othi Victoria’s first husband commits . .SI cide; she leaves her second to false evidence of her death. She livj unknown,’until the death of. Lloyd ; an air-tcrash snaps the thread,.of ;; .h own life. ’ Miss Coyle writes with'W sionate conviction, obviously; but yl toria refuses to be anything more to an author’s emphatic but none i ‘clear and Lloyd is only, li forthcoming. The most satisfying pa of this novel are those in which -t psychology of supra-ordinary persq is of little or no’account,‘such as 1 impressions of scene ’ and of physi| action. V ■ ■• i return * Last Year’s Rose, By Margaret Fi guson. Robert Hale Ltd., 300 I (8/9.) Through Whltcombe ai Tombs Ltd. - fS; Accompanying bet .explorer hush* ‘on one of his expeditions, Dpnfl Carvell survived an overwhelm! storm through his sacrifice; and i problem she had. hoped to, solve othi wise was solved in, this way. She m? ried Oliver Creighton. .But Fran* Carvell. broken yetaliVe.’ came ►b« from .the- mountains; and' there w no-solution to, ,tois ; new .problem, fob woman as loyal, generous, and grat ful as Domini, but to take her pla beside him and conceal what he mt never know. ’ Miss. Ferguson wort out this dramatic situation with | probability that rests oh consistent m acute characterisation. This is a goj novel. • , -;

U-CROSS

Adventures of Gilead Skaggs. James E. Baum. Methuen. 246 (8/- net.)

The reader of Wild West stor who knows nothing <or somethin: about them should not shy away ? being told that this, is bne. It will | wiser to wait and hear that there, a good) simple, Mark Twain quali in the adventures of Gillie Skaggs,! criminal-bted city boy who discover and,ran away from his'ancestry ■; a Western ranch, found his fathj brought him back to the U-Cross, a! joined this reformed character in ,t| astonishing exploits that cleaned up t bad-lands. •

JANET GROWING UP .

Sprinter in September. By Ursa Bloom. Robert Hale Ltd. 2 pp. (5/6.) Through Whitcom' and Tombs Ltd.

Miss Bloom's admirers will IE Janet, who in Chapter I ceases to be schoolgirl (she “adored poetry al had been awarded a volume of Brow; ing’s poems bound in leather” for b leaving prize) and embarks on tl “great adventure of being grown-ut They will like the course of the adve ture,- also, till it closes, after a “m-mj erable” misunderstanding, among ros and rapture. (