Evening star., 1937-03-20
By Nary.Carfer Roberts.

ilt StIltS Is W De CdIl6d, NIlCli
Il finished, The Four Winds of
Love- One may assume, without too
prolonged speculation, that the other
members of the projected group will
be West Wind" South Wind" and
North Wind East Wind" is more
than 500 pages long or something
like 100000 words. When the compass
has been duly rounded, therefore, the
total will be about 100000 words.
But if Mr.. Compton Mackenzie
achieves nothing more interesting in
them than he has in his initial 200,-
600, all those words, so far as the re-
viewer is concerned, might just as we'll
be left in the dictionary.
The present work is serious, sincere
and fraught with conviction At the
same time it is completely without
humor, irony or life. 1t reads, indeed,
a good bit like "Sandford and Mer-
ton" 1t also puts one in mind of
that monument to industry, The
Forsythe Saga Its characters have
the Sandford-and-M -Mertonian tendency
to discuss abstract questions in speeches
of page length and they are of that
slightly superior but complete ordins-
rineSs which the World-for some rea-
son-acCepted admiringly as unique
under the label "Forsythian" But the
trouble is not really with the charac-
terS at all, of course. 1t is with Mr.
Compton Mackenzie, whose mind
shows itself in every line to be the
completely unironiCal source of his
peoples educated triteneSs. His book
is like a lecture by merely learned
man, 1t propounds the obvious in
cultivated terms.
Returning to the promise that the
completed series is to be known as
The -Four Winds of Love" one
gathers that East Wind" is meant
to analyze and demonstrate the
amorous emotion in its vernal stages.
The central character of the book is
II on the first page and something
short of l9 on the last. and it is his
reactions to the possibilities of love
which occupy the greater part Of
this diSCuSsion-one finds it impos-
sible to call it novel. This youth
is one John Ogilvie, son of a prosper
Gus Scotch barrister living in Lon
don at the close of the nineteenth
century.
John is a sixth form schoolboy
when the book opens, concerned with
nothing more serious than his Latin
exercises and foot ball In other
words he is presented as an almost
blank page, emotionally. Mr.. Mac
kenzie then industriouSly puts him
through the conventional paces-Ca)
puppy love with a young firt who
uses him as blind for a more seri-
GUS affair (b) what one may term
physical love" with a cabaret singer
who treats his youth kindly because
providentially-and proverbially-she
has heart of gold; (c( idealistic love
with a strawberry and cream" Eng
lish girl of the county family ira
dition. who proves to be weak and
shallow; I'D Freudian love with the
mother of one Of his friends a woman
20 years his senior; (e) and pitying
love for woman Of inferior social
place who obligingly ends his respon-
sibility by dying. All these affairs are
subjected to the most deadly serious
discussion.
In addition, young John cultivates
the friendship of (a) a young Irish
man who provides opportunity for dis
cuSSion of the Irish question, (b) a
young Jew who provides opportunity
for discussion of the Jewish question,
Co a Scottish laird who provides op-
portunity for discussion Of the British
Empire and Cd an elderly barrister
who provides opportunity for discus
sion of Christianity. Karl Marx is
incidentally taken up as conversa-
tional theme and in the course of the
story John visits Poland, which pro-
videS opportunity for discussion of
the Polish question The book ends
with him entering on a deep COM
panionShip with his young Stepmother
and feeling in himself a reSurgence
of ancestral memories from which
the reader may expect that comrade-
ly love and race mysticism will come
to the forefront in the next volume of
this not noticeably inspired series.
Now the reviewer recognizes that
the emotional experiences and intel
lectual questions thus outlined might
well have been part of the life
of boy Of young Johns environment
and time. She cannot see. however,
that Mr.. Mackenze's treatment of
these preoccupations gives them the
slightest significance He throws no
light on his heros development. for
John at no time is more than a talking
puppet. Neither does he throw any
light on the questions or emotions
involved. He fails, in other words in
hi authors responsibility. He has
given us completely conventional
story as far as simple story goes, and
he has not invested it with any rele-
vance. Conventionality, of course, is a
perfectly legitimate meter, but it
would seem that if an author using it
is designing his work for enlightened
readers he would perceive the neces-
sity of lighting it with some reflection
Of its contrast to the rest of the world
of art and nature.
Mr.. Compton Mackenzie has not
done this. He has drawn absolutely
no line between himself and his con-
Ventional characters. There is no dis
tinction between their talk and his
comment. There is not even the me-
chanical distinction of a change in
style. Saving the quotation marks,
the reader would not know when John
ceased speaking and his create began.
John then is not young man learning
about life and love He is a nhono-
graphic record winding off Mr. Comp
ton Mackenzies opinion on life and
love-and the Polish question. And
the same lamentable thing is true of
the other characters This in itself is
bad enough, but the case is made
worse by the fact that Mr.. Compton
Mackenzie's opinions on life and love
and all other matters taken uL in this
book are trite to the point of exhaus-
ton His book is thick compendium
OF solemn platitudes.
W, -