BOOK REVIEW

Western Star, 29 August 1941, Page 4

BOOK REVIEW

i In a review by Air Horace Horsnell of “The Fortunate Lady,” by Frank Swinnerton, he says: Shakespeare and Cordelia —Swinnerton and Catherine : the initials coincide ; and so, one feels, may each author’s regard for his heroine. Further resemblances betAveen the Tales of three sisters at odds with their father the rapt reader may discoAier. When Air SAvinnerfon tells such a tale, he tells it in. the grand manner, setting out suitable scenes, creating appropriate chai-aotors, and inventing situations to fill those scenes and fulfil the characters. Does the grand manner permit melodrama? It positively invites it. Therefore melodrama enters freely, to give . the characters stuff to bite on and sustain the narrative tension, It is a tale of true love triumphant, and Catherine is a heroine Avhose virtues make her fortunate. Tavo loves she has, of comfort and despair; and this “dramatic chronicle” does not merely plot true love’s ruffled course but charts the deeps. We meet her in youth, we leave her in age, happy ever after. Like Cordelia’s, her elder sisters are monuments of jealousy, rapacity, and unfilial hate. Aforeover, unlike her, they are mosjt unfortunate. They, like Catherine’s tAVO loves, her parents, and the host of minor characters they lead axe seen and projected Avith all Air Swinnerton’s astonishing clairvoyance. This engrossing tale has other prim© ingredient®: a diversity of scenes as vividly drawn as indigenously peopled. They range from glimpses behind the counter of a small Victorian publisher to the Brighton front in a gale; from a love-laden river picnic to desolate villas, suburban opulence, fatal passion and the serenity of home. Comedy refreshes tragedy, domesticity abet® the drama, a,nd the dialogue that so generously articulates the characters and quickens the narrative is masterly. Air Swinnerton, in short, is a classical noA'elist, in the true line of succession from the masters before him.