Praise and prejudice

GEORGE DANGERFIELD

The curious fate of Mary Queen of Scotland • Dr. A. J. Cronin's new novel has every merit but one • Ellen Glasgow's iron tale

THOSE POOR QUEENS.—Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth have been resurrected once again. This is getting to he such a familiar and profitable occupation for biographers that few of us even bother our heads any more about where it's all leading to. But do you remember what those unfortunate ladies were once, and not so long ago at that? A red-haired beauty, tragic, passionate, misunderstood; and a Virgin Queen. And what are they now? Mary Queen of Scots is not so far off being a harlot with a taste for French versification: about two more biographies, I should say. and that's just what she'll be. Elizabeth is a hag with a touch of genius, and more physical drawbacks than you could shake a cake of Lifebuoy at. Why can l these ladies be permitted to decompose in peace instead of in print? Within a very short time, unless these biographies cease (and they won't), we shall know the worst: and from one or two hints which writers are still modest enough to drop, and not develop, the worst ought to be pretty an ful.

This leads me to the latest piece of grave-digging, which is Stefan Zweig's Mary Queen of Scot land and the Isles (Viking. S3.50). People who like this kind of thing will have nothing to complain of here. And the book is good, according to its lights: the bleak Scottish court, the coarse nobility, the crookedness of Lethington and Moray, the blood of Kizzio, the blowing up of Darnley, the disintegration of Mary, the virility of Bothwell, the vileness of Elizabeth, the' tragic and disgusting finale—they have never been told with more brio, more relish, or I I can well believe) more truth. All I want to know is—have they the slightest importance? is the sordid fate of poor Mary in the least relevant to today? will it affect the Ethiopian situation or the soul of Mrs. Schwartz? or has the Scottish Queen been yanked out of her grave again because she is still good for a literary thrill or two? She was once a heroine of mine, and I am a sentimentalist: which is why I protest that requiescat in pace is a phrase which biographers might ponder with rather more care than is at present the case.

DOCTOR CRONIN AND MISS GLASGOW. On the jacket of Dr. A. J. Cronin's novel, The Stars Look Down I Little. Brown. $2.50) appears this tribute from Mr. Beverly Nichols—"It seems to me to have every merit which it is possible for a book to have". This statement, so far as I was aware, had hitherto been made only of the Bible. I opened the novel with a becoming reverence; and after I had read about half way through I was not altogether inclined to disagree with Mr. Nichols. The novel has every merit that a book can have, except, perhaps, one. It is not a good novel.

Its virtues, to be sure, are convincing ones. In the first place it is very, very readable, and when a novelist writes a readable book he has performed his duly to society. In the second place, it runs to over a quarter of a million words: the duty has been performed with exemplary diligence. In the third place, its characters have a certain touch of life; and Dr. Cronin, with an eminent medical career behind him, is able to give you not merely a portrait of their souls, but, on certain occasions, a fascinating sketch of their intestines as well. What more could one want?

And yet, strange to say, something is lacking. ^ ou read a mere seventy-thousand words or so: the experience has been smooth, even delightful; it has cost you no effort and you feel that a certain aspect of English society has been presented to you with authority and ease. Here is a North Country mining district; here are the owners, the miners, the miners' agents, their wives, their daughters, sex, strikes, in brief —everything. There are scenes of special import: Dr. Cronin's picture of a mine disaster leaves a profound impression; and a lady is seduced in front of the high altar of a church—though the impression left by that scene is not so profound. You turn the pages, waiting for the glowing moment I such a moment as occurred in the middle of one's reading of The Old Wives Tale) when you will suddenly realise that you are experiencing great literature. And nothing happens. Quietly, blandly, at great length, Dr. Cronin completes his picture of an English mining district from 1903— 1933.

The truth is that the novel lacks a central human interest, a backbone. No single character stands out from the rest: on the contrary, they positively jostle each other to claim your attention, which is no way for characters to get along. The central theme is—if anything—the oppression of the poor man by the rich man. Such a theme, for a writer who is passionately socialist, can rise to greatness; but Dr. Cronin is not passionately socialist, lb' believes in nationalization, he likes the Labor left wing, but his socialism—there is no denying it—is the kind that gushes gently forth from a warm heart and a comfortable income. And that kind of socialism—as the backbone for a work of fiction—is about as sturdy as shad roe.

Ellen Glasgow's The Vein, of Iron (liarcourt, Brace. $2.50) I found even more disappointing, chiefly because Miss Glasgow is a far better writer than Dr. Cronin can ever hope to be. Her novel opens beautifully. With a deft and passionate precision, she creates a Presbyterian family in the Great Valley of Virginia, and shows through what unhappy circumstances, through what incongruous personal strata, an hereditary vein of iron appears in the character of Ada Fincastle. I can promise you that for two hundred and one pages you will not lift your eyes from this tale.

But after page 201, Ada's troubles really begin. Illicit love, an illegitimate baby, grandmother's unforgiveness, marriage, disillusion, the Depression in a Tidewater city. And after page 201, Miss Glasgow's troubles start, too. You begin to ask yourself whether she hasn t laid out too large a program for Ada. The plot is developed with infinite skill; the atmosphere is full of those innumerable, suggestive shades of color which are the effect of sheer good writing; but the characters move more and more slowly. They labor, they pant, they threaten to give up. You follow them in dread that they won't stay alive till the end, that they'll collapse into just so much writing. Well, they make it. but that's about all. Of course, The Vein of Iron is a book which you ought to read. It's a semi-success and a semi-success—if I may be forgiven such a trite comparison—is a whole lot better nowadays than a mediocre success.

RECOMMENDED READING—FICTION.— Best American Short Stories, edited bv Edward J. O'Brien. Dedicated to Allan Seager. Well up to the usual standard which is high. (Houghton Mifflin. $2.50.) Europa, by Robert Briffault. (Scribners. $2.75.) Richard Savage. by Gwyn Jones. ( Viking. $2.50.) Honey in the Horn, by H. L. Davis. (Harper. $2.50.) NON-FICTION: The Complete Marjory Fleming. (Oxford University Press. $2.00.) Facing Two Ways, bv Baroness Shidzue Ishimoto. (Farrar & Rinehart. $3.50.) Prisoners of the Ogpu. by George Kitchin. ( Longmans, Green. $3.00.) Boxing in Art and Letters, edited by William I). Cox. (Reynal & Hitchcock. $5.00.)

(Confirmed from page 19)