Evening star., 1947-05-25
Martin FIovin
Writes I ale Of
|Enchuntn1ent
THE ENCHANTED
BY Martin Flavin. Harper, s3.j
Reviewed by

oy fxAfR1 1Aif = l0sAAi. ss i&Ast HOt PeJ
Reviewed by
CARTER BROOKE JONES
What can bemused reader say OF
this enchanting novel of certain
ones who were enchanted?
It's hard to know quite what to
say. AS I read this astonishing
book, terms to describe it were
prodded off their neat shelves. but
like most cliches, they didn't ex-
plain. Moreover, the different moods
which the strange story conjured up
brought divergent phrases, which
would have led only to a confused
accounting.
1t Has Magic.
Well, since some idea Of the story
probably should be given. even
though no summary can suggest the
magic that courses through it, here
is bare outline. Six Spanish refu-
gee children are living with a
French farmwoman in Normandy as
the Germans crash into lie Havre in
1910. Her husband, soldier
reaches the farm ahead of the
invaders and piles what they can
carry into the cart. There's nc
room for the children, and so the
wife turns them over to the parish
priest.
The priest takes the three boys
and three girls to an orphanage, but
it's not there-bombs demolished it
So the priest takes them into lie
Havre, which is in wild confusion
A harried police commissioner tells
the good father to put the little ones
on some ships, since they are aliens
In the chaos OF another bombing
the priest does manage to slip them
aboard an old French freighter
which pulls out moment later In
an effort to save herself. The ship
makes it out to sea, but later is tor
pedoed. The crew Is lost, but the
children are saved, all but Rafael
the cripple. The five children are
picked up by q luxurious sailing
yacht, chartered by an international
scoundrel and manned by a poiyglot
crew.
Shipwreck.
There's not space to tell all that
happens anoaru the Flying Virgin.
Enough to report that the children
are befrienoeo by Mamud, the cook,
giant, one-legged Ethiopian. He
saves the Oldest girl, Rosa, from the
vicious designs OF the ships lessee,
just as terrific storm overtakes the
vessel. Mamud hides the children
in the hold during the general car
mage that follows his fight with the
viliainous hercn, with the captain
and the terrified crew. In time, the
Flying Virgin crashes against a
shore. The children tumble out of
the torn hold unhurt. The only
other survivor is Mamud, but he was
felled by a spar, and his memory
has been wiped out, except tor his
childhood. In outlook he is, like
the others, a child.
AS the youngest, the girl they call
Little One, says, a gooa fairy must
have saved them. just like in the
storybook. For the climate is soft
on this shore, with the giant forest
back of it and mountains rising on
the horizon, ana food is abundant.
They grow, and work out their
problems-or fail to, as the case
may be-with their pristine isolation
unaisturbed by another human be-
ing.
This adventurous, melodramatic
story is told without a trace of
conscious quainuness, without hint
OF archness. And it's written so
vividly, SO tensely, with such de-
tached clarity that somehow you
believe every word of it. You may
call it alIegory, If you insist on SYM
bollzing what happens. But as a
story alone it's extraordinary.
The sketches which Cyrus LIE Roy
Baldridge Grew Tor cnapUer headings
are excellent. Three years ago Mr..
Flayin published Journey in the
Dark" which won the Pulitzer Prize.