New-York tribune., 1919-05-31


The bitterness with which ". l..
George arraigns the war hysteria
which has for four years ruled Eng
land is itself not untinged with hys-
terra. The tone of Blind Alley" is
the queer, high voice in which man
will cry out For Gods sake, keep
your heads.' when panic overtakes
a crowd. In a curious way extremes
meet Mr.. George, whose radicalism
is of no uncertain sort, shares with
the alarmists and junkers a rasped
impatience over the England that saw
the war as an exhilarating release
from old inhibittons.
The story fickers like a cinema in
jerky staccato scenes, with something
Of the cinema's harsh intensity Its
characters are thrown on the screen
in short moments Of distorted emo
tios, so that ultimately the feeling
prevails that MIR. George has shown
none Of them fairly, save, perhaps,
Sir Hugh Oakley, through whom he
views broadly the adventure of the
war. Sir Hugh belongs to that group
of middle class, middle-a aged, anxious
liberals, to whom the Wells and Miss
Sinclair and others Of the most mod
crn English novelsts have set the
task Of extricating a spiritual meaning
out Of the confusion of the war.
The alleys Of release that the war
opens up to an upper class English
family make up the main theme Of
the novel, but Mr.. George ranges far
ntield in the modern discursive fash
ion. The cracks in the social order
show themselves in Sir Hughs own
household, and he sees a patiently ac-
cumulated crust of reserves and ira
ditions give way before the thrust of
primitive emotions.
The family disintegrates into it's in
dividual substances in the crucible of
emotions aroused by the war. Be-
tween Sir Hugh and his imperious wife
the gap widens steadily as his search
fer a spiritual sign in the war grows
the more troubled. Her simple and
sincere Tory hate of all dissenters is
uncomplicated by need for moral
justifcations. Their son is isolated in
the dlsillusi ionment of man who has
seen the horror and futility Of war
But Mr.. Georges interest is most in
tense in the war psychosis OF women.
Sylvia, the elder daughter, has been
borne on the emotional current of the
war into an Intoxicating freedom
With the rough new frankness of
women about physical passion she
spends her excitement in swift hysteri-
cal love affairs. The war to her is
huge lark, She is unintrospective
about the darkness from which these
men who furnish her brief interludes
emerge and into which they return.
The pivotal point of the story is the
younger daughter, Monica, whose
search for contact with the new
world leads her into munitions works
But the blind alley in which she ends
is of Mr.. Georges deliberate choosing
All the adventure he mctes out to her
is futile affair Of passion with the
owner of the works, married man.
Mr.. Georges skill in the dissection of
passion is exceptional. but it blinds
him to other values when it permits
him to plunge keen, Intelligent
woman of the exempt upper classes
into the industrial scheme without es-
any of her reactions. Such
insensitivencss is incredible if she is
what he asks US to believe she is. A
huge, tragic incident of an explosion
Of the INT works is described with
skill, and yet its only use
in the story is to act as a mechanical
Joint by which Frank Cottenham is
swung into a meeting with Monica. 1t
is dismissed without leaving any i'm
preston on either of them, and the
effect is that of invoking storm to
Kill gnat
The most sustained and convincing
figure in the book is Cradoc, the con-
objector-the grocer's clerk
with an undernourished body and an
ovcrnourished mind. He has the deep
est background of any of the people in
the book and he casts the longest
shadow. The slums from which he
emelges, the spark he catches in back
room readings of Wells and Shaw and
the graynes of his life