SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1878, 11 October 1913, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"PATCHWORK COMEDY." Mr, Humphrey Jordan's novel "Patchwork Comedy" (Putnam's Sons; per George Robertson and Co.) more than fulfils the promise of the same author's earlier story "Tho Joyous Wayfarer." In its plot, which turns upon the outwitting and discomfiture of a rascally blackmailer, the story reminds me not a little of one of Mr. A. E. W. Mason's novels, the title of which, for the moment, has escaped my memory. There is, however, a decided originality in making the villain of the piece the cousin of a clean-living, honourable, and very likeable young fellow, who is the bosom friend of a man whose father is being blackmailed, and further in the blackmailer also attacking, as a secondary and pecularly vicious enterprise, the fair name of the lady with whom' first one and then both the young men are in love. As si study in polished villainy, refined cruelty, and almost demoniacal ingenuity in evildoing, the character of Jame3 Morton, the blackmailer, is a peculiarly clever piece of work. The Carfews,' father and son, upon whose joint purse the blackmailer levies for a time so outrageously heavy a toll, are pleasant English gentlemen, the son, a famous explorer, developing as the story proceeds into a very strong, quite Mason-like hero. The other lover of Margery Gillanby, Mick Morton, a rising young sculptor, is a trifle snadowy and unconvincing, but serves as an admirable foil to the sterner-natured Carfew the younger. A family lawyer, Mr. Bentham, is an exceptionally well-drawn minor character. The story contains many ingeniously-planned incidents and some very effective dialogue; Except for tho fact that in real life the blackmailer would, I think, hardly have enjoyed so long an immunity from exposure and punishment, Mr. Jordan's story is a notably good novel. It makes excellent reading, and should be very popular. MY FATHER'S SON. "My Father's Son," by W. W. Penn, edited by John Harvey (Hodder and Stoughton; per S. W. Mackay), giveß a meticulously detailed picture of a young Londoner's life, up to the time when, faced with cortain disgrace, tho hero bolts to Canada. The son of a small publisher, who specialises in books of an evangelical and distinctly " goodygoody" order, young Penn—for the Btory is presented as autobiographical— is given a university education, his parents, none too well off, denying themselves the small luxuries of life with a view to tho young man becoming a valuable business ally—as reader anil general litorary adviser to his father's business. The lad starts badly. He has small monetary troubles, takes refuge in daily deceit, goes to Cambridge, gets deeper int-o debt, and addo cLeliborat« meacfacitr to mora dcceit.

Finally, he emerges, with a disappointing degToe, and at first refuses to go into his father's business. A sojourn at a crammer's results in more disappointment, for ho fails to win a coveted Indian appointment, and there is nothing for him left but tho pity- Moral weakness grows, petty trickeries lead to more financial trouble, but ©von now the young fellow, not bad all through, could bo rescued. But heredity—he liaß had a scapegraco grandfather—and tho oold severity and uncongenial atmosphere of his suburban homo, act as deterrents to any chance of his bettor naturo triumphing, and he " goes under," almost with deliberation. I do not believe for one moment that tlio story is really an autobiography—its markedly Uternry element is against suoh a theory—but it is nono the less a most pathetic and, in its way, tragic story, lie pettiness and yet in certain ways, the nobility of the Penn family life, are delineated with an unerring hand. One feels that hero is a true transcript from life. There is a fine pyschological quality about this novel, the sombreness of which is relieved not infrequently by touches of an ironic humour. The Short Stories of Frank Harris.

Frank Harris is still to-day just as easily at the head of all English writers of the short story as he was when he gave us those two admirable books, "Elder Conklin and Other Stories,' and its successor, "Mont-es the Matador ajid Other Stories." By all means, do not miss his latest volume, "TJnpath'd Waters" (John for at least six out of the nine stories and sketches contained therein are immeasurably superior to the vast majority of every day vction. There will, no doubt, be much difference of opTnion as to the first and third stories in the collection. Personally, _I am strongly prejudiced against fictional presentment of Scriptural subjects, and although there is a fine pathos, real power, and no suspicion even of in "The Miracle of tho Stigmata" and "Tho King of the Jews," my old prejudice is still there, and is not to bo dissipated by the most brilliant literary efforts of this particular kind. Again, although in "Sir. Jacob's Philosophy," "The Ring," and, to a less degree, in the fragmentary "Spider and tho Fly," there are evidences of the shrewdest, keenest, most intimate study and perception into Jewish character, I feel, as I sometimes do when reading clever Hilaire Belloc's work, that there is a subcurrent of bitterness in the satirical anti-Semitism reflected in these sketches. " The Irony of Chance" is entitled "After 0.W.," but I fail to see the connecting link. In "The Holy Man," "After Tolstoy." Mr. Harris has, on the other hand, been astonishingly successful in re-creating tho true Tolstoyail atmosphere. "An English Saint" is quite grimly ironic in its humour, and there is a touch of something akin to real v tragedy in "Tho Magic Glasses." Again, I say, do not, if you care for tho short story—the short story in its truest, best form— neglect Mr. Harris's book.