"Stand, Fight, Fall Alone"

Radio Record, 5 August 1938, Page 29

"Stand, Fight, Fall Alone"

Woman Novelist who Expresses a Philosop v in Fine Book AST week I wrote. an article which I have long been aching to write-an embittered protest against the modern novelists who tell us about "the familiar things, the things we know," concéntrating upon the faithful reproduction of everyday littlenesses and ignoring the broad, free lands of imaginative creation. Now, so soon after my protest,.I find it. my. ironie duty to give unstinted praise‘ to a book entirely preoccupied with everyday-a: book of which the theme is futility -Miss Joanna Can nan’s "Princes in the Land." , Frankly, I am ashamed to admit that Miss Cannan is unknown to ole at first hand, although I. learn by the dust cover of "Princes in the Land" that it is the latest of an-output of 16 novels. . some with titles vaguely famillar. 1 ean only suppose that Miss Cannan’s reputation lags behind her meérits-thie new work at least shows her as toc uncompromisingly clear-sighted and too subtle to be widely popular. She has, too, an unusual technique in that she omits what we are accus: tomed’to hear at.long length, and dwells upon what is generally glossed over For instance, in "Princes in the Land" the romantic part of the heroine’s mar rigge is dismissed in a couple of lines, but eight pages are given to a memor: able description of her reactions when the dentist ‘tells her she must have her bottom: teeth out. : ‘ Jane Austen Touches BELIEVE that had Jane Austen been an emancipated young woman ~ in this confused twentieth century, she might easily have written a "Princes in the Land." The book has more than Jane Austen’s skill in the use of d-tall. all her shrewd observation of manners and her even style, much of her subtle humour--although Miss Cannan’s brand is lesg constant and at the same time less esoteric: than the older writer’s. One: thing Miss Cannan has on her own -a provoking quality that ie essen tially topical, the power to make readerg "think in" all the gaps and omis sions in .her ‘story, simply because it could so easily be their own. "Princes in- the Land" is a haunting book, and ft don’t think any mothers or any child -pen of mothers-can read it and lightly forget. . For Patricia Crispin is typical of

every well-intentioned mother. Born of an. aristocratic family at a time when aristocracy was begining to be unimportant, she grew up a wild tomboy with a genergus and stubborn spirit She married q working student, sen of working parents, and brought up her three children in an atmosphere of con stant struggle and hardship. Some measure of security came when Hugh Lind say was appointed a professor. of Eng lish at Oxford and Patricia settled down to be happy in the lives of her children. Instead, she was to see them, one by one, go their own ways heedless of her, until at the last she formed her own philosophy and set free that independent tomboy spirit which had ruled her in youth and which had for years been lacked from sight by the responsi bilities of marriage and family. "Keep Your Soul" SUCH. a story, told with the imptications that Miss Cannan pats upon it, is weighty with meanings First. there is the question of marriage be. -tween class and class Hugh: and Patricia were lovers with youth's generous faiths in «ommon: as the vears passed their love changed inty friendship, but a friendship without any comradely understanding of ideals Would the marriage-have been a more real union had the two come from simi lar backgrounds, with tastes in com. mon? Would the marriage of Patricia’s son have been. successful had he married within his own class? Miss Can nan hints the *hances are strenger when like class marries like- yet that is not the whole cr even the important answer to her book. The important answer is that al! men and women walk life alone"stand, fight, fall alone. . . You had to be lonely to keep your soul," decided Patricia.

BEFORE she found this stoical solue , tion to her puzzle of life, she had depended first upos her husbavd Then, when he gave no comfort, she turned like so many mothers to the children for whom she had worked and suffered all these years. Ir them she .h«ped to see her dreams fulfilled and aij! done that she had been unable to do. For Patricia had nor ye’ tearnt that no child ever willingiy runs in the groove its parents mark ouf for it: that it is the cream of bitterness that the more honestly liberal che «pbringing. -the wider must the divergence be berween the parent’s and the child's pafhs. Only children in whom individuality has been repressed can be unhappily suborned, ce Perhaps many will find barrenness in Patricia’s philosophy just ae Hugh’s theory of life’s unimportance may seem too remote, Yet others: will find; as I did, a certain anrd consolation in an. attitude to life which, inconelusive and even defeatist as it may be, is at teast workable and asks for little. Patricia, looking back, summarised ft neatly: "She was 46... she’d done most things, . But what did it matter? Life was, a& parenthesis, a muddled phrase too ‘often annotated. Why worry over it? Read on. rend on =" Undoubtedly, ‘Princes in the Land" is a book you must read ~the beat of its type in severa] vears, Not only: does it ask a qnestion: that, in seme form or other, every one of us must-ane gwer: but also, for those who still-prize literary worth, it is written’ in’ prose that is clear and strong, often with a cadence as beautiful as-poetry or 260d music, . "Princes in the Land;" by Joanna Cannon (Golianez, London). Our copy from the publishers, — (More book reviews over page).