A Dull Monster

Caliban — By W. L. George

The first impression and the impression that abides after reading Mr. W. L. George's latest novel is that it is so very late indeed. Six years ago, no eight years ago—no, ten—this kind of novel was the height of fashion. The model was new; it suited the young writers of those ebullient days. They could not resist making a copy for themselves, and looking back across the immense interval we picture them tricked out in it, we see them banded together as a kind of Fire Brigade, dashing off at an immense pace and clatter to put out, to destroy, to turn the hose upon, any solid sedate residence which was not and never could be on fire. It was still most amusing and almost novel in those days to laugh at Victorian furniture, to discuss endlessly the fashions of that period and to recall the comic ballads or the tender strains of ‘Come to me, Sweet Marie.’ Leg of mutton sleeves, bustles, what-nots and the fact that you must never stand anything on top page 258 of the Bible provoked the merriest peals. There was a feeling in the air that life was such a game, such fun, such a lark, such a rag! And there was, above all, an idea, a kind of nebulous football of an idea which floated and bumped in everybody's direction and simply asked to be kicked high and sent flying, that the thing to do was to ‘get down to it’ and to be bold. ‘Toujours de l'audace’—we actually said it then.

The model upon which all these copies were fashioned survives, but it has become something of a curiosity. We do not admire it less than we did then—but it is impossible for us to recapture the emotional state in which it was presented to us then. To say that the war has changed our attitude to life is not a very useful thing to say, neither is it wholly true. But what it has done is to fix for ever in our minds the distinction between what is a fashion and what is permanent. In spite of all the nonsense that is admired and the rubbish that is extolled we do perceive a striving after something nearer the truth, something more deeply true among a few writers to-day.

So it is with astonishment and not a little amusement that we observe appearing in the broadest daylight, complete to the confident eyebrows, the quaint figure of ten years ago—the rather smallish man, not handsome but immensely vital, the man who has thrust upwards, hitting, pushing, smashing the family solidities in Maida Vale, ‘three years before the first Jubilee,’ laying about him relentless and determined until he emerges finally into the blazing glare as the author of ‘Zip.’ Richard Bulmer (you mark the punch in the name) from his early youth discovers that what the world wants is Zip, and Zip is a patent food of his own invention which is to be eaten with every newspaper and magazine that he can lay hands upon. His method is to buy the paper, mix so much Zip with it as it will hold and—feed the greedy millions. The greedy millions are fed. Bulmer, rising by swift degrees to Lord Bulmer of Bargo is Lord Northclifle's page 259 rival. He buys papers as other men buy cigars. He buys men, women, houses, Power, but slim, cool Janet, with her graceful untidy hair and her look ‘like warm snow’ he cannot buy. Not even when the war broke out and he rushed into Janet's flat, and: ‘His brain was fumous, his speech was a lyrical song of slaughter. In mangled sentences he expressed ideas newborn, aspiration to honour for his country that was actually an aspiration to deeds. He grew breathless; his mouth was dry. He was in the grasp of an epic poem….’ Not even when ‘in silence, muscle against muscle, teeth clenched they fought each other, hard breathing, giving forth the muffled cries of effort,’ and Janet ‘clutched at her hair that was loosening, and pressed her other hand against his chin, bending him back as an arc.’ These cinemato-graphically contested episodes end in Janet's marrying another (‘For a moment Atlas bent under the weight of earth’) and a final scene when our hero creeps back to his humming lair in Fleet Street and hears the boys cry his papers, while he murmurs that tag that used to end them in those days: ‘One doesn't hitch on to anybody. One just messes about a bit in the middle of life and life sails away.’

But why Caliban? What has this to do with Caliban? Shall Caliban come roaring out of his case with a gnawed copy of The Times at the wave of Mr. George's wand? Caliban is far too real a monster to dance to the tune of ‘Hello Life.’ But there again—we recognize the bygone fashion. Of course it would be Caliban!