Escape From Reality

Evening Star, Issue 23421, 11 November 1939, Page 3

Escape From Reality

Written by MARY SCOTT, for the ‘ Evening Star

It is a sad comment upon this life of ours, upon what man has made of man, that we middle-aged folk are forever endeavouring to escape from the painful reality that besets us. 1 cannot tell you how often I have heard during this last month such expressions as: “It keeps me from thinking”; “ It makes me forget what’s going on all round ”; “it carries me out of myself ” —and so on. In short, our main desire in our moments of leisure is to hide our heads in the comfortable sands of imagination—our own or someone else’s.

have found it in thrillers. At other times of the day I read what is more permanent; at bed-time I skim lightly over the fields of crime—and very amusing 1 find them. Not'that 1 remember them. I think that during the first weelk of the war 1 read three thrillers—and I have no memory at all of any of them. That is just why 1 find them so restful. They are like crossword puzzles—or what crossword puzzles would be to the intelligent. But, as I have never succeeded in solving a puzzle of any kind, I read thrillers and let clever young detectives do the solving for me. •Nothing could be more restful, for nowhere at all do these books as a rule touch reality. At any point at all 1 can turn off my light and go to sleep, serene in the knowledge that, dark as the dangers that surround the innocent hero may appear at the moment, wrong will most certainly be worsted in the end and all be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. For that is part of the ethics of the thriller. There are, indeed, certain rules, and any violation of these annoys me extremely. The corpse must be that of someone “ who never will be missed,” or half the fun is spoilt at once; there must be at least a dozen people with excellent motives for murdering anyone so unpleasant; there must be a detective with curious mannerisms, or with an entire and bland absence of any which denotes the old school tie; this detective either talks ungrammatically or quotes liberally from the more abstruse classics —if possible withofit quotation marks; and, over and above everything else, everything must come right—but not till the last chapter. Yes, I know all about thrillers.

Perhaps on the whole it is as well that leisure is so scarce—and likely to become, more so. Work is the best, the only permanent cure for such ills as oars—and most of us can find plenty of it awaiting us. But, since hands must at times lie idle, since even the most conscientious of us must occasionally put down our knitting and cease from vegetable culture, books do still enter into even the busiest schemes of life. That leisure hour for readIng which we have been accustomed to enjoy so much has now become a danger; it is then that we are afraid of being' carried back willy-nilly into the world of reality. Therefore, what we are to read becomes more than ever an important question. Since this cataclysm has not fallen suddenly upon us, it is possible that for some time most of us have been seeking escape from reality in our books. I am willing to confess that such has been-my own habit. For some months I have been shirking such books .as deal with international tragedies, with the rape of Czecho-Slovakia, the murder of the Jews, the triumph of Hitler nnd his brawlers, with all this dreadful reality that paradoxically seems at certain times to be nothing but a prolonged nightmare. And now that we are actually plunged into the full horror of it, I am more careful than ever in my avoidance of such books. Have wb not our daily papers? Is not the refined voice of the young man from Daventry ever with us? Let me get away from it all when I begin to read. I have learnt enough of the futility of our former foreign policy, of the sufferings of Spain, of China, of Czecho-Slovakia. of all this wretched and travailing world. I can do no good by dwelling cm it any longer; if I am to succeed, if “ in quietness and confidence ” is to be my strength, I must havß my hour of escape. It has not been a very escape. I "have not been delving into the great minds of other ages—at least, not in that stolen hour when, tiie rest of the household safely asleep, I prop up my pillows and reach for my book. Deliberately then I seek diversion—nothing more. And for a long time I

Therefore, it was nothing short of a tragedy when, iu the second week of war, I suddenly threw my Margery Alliugham into the corner of the room and said that I could endure no more of them. After almost a year of loyalty, thrillers had failed me just when I needed them most. And then inspiration came, for, as I wandered discontentedly round the bookcase, I remembered that it was almost 10 years since I had reread Jane Austen. Splendid thought! Thrillers ceased to exist for me, and life was once' more worth the living. And so my problem is solved for a month or two. I can escape from reality with Jane. She is as perfect as ever; 10 years have not withered her nor has custom staled her infinite variety. She offers the most perfect retreat from this mad world that the mind of man can devise. There is something so orderly, so finished about her; using the word in her own sense, there is a “ niceness ” that never fails. et reality is hers—but of another and a better age—of a day when war was a gentleman’s profession, when ladies

were fair and modest—or, if loud, were doomed to _ elopement —when gentlemen were gallant and marriage the only end and aim of every damsel. There is only one thing that is worrying me: Why could Miss Austen not have written more? However I spin them out, they can only see me through a few more of these turbulent weeks—and what then ? Return to my thrillers will be impossible after this fine fare. To reread them under the_ next 10 ( ve:%rs would scarcely be permissible, so vividly do they live in my memory. But stay —a happy thought comes to me. Advancing years, they say, blur the memory. Perhaps I shall forget them sooner this time. Then, welcome even senility!