Hanover Browsing
Kenneth Roberts' "Oliver Wiswell" Is Disappointing, Falls Short of Author's Previous High Standard
I REGRET THAT I cannot add to the encomiums of praise heaped on Kenneth Roberts' Oliver Wiswell. I found it too long, and often very dull. Mr. Roberts may have written good history, but surely not a good novel. There is no character development, the plot is nil and what there is is forced in the groove of events which Mr. Roberts wants to describe, and most of the characters are made of paper save Thomas Buell and he is only a shadow of Cap Huff, Rogers, or Arnold.
My own guess is that Mr. Roberts had too much in his mind the events of the past eight years; that when he described Sam Adams he was thinking of a prominent contemporary, and when he was discussing the "rabble" he was thinking of those for whom the New Deal was aimed. Surely the "rabble in arms" of his former book of that title have changed a lot in Oliver Wiswell. I can not help feeling that Mr. Roberts, in spite of his fidelity to facts, has stacked the cards a bit too much against the rebels .(democrats) and too favorably toward the tories (republicans). It can't be pure coincidence that the book was written during the years before the last election. I hope Mr. Roberts is not correct in the implications inherent in his novel, for if he is we are in for something very much like fascism.
The danger of writing historical fiction seems to be that the story is sacrificed for historical facts, when it seems to me that it would be better the other way around if one is writing a novel and not sugar coated history.
Mr. Roberts' earlier novels, particularly Rabble in Arms and Northwest Passage, were full of creative energy (power), and were unflavored, as is Oliver Wiswell, with a thesis.
Having Loyalist ancestry myself I am glad to see them getting a much needed break, but nevertheless the patriots, on the whole, could not have been quite as bad as they were pictured. The opening scene, when the horse's tongue is cut out, is too strong (even if a true incident which it might well have been) and prejudicial at the start. My own reading of history is that neither side has much right to call the kettle black.
The love story is so pallid and unreal that it might well have been dispensed with altogether.
Mr. Roberts has great talent, and great energy, but I think that when he is writing unbiased historical fiction he should forget the training he received on the Saturday
Evening Post, a decidedly reactionary sheet.
The rest of the space I wish to take up with brief mention of some good books I have read in the past few months.
Robert Gibbings: Sweet Thames RunsSoftly, Dent, 1940.
Gibbings is a famous wood engraver, and once director of the Golden Cockerell Press, and here writes and illustrates a lovely book about the Thames down which he floated leisurely before the Blitzkrieg. His personality adds charm to his descriptions.
Thomas Firbank: I Bought a Mountain, Harrap, 1940.
This book has been a great success in war torn England. Firbank bought a 2500 acre mountain in Wales and with his wife began raising sheep. His struggle in this hazardous enterprise makes for fine writing and reading. There is also a good bit about rock climbing which would interest climbers. I understand that this book will be published here by the Countryman Press. They couldn't have picked a better book. The author is now in the army and his wife carries on in their Welsh eerie.
DIARY OF COUNTRY VICAR
Francis Kilvert: Kilvert's Diary, Volume 3, Cape, London, 1940.
I have written of the first two volumes of this marvelous diary before. In spite of the war the third and last volume is now out and it fulfills the promise of the first two.
Kilvert was a country vicar who died in 1879 at the early age of 38 years. He writes with great charm of rural England during the peaceful Victorian era and depicts a time which has probably gone forever. This is especially good to read in the age of violence we are living through, and which we may live through for some time. It will revive your faith in decent men and women, and it will quicken your pulse to read about the beauty of the English countryside which will long outlive German bombs. Kilvert has been compared, as was inevitable, with Dorothy Wordsworth, Pepys, Proust, Amiel, and to Gerard Manley Hopkins. To me he is unadulterated Kilvert and quite good enough in himself. This is a book you can't go wrong on.
D. C. Peattie: Audubon's America, Houghton, Mifflin, 1940.
A beautifully produced book which will enhance the great reputation Audubon already possesses: this time as a descriptive writer of prose.
Compton Mackenzie: Aegean Memories, Chatto, 1940.
This, the fourth volume of Mackenzie's war memoirs, carries his recollections to Greece during 1917. Curiously enough it throws some light on the present situation. It didn't seem to me, however, to be as interesting as his Gallipoli Memories, FirstAthenian Memories, and Greek Memories. This latter volume was, for many years, banned by the British Government as it was supposed to have revealed intelligence secrets.
Mackenzie, who may be remembered by some of my readers as having written the best novel about Oxford, Sinister Street, is a prolific writer. During 1940 he also published two more volumes West Wind ofLove, and West to North, which are companion volumes to The East Wind of Love and the South Wind of Love. One more is to come (you can guess the title) and the story of Mackenzie's generation will be complete. There are some puerilities evident but on the whole these novels are remarkably interesting and entertaining.
BOSTON REMEMBERS CHAPMAN
M. A. DeWulfe Howe: John Jay Chapman and His Letters, Houghton, Mifflin, 1937.
Chapman was the father of Victor Chapman, famous American ace in the First World War, but he was a great man in his own right. One of America's great eccentrics, and worthy of your friendship, which he (a Brahmin) might have spurned. Read this volume and be surprised that you have missed Chapman so long. Boston still remembers him, and Harvard and St. Paul's, too. He was a contemporary of the late Theodore Roosevelt, and might be said to have had his number!
A book which might have been included last month is Austria, October 1918-March 1919, Transition from Empire to Republic, by David F. Strong '24, Columbia University Press, 1939, pp. 329.
The American Historical Review of October 1940 said of it: "This book is an important contribution to the understanding of the process which led to the final extinction of Austria. Its involved problems are treated with a sure hand. What gives a special flavor of originality to the author's analysis is the ample utilization of the treasures of the Hoover War Library of Stanford University, which contains complete files of the American relief administration and extremely valuable personal letters, reports, and memoranda of disinterested observers. Aside from its monographic value, the importance of the book lies in the fact that it demonstrates convincingly how the fundamental problems which led ultimately to the German occupation of Austria were already looming over the first beginnings of the new Austrian democracy."
