Books.

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 23, 21 December 1928, Page 13

Books.

FAREWELL TO YOUTH.

Storm

Jameson

TI‘HIS latest novel of a gifted member of the younger school of writers deals with the Great War and_the years that came after, with their devastating effect upon the imagination, outlook and eonduct of a normally healthy, happyhearted, chivalrous young Englishmap, who from dreaming adolescence in idyllic home is rudely jolted into harsh realism by insistent call of love and war. Disillusioned, hope and vitality shattered, the boy Nat, grown old and wise before his time, emerges upon a latter-day world, and is at odds with tragic destiny that flung himself and best beloved friends upon refuse-heap of a noisy, puzzled and distracted

world, that strives to cope with aitermath of stupendous clash of nations. Sick and sorry in body and soul, consolation is sought and temporarily found in the girl he hastily married in the strenuous years, whose beauty so blindly adored is a mask for zealous cupidity, a truly insatiable greed of gain, Nice youths are fair game for the harpy and the schemer, and the high-minded young soldier, conscious of shattered dreams and visions, was no exception. This modern miss proves a flagrantly unfaithful wife, and after sordidness of marital recrimination, disillusion and divorce, happiness is discovered in the person of Ann, that gentle personification of the eternal feminine, so curiously unyielding when the wellbeing of her lover is imperilled. To this sweet and brave maiden the spent and hopeless boy comes for comfort and reassurance in .a world that has tried his endurance to breaking point, nd, holding her slight hands, once more he gains courage to take the road. A sad book indeed, were it not that the characters do not altogether achieve semblance of reality, in spite of much interesting incident and extremely arresting etching of political personalities.

In truth, this is not primarily the story of human entities but of a home of ancient England, upon which the father of Nat lavishes concentrated affection, sacrificing to it his son’s prospects and the vigilant loyalty .of Emily, his self-sacrificial wife. It is .a very lovely deification of a typical, stately, muzmuring house: of memories, with lawns and gardens and singing of birds in branches, and gracious welcoming to those who are desolate and oppressed: the spacious rooms furnished with damask and Chippendale, dimly radiant with glow of glass and pottery and painting.-R.U.R. |