In short, if Mr. G.F. TURNER has done nothing else he
has at least enabled the fastidious to enjoy the thrills of a shocker
while retaining their self-respect.
* * * * *
In the first of the three stories, each about a hundred pages in
length, which make up _Gold and Iron_ (HEINEMANN), it is hard to
escape the conviction that Mr. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER between the lines,
"So you thought that CONRAD was the only JOSEPH who could throw a
man and woman together on a mysterious coast in the most strangely
romantic circumstances, and provide a thoroughly groolly scrap into
the bargain. Well, here's another little _Victory_ for you." He
seems definitely to challenge that air of the extraordinary and the
inevitable combined which Mr. CONRAD so subtly conveys. It is a big
effort, and I don't feel that the author quite brings it off, yet I
cannot think of anyone but Mr. CONRAD who would have come nearer to
doing so, and the fight in the dark in this story is one that even
after the War will make a reader catch his breath for half-a-dozen
pages at least. In the second and third stories, which actually deal
with gold and iron (the first of the three is called "Wild Oranges,"
though perhaps "Blood Oranges" would have been a better title),
the writer returns to a happier _metier_, and deals with an America
remarkably interesting and wholly novel to me, an America where
foundries and railways are in their infancy and crinolines are worn.
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