Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Novels and Novelists

A Prize Novel

page 209

A Prize Novel

Open the Door — By Catherine Carswell

Out of the hundred manuscripts submitted to the publishers in their recent competition ‘Open the Door’ was chosen to receive the prize of two hundred and fifty pounds. The adjudicators are to be congratulated on their decision, for, while this novel is striking and unusual, it is eminently a serious piece of work and does not contain, in our opinion, those qualities which are necessary to a popular success. That is to say, it is head and shoulders above the class of books which are commonly called ‘best-sellers,’ it makes a genuine appeal to the intelligence as well as the emotions, and we do not doubt for an instant that it was inspired by the author's love of writing for writing's sake.

But when Mrs. Carswell's novel has been taken down from its small particular eminence and examined apart we must write more warily. ‘Open the Door,’ which is an extremely long novel—it has four hundred pages, that is, about one hundred and eighty thousand words—is an account of the coming of age of a young Scottish girl. By coming of age we mean, in this case, the moment when Life ceases to be master, but, recognizing that the pupil has learned all that is needful, gives her her freedom, that she may, in turn, give it to the man who holds her happiness in his keeping. So, from the age of thirteen to the age of thirty, we find ourselves—how is it best expressed?—in the company of Joanna Bannerman, her family, her friends and her lovers. We are told of the influences that hold back or help to unfold the woman in her; her thoughts, feelings and emotions are described with untiring sympathy and skill; but how much, when all is said and done, do we really know of her? How clearly is she a living creature to our imagination? She is receptive, easily led, fond of the country, especially fond of page 210 birds, pools, heather, the seasons and their change, and, since she is almost constantly aware of her physical being, her sexual desires are strong.

At eighteen, a little weary of fruitless emotion, a little dream-sick, the conviction had begun to force itself on Joanna that she was without attraction. For the past ten years she had lavished unreciprocated passion on individuals of both sexes….

This persistent and deliberate search is perhaps peculiar to a certain character; but for the rest might not Joanna be anybody? We look in vain for the key to her—for that precious insight which sets her apart from the other characters and justifies their unimportance. The family group, for instance, is solidly stated, yet it is conveyed to us that of them all Joanna was the only one that really mattered, because she was the one that broke away. But we never felt her truly bound. And then the men—are they not the shadows of shadows? There is young Bob, who cries when he ought to have kissed her; her sensational Italian husband breathing fire, Fender, the man of the world, and in the background Lawrence, who without her ‘conceived of his life as a seed foiled of its consummation.’ They are men only in so far as they are male to Joanna female.

All would be well, in fact, if the author did not see her heroine plus, and we did not see her minus. We cannot help imagining how interesting this book might have been if, instead of glorifying Joanna, there had been suggested the strange emptiness, the shallowness under so great an appearance of depth, her lack of resisting power which masquerades as her love of adventure, her power of being at home anywhere because she was at home nowhere. Mrs. Carswell has great gifts, but except in her portrait of Joanna's fanatical mother, she does not try them. They carry her away.

(June 25, 1920.)