I thought
that iceberg rather an evasion on the part of Miss THOMPSON. Perhaps
however all this effect of drift is part of a subtle intention. I
can certainly call the book admirably written, with restraint and an
emotional sympathy that impressed me as the outcome probably of an
intimate knowledge of the scenes and persons described. Whether her
lethargy is "typical" or not, as a study _Mary England_ will hold you at
least sufficiently curious to deplore its arbitrary end.
* * * * *
Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has written a book which I find it difficult to
define. His publishers and Mr. H.G. WELLS call it a novel, but bits of a
biography and an autobiography and an African explorer's account of his
travels have all somehow squeezed themselves into it, and for readers
whose birthdays began before the last quarter of the nineteenth century
_The Gay-Dombeys_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) will best justify itself as a
_chronique scandaleuse_. To penetrate the thin disguises in which the
author has dressed his notabilities and to sort the composite or hybrid
personalities into their component parts should provide the initiated
with congenial if not very edifying occupation. The reader who is also
a DICKENS enthusiast will be, according to temperament, delighted or
outraged to find that Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has made his book as it were a
continuation of _Dombey and Son_.
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