Books

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 12, 5 October 1928, Page 12

Books

THREE WIVES.

Beatrice Kean

Seymour

AY RS. SEYMOUR, an accomplished analyst of the subtleties and complexities of attraction and repulsion between the sexes, is also an adept in presenting that semi-Bohemian society which is the paradise of the mediocre dabbler in the arts. With all her eustomary skill she deals, in her latest book, with aspects of contemporary society; her principal theme the renetions of matrimony in the lives of two sisters and their friend Val Flardie, the latter a very youthful maiden with plaited hair and transcendant charm, so we are told, although we see no great indication of it. Unversed in the rough ways of life, married ut seventeen to a roue, this child goes to live in India with her dashing husband, and there drees a woeful weird. Also wrecked upon the shoals of the matrimonial sea is another of the trio, the modern, independent Tory; in spite of her slangy common-sense, clarity of view, and straight-out, frustrated determination to live a life uncomplicated by the emotions. Her experiment with her prosperous, efficient, odious lord comes to untimely finish in the divorce court, Whither she is hurried, Mrs, seymour would have us believe, by the rank selfishness and obtuseness of the male creature. Third and last is lovely, sweetnatured Stella, whom we leave ranged in comparative peace in the ether of domesticity, linked somewhat precariously with her attractive will-o’-the-wisp of a husband, who possesses in marked degree the inability of the artistic temperament to see any point of view except that prompted by personal impulse, Wistfully Stella hopes her baby will prove a solvent for those problems that recur, in spite or because of fleeting moments of rapture with the charming and unstable Micky, who certainly has a way with women, like many another disarming dissembler hailing from the Emerald Isle. The novel would be vastly improved by condensation, the fleeting and physical aspect kove being insisted upon to the point of ennui; but there is much interesting writing on facts and phases of modern life, and able presentation of the older generation. True to type is the tolerant and comprehending Carlotta; so is Richard, her husband, with his companionable qualities and engaging weakness; while

Laura, vicious, vain and wanton, is drawn with subtlety and intuition. In the war that wages, obviously the author rates her own sex infinitely higher than mere man in the virtues of selflessness and forbearance. Not alone is she upon her doubtful peak of Darien. Long, long ago, for the eternal humbling of LEive’s’ shallow daughters, noble precedent in this direction was created by the Bard of Avon himself,-R.U.R.