A Psychological Study of Modern Marriage Tm Reo Pavution—By John Gunther, (Martin Seeker. 18. 6d, ne)
This study of the psychology of modern marriage is mot merely brilliant first novel: it is one of the vest, most cultivated and human of recent American books. Richard Northway, the hero, is displayed even down to his inmost thoughts and half-crystallized moods in a singularly clear way, and by most unusually simple, effective and_ un. forced means, 'The reader gradual ly becomes familiar with his serious, cumbersome personality and realizes by a gradual process of enlighten ment how strange a mixture of frustration and ambition, of bus inanity ang individualism' Richard really is, And then Richard's wife comes into the picture, with another half-dozen skilfully and economical. ly drawn characters, each with his or her own problems, each subtly, influencing. the others Richard's wife Shirley is the most charming and the least vividly displayed of them all. Mr. Gunther, no doubt deliberately, keeps her mysteriously, feminine, withdrawn, enigmatic, That she should return to her hus-and seems natural enough despite the profound antagonism between them, It is the recognition of the antagonisms which do exist inside marriage that is the chief sex-problem of our age, after all, since to recognize enmity as well as ate traction is not necessarily to create fan armistice between men and wor relates in a mest natural manner the events which follow upon Shirley's return to Richard. Free in Janguage per haps, the book is in treatment ard manner a model of decorum. It eserves careful reading, for it is a part attempt towards the solution of vital contemporary perplexities Richard and Shirley seem forced avoid each other in order to retain their self-respect, or perhaps rather, to be able each to adapt himself to the other. In contrast to them ard other characters soho avoid rather than attack diffigaltios—whether by, Uindly hazarding themselves om erotic seas or by the too common ital method which so often ically, or by armour ing selves in cynicism or monastic fam. Though they are some of them anything but admirable it is possible to maintain aesthetic sympathy with) all, and the novel is unpretentious ly" planned, ably developed and pleasantly written. Ten years agd it would have needed expurgation, but to-day its occasional bluntnesses ore presumably condoned by reade and "The Wages the stories of the French Foreign Legion written by P. ©, Wren, can have failed to remark their reality and to wonder whence came the passionate sincerity which animates the children of his imagination and quickens interest in them. The son ig simple. P. C. Wren himed has lived the life depicted in his, books. Since leaving Oxford he hag avalled into many parts of the world in search of experience and adventure. He has seen life from the points of view of a sailor, prox fessor of pedagogic psychology, navy, tramp, J.P, schoolmaster, journalist, physical culture expert, Loxer, hunter, costermonger, college? prinefpal, and he has seen service in three armies. He has served as a Legionary in the French Foreign Legion; also, he has been a trooper in a crack British Cavalry Regiment, a Major in the Indian Army, and he fought in East Afviea during the Great War. 1 fond of telling us that property has its rights as well as its duties, that labour also has its rights as well as its dut Clearly this sincerity of vision, admirable as it was, cannot entirely excuse many of the lapses: caused by Disraeli's personal ambition, oF by the temptation to put party, shove patriotism. But if I have had to neglect this side of his career, I have also been unable to note many of the good results of that power of social and political diagnosis upon which I have dwelt.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.