Evening star., 1948-01-18
Reviewed by
MARY McGRORY.

Press, S3.J
Reviewed by
MARY McGRORY.
These two brilliantly imaginative
novels deal with lonely people and
their dislocation from reality. In
"Other Voices, Other Rooms" the
result Is the corruption of innocence;
in '"The Aunt's Story" it is madness
Although they differ widely in ap-
proach and technique, Truman
Capote and Patrick White have both
shown this fatal isolation through
the consciousness of its victims; in
each case the illusion of another
world is completely realized.
Not since Carson McCullers and
Eudora Welty appeared has any
Southern writer caused quite the stir
occasioned by 23-year-old Truman
Capote. His short stories have been
widely acclaimed. Now, In his first
novel, he proves himself an amaz-
ingly assured and mastery writer
who can handle the difficult mate
rials of perversion and decay with
exceptional artistry. For this rea-
son, "Other Voices, Other Rooms,
a modern horror story which has
many of the elements of a night
mare In a swamp. seems intermit-
tently to be as bright and touching
as q legend.
Symbolic Serpent Slain.
The central figure in this gothic
story is bright and handsome 49,
year-old boy, who has left, in the
household of a kindly aunt, the in
nocent pleasures OF boyhood to take
residence with the father he has
never seen in q lonely ramshackle
mansion on the edge of q crumbling
Southern town. The eerie happen
ings in the household, which are all
explained in time, but not soon
enough to calm him; the discovery
that his father Is completely par
alyzed, that his stepmother is q
mincingly ruthless woman and his
step cousin Randolph strangely af-
fectionate serve to alert the boy to
a vaguely menacing disaster. The
most poignant episode in the story
comes when Joel, vaguely uneasy
sets out to beg a trouble charm
from local magician. On the way
he and tomboy ally meet and slay
q cotton-mouth. Having conquered
a tangible evil, Joel, childlike, turns
back, reassured, and so disarmed for
the more deadly encounter which
still awaits him.
It is to Mr.. Capote's credit that
while 1t Is obvious to the readers
from the first that Joel has been
lured to this fetid place by the
monstrous Randolph, the possibil-
ity Of his escape never seems un-
likely. His choice may be condi-
toned by loneliness and lassitude
and strangeness, but he Is not
simply the victim of circumstances
His tragedy is not merely morbid
in its symbolism 1t has universal
application to all who struggle with
evil. Many studies of abnormality
have appeared in the last few years
many of them coldly clinical. Mr.
Capote's, with its vividly atmos-
pherie writing, its sharp character
ization, It's color and grotesque
humor Is at once more convincing
and moral because he shows the
horrible fascination that wickedness
exerts for the young and forsaken
He is one young writer. who has
more than justified advance clamor
The Soul Of q Plain Woman.
In "The Aunts Story" q novel
which has the delicacy of needle
point, Patrick White has under
taken to present the soul ana mind
of Theodore Goodman, who is ar
honorable woman and plain one
Her school mistress thinks as she
looks at her that Theodore Ii
doomed to walk through life wear.
ing sensible shoes"
And so it is with Theodore, who
takes a spectators role and grad.
ually withdraws from the spectacle
Her sister marries the one mar
she ever loved; she rejects the only
man who ever proposes to her
Freed from the bondage Of ar
exacting, petty mother, she leaves
Australia and goes to RIVERS
hotel, where people who are az
out of touch with reality as she is
wander in a "jardin exotique" anc
converse in cryptic fragments. Al
the shadows deepen around Theo.
dora, she voyages to America, where
well-intentioned Midwesterners ar.
ranged for her removal to q sana'
torium. Theodore, who has never
protested at the ~atrangeness OF
things, submits.
The witty opening chapters which
show the foundations for Theodora's
overwhelming sense Of inadequacy
are beautifully and lucidly written
and the most rewarding In the
book. As Theodora's communion
with the rest of the world grows
dim, the writing takes on an oblique-
ness that is extremely taxing
Throughout, however, Mr.. Whites
warm sympathy for his intelligent
and thoroughly likable heroine
gives the story warmth and depth
Mr.. White, whose third novel this
is, succeeds in depicting Theodore
as an unusually gifted woman who
needed more human claims than
those which spinster aunthood i'm
poses to keep. her firmly rooted