Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-17

The creation Of character in a novel
is one of the most interesting achieve
ments of man. Not alone the writer
but the reader as well, is glorifed In
this old but always new work.
It must remain perennially amazing
that so many thousands of words
! quotation marks, marks of punctuation
arranged in more or less orderly para
I graphs, pages and chapters, can sue
coed at last in creating living man or
woman.
That astounding achievement, how
ever, is the result of every good novel
and sometimes of mediocre one. Some
one character, mayhap, will stand out,
as we say, impress the reader as being
''lifelike," lingering in his memory long
after the last page is finished.
How is this done?
Perhaps the how of it is important
only to the novelist, and must remain
his secret. The fact that it may be
done, and is done, is what interests the
reader.
The most outstanding book character
of recent months to the present reader
is Jane Bell, heroine Of A. P. Herbert's
"The Water Gipsies," published several
months ago by Doubleday, Doran.
funny man." but he seems to have lost
his punch, in a comic sense, in THE
Water Gipsies."
j. B. Priestley, in his GOOD Com
panions'' and Angel Pavement" gives
his fellow Londoner some real pointers
on how to incorporate genuine humor
into modern novel.
But not one Of the men and women,
splendid though they are, whom Mr..
TD,;o- sr.A1 1T 81
novels, achieves the lifelike breathing
stature of Jane Bell, the servant girl,
in THE Water Gipsies."
X X X
Mr.. Herbert undoubtedly set out to
create a comic spirit, but all he did
along this line was to achieve several
mildly humorous situations and char
acters. y
All Of these are swallowed UP in the
unconscious achievement of his lovable
Jane, weak, loving, practical, but in
tenSely human, much more SO than
many of the real persons reader will
meet in the everyday walks of life.
We imagine that no one was more
surprised at the emergence of Jane from
this novel than the author himself Not
that he did not have her in mind all
the time, of course, for she is there
from the first page to the last, from the
first word to the very last.
But Jane Bell as many good char
acter has done before, ran away with
her author. He began by believing in
her and thinking he knew all about
her, but he ended by loving her. That,
the reader may feel sure, was why he
did not let her commit suicide in one
of her respondent moments.
The astounding fidelity of Jane, the
little serving girl, to her ideal, the
handsome, sophisticated, decent but
somewhat snobbish George Gordon
Bryan, modernistic-painter son of a
peer, is the single unadulterated theme
of 1.-The Water Gipsies.''
1t is an old story, of course, especially
in English fiction, but it is compelling
here because Mr.. Herbert has created
Jane. without Jane, The Water
Gipsies" would be worse than Hamlet
without that somewhat absurd prince.
And even If Jane had been in, but
had not been precisely the Jane We find
there, she could not have saved this
story from being unconvincing and
artificial
Many of its scenes are mere posturing
almost as if the author (as well he
might had in view future 1'talkie'
version eve would not be at all sur
prised to see it before long,. One OF
the last episodes is the departure OF
the decent Bryan alone in his sailboat
for a trip around the British Isles. His
friends line I'D in two Ines, Just a