SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 9, 5 October 1918, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

"The Savignys." The well-known Xew Zealand lady who writes under the pen-name of "G. IS. Lancaster" has lor onco deserted her favourite fields of romantic adventure in the Xew Zealand "backblocks," in the South Sea Islands, and, more recently, in Cuba and the great forest region of the Amazon, and in ■her latest novel, "The Saviguys" (Hodd'er and Stoughton), presents us with a well-told story of English family life. Hie author's usual stylo is scarcely so well iitted to tho description of country family Hie as is that, say, of Mrs. .Klinor Mordaiint, or that latter-day 'I'rollope, Mr. Archibald Marshall. It is a tritle too staccato, and, in places, in this particular book, a trille ilaiuboyant. Nevertheless, , "The Savignys" is a well-planned, well-tokl story, of family ambitions, disputes, and wranglings, and of love and politics as these latter elements in lifo affect the fortunes eft the two brothers' Savigny. ■ Tho elder, Lndovic, is a man of letters, who is driven, much against his will, into what is to him tho arid and uncongenial atmosphere of politics. He is cursed with an exceedingly foolish, and worse than merely foolish, wife, a young Irishwoman, who flirts desperately with a frightful bounder of a'.fellow, a beau militaire of ii very vulgar Don Juanish t.vjic. Tho younger brother, Anthony, handsome, indolent, and good-natured, quarrels with his absurdly dictatorial mother, find is formally expelled the family circle. lie is made a tool of by an intriguing Eadiciil MA , .', whom, so J take it, tho author would faiii have her readers accept as a typo of the political wire-puller, but who is surely more of a raricuatnrn than a reality. Tho two brothers engage in an election contest as principals—and politics generally play a prominent parti in tho story. In the end the amiable Anthony marries the very charming girl whom his parents had tabooed, and tho long-suffering Ludovic takes his frivolous and silly wife awny on n globe-trot-ting tour, from which, so the reader will fervently hope, the' husband will return a happier man . and the wife a more sensible spouse. Tho story is a little uneven, but on tho whole it makes agreeable reading.