Books

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 14, 19 October 1928, Page 13

Books

THE STRANGE VANGUARD. (Arnold Bennett.) | R. ARNOLD BENNETT is at the height of his gay imagination in his latest tale of a tub-the tub in this case being represented by the palatial yacht of Lord Furber, Midlander and millionaire. To this floating palace, which radiates a golden glitter reminiscent of the Arabian Nights, is kidnapped with ease and dexterity a travelling financier with whom it is desired to make a business deal. Accidentally, also, included in the kidnap is vivacious and attractive Harriet Perkins, who without haste or pause proceeds to make hay of the hearts of those susceptible males who hover within her necessarily restricted orbit. Lord Furber seeks solace from discordant domesticity in the Mediterranean by means of an organised and entertaining cruise, which is laden with potentialities that gradually become in . ~ me

apparent. Descendant of many Five Towns protagonists, created for our delight by Mr. Bennett’s ardent fancy, he is possessed in full measure of their audacious chicanery, their brag and their bounce, allied with an engagingly simple love of the limelight and ostentatious display of newlyacquired wealth. Equally true to the Towns is Maidie, his wife, with whom periodically, in the Tennysonian tradition, he falls out, he knows not how, and kisses again with tears. Through all the merry saga is an atmosphere of gay bumptiousness and vulgar Iuxuriance of detail. ’Tis all droll and diverting, and very, very Bennett-ish. Amusing are his puppets, though such as never walked in flesh and blood; and there are shrewd notes of observation concerning the social comedy, oceasional penetrating analyses of the motives of men, and now and again an illuminating sentence like this: "He felt both happy and wicked; a sensation than which there is perhaps no finer in human life." In which opinion he will have many ad-

herents.

R. U.

R.