NEW FICTION

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28222, 9 March 1957, Page 3

NEW FICTION

The Brazen Head. By John Cowper Powys. MacDonald. 348 pp.

Though this new novel by the gged John Cowper Powys stands out like a landmark from the swamp of contemporary library fiction, judged by the standards which he himself has set in his earlier works, it is not a particularly successful book. Where “Jobber Skald” and “A Glastonbury Romance” were both curious and wonderful, “The Brazen Head” is merely curious, and. from time to time, redeemed by passages of great writing and exciting action. Some of the characters are finely realised in action and dialogue; others remain mere cardboard figures. It lacks the momentum of the earlier novels. The narrative is broken by digressions of no particular relevance, and many entirely mystifying interludes bewilder the reader. Those who have read Mr Powys’s earlier books will not be surprised to find that his highly individualistic religious beliefs—a kind of pre-Christian fertility cult—play a considerable part in the lives of the characters. But here these beliefs seem odder than before, less intimately concerned with the action of the novel. A few characters, in fact, geem to have been invented and given their places simply as vehicle for this strange body of belief.

The brazen head in question is that fashioned by Friar Bacon, an adventurous medieval thinker whose pseudo-scientific theories and zeal for experiment brought him into conflict with ecclesiastical orthodoxy. Around the figure of the medieval sage are scattered a number of medieval characters, lords, ecclesiastics, peasants and a few women charters who are the most clearlymarked products of the Powys stable. No-one should look here for a factual record of the life of Friar Bacon. What can be found here is an intermittently effective evocation of medieval heresy.

The Sacrifice. Adele Wiseman. Gollancz. 316 pp. A work of remarkable maturity. •The Sacrifice” is written by a girl in her mid-twenties. Sombre, and tinged With Russian fatalism. the story traces the lives of Abraham, his wife Sarah and their son Isaac, fugitives from a Jewish pogrom in their Ukrainian village where Abraham’s two oldest sons were hanged. The family quits the Canadian trans-

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE: A shepherd who has taken Nancy Mitford’s latest book very much to heart is reported to have divided his flock into ewes and non-ewes.

continental express on the sudden decision of Abraham that they have run far enough. Soon established in his trade as a butcher, Abraham orders his family’s affairs rather as a bearded patriarch. Tragedy haunts the family for, with the death of Sarah for whom Abraham would not allow medical attention which may have saved her, Isaac, now married with a baby son, dies after heroically saving the Torah from the blazing synagogue. Abraham, bewildered, loses his mind and commits murder, intoning a Jewish blessing even as he draws the knife across his victim’s throat. A strong novel, grippingly told, with a strong suggestion of religious symbolism. "The Sacrifice” is worthwhile reading. Remember the House. By Santha Rama Rau. Gollancz. 256 pp. This novel gives a picture of wealthy upper-class Indian life in Bombay at the time of independence. After six years of school in England, Babu, the 20-year-old narrator, finds herself at variance with the loyalties required by her native way of life. Something of the American film-inspired idea of happiness captures her and causes her to put aside Hari, a life-long acquaintance and expected husband. She fancies herself in love with a schoolmaster who seeks the hospitality of her mother’s house in preference to his hostel. He flutters off to marry his fiancee on his first vacation, much to Babu’s chagrin. Told with simplicity. "Remember the House” gives an excellent contrast between the American idea of happiness and the Indian high concept of duty. Along the Arno. Brian Glanville. Seeker and Warburg. 300 pp. Nandor. fugitive from his wellloved Budapest, ekes out a lonely existence in Florence. His good friend. Jack Ashing, an American G.I. scholar studying art, effects an introduction to an American heiress dallying in the halls of culture. An unusual triangle evolves with Nandor courteously worshipping a goddess from afar, Peggy conceiving a consuming passion for Ashing, the only man who has spurned her charms, and Ashing himself, impervious to the wiles of one he described as a “New York bitch. The story has a truly dramatic ending.

At the "Iron Curtain” border near Munich are gathered the relatives of 16 prisoners released after years of imprisonment. Joining them, intent on his task of the rescue of agent Nemec from Russian hands, is Kenneth Ward, secret service agent working under the cover of a newspaper job. From the moment the exiles are released to their families action begins in THE STORY THAT COULD NOT BE TOLD, by Martha Albrand (Hodder and Stoughton. 190 pp.)—thriller with a clever and unusual plot. In THE ENCHANTED GARDEN. by Iris Bromige (Hodder and Stoughton. 189 pp-)» Julian Falconer, principal of a music school and talented pianist, shows matchless kindness to his cousin, Fiona Goring. The story follows the struggle by Fiona, 12 years Falconers junior. to achieve recognition as an adult in her own right over his valuation, of her as a schoolgirl. Despite a somewhat stilted beginning the story shows an entertaining freshness and simplicity.

The 1957 edition of Whitaker’s Almanack is the 89th of this series of invaluable reference books. The new edition includes all the usual sections brought up to date, and a special section dealing with the Suez Canal crisis.

The Mystic Finger Symbol. A Novel of El Greco. By Veroncia de Osa. Robert Hale. 315 pp.

This is the romantic life story of Dominicos Theotocopoulus, later called El Greco (the Greek), the master painter (1528-1614), who, born of a peasant family in Crete, trained under Titian and Tintoretto in Venice and finally lived in Spain, where his canvases still adorn the Esturial and many Spanish churches, cathedrals and monasteries. In nearly all his Paintings he placed a person whose hand, usually the right, shows the middle and fourth finger held closely together, with the remaining fingers apart. This is repeated so often in his paintings that it has become known as the “El Greco hand.”

In writing this biographical novel, the author has kept as closely as possible to the few facts that are known about El Greco’s life. With a rational appreciation of actualities she has combined creative imagination in such a way as to make a really convincing story. Art students particularly will appreciate the vast amount of research that she has done in the lives and works of El Greco and his contemporaries. At times Veronica de Osa has been so eager to get her information across to the reader that the flavour of the book tends in places to become didactic. Nevertheless her appreciation is genuine and it would help the reader to share her enthusiasm if more than one pictorial illustration could have been included in the text of the book.

From the book’s title and the publisher’s comments on the dust jacket, one gathers that the main theme of the book is the clearing up of the mystery of the “El Greco hand”—what did the attitude symbolise, and why did the artist portray it so frequently? Certainly in the course of the story two or three explanations are given, but the reader comes across these incidentally and they make no profound impression. As a mystery story this novel fails completely, and yet as an historical novel it is an artistic success.

Of its very nature, the story contains little action, yet the contacts that El Greco had with other people are so vividly described that this lack is hardly noticeable. Touching indeed is the sensitive account of El Greco’s romance with Jeronima de las Cuevas. In his famous canvas, “The Holy Family,” still exhibited at the Hospital de Afuera in Toledo, El Greco has portrayed this beautiful lady as the Blessed Virgin Mary, with himself as St. Joseph, looking down at the Jesus child. Contemplation of this great picture, a reproduction of which forms the frontispiece, led the author to the writing of this book, and many a reader will be grateful to her for the insight she gives into the life and motives of the period. BEYOND THE GATES, by Dorothy Evelyn Smith (Robert Hale, 253 pp.) is the story of Lydia, left as a baby wrapped in brown paper at the gates of the Mary Clitheroe Orphanage. She ekes out her first 15 years under the kindly but soulless care of the orphanage authorities. Unbelievably plain, stunted in growth, her story begins when she is taken by Marion Howard as housekeeper to The Croft, a huge rambling house on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. Written with great sympathy, this story conveys a sense of simple dignity in service for its own sake. In THE ROUGH TRACK, by Linda Boscawen (Hodder and Stoughton, 190 pp.) an amateur film company goes on holiday production to a small Cornish village near Spanish Cove. With the help of the local villagers led by the local parson, a very human and humane person, the company make an historical documentary film entitled “Enchanted Rock.” Everyone of the visitors from Jimbo, a preparatory school master, to Miranda, 14-year-old daughter of a widower “Galloping” Major, is affected by Cornwall in their several ways. THUNDER ON THE RIVER, by Howard Breslin (Collins, 320 pp-). is a “Cinderella” Story set among the fishing villages along the Hudson River in the period following the American Civil War. Freshly told, the tale treats of the life and loves of Lancey Quist, a fisherman’s daughter. The background of history is unobtrusive.