ROMANCE IN THE BLITZ

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25672, 21 October 1944, Page 5

ROMANCE IN THE BLITZ

The Unready Heart. By Richard Sherman. (Faber.) 11s. This is a war novel. The scene is set in bombed London. Many stories have been published with a similar background, some of them showing considerable power of ' description. But this author, an American serviceman stationed in England, brings a new eye to bear. His work has, indeed, qualities peculiar to American literature. The framework is that of the traditional trash novel, reshaped to admit ,a tragic ending; its content is a pastiche of realism and romance; its style conversational, sometimes disjointed. The author has accepted without question those current trends of thought which are favoured by governmental authorities. The hero of the story manifests typically American characteristics of crude sentiment and self-confidence. The heroine, eventually won over to an acceptance of the aims and attitude of the hero, is English, undoubtedly snobbish, and until she has been influenced by the hero, in many ways a normal young woman. There occur throughout the story flashes of psychological insight. These, with its smooth-flowing style, make The Unready Heart effective and readable. ■ J- B.