.Mjkz.MjQzMA

ARUNDEL. By KENNETH ROBERTS. New York: Doubleday, Doran. 1930. $2.50. Benedict Arnold's march to Quebec is the central episode of this novel. Through the eyes of one Steven Nason, a lad from Maine, we follow the expedition in its tortured, crawling progress up the Kennebec, across the northern forests and swamps, and final-ly to the St. Lawrence. We see Arnold's long wait for the supporting forces of Gen-eral Montgomery , who is to come down the river from Montreal; and finally the ruinous assault on Quebec, New Year's Eve, 1775. These chapters are usually in the best tradit [?] of the historical novel--- imaginative[?] revealing[?], and convincing. The account of[?] the unsuccessful storming of Quebec is especially[?] good, a pitiful story of defeat. So much for the historical aspects of "Arundel." The novel as a whole is an account of the boyhood, youth, and early maturity of this Steven Nason, whose home was the garrison house at Arundel, a tiny settle-ment on the Maine coast between Biddeford and Kittery. We learn the routine of the Arundel days, come to understand the friendly Indians, get the characteristic feel of the countryside. The pages record sights, sounds, smells---things to eat, things to wear, ways of traveling, ways of fighting; the writing is realistic in that it is a com- prehensive catalogue of everyday life. Mr. Roberts with unflagging zest lays before us the minutiae of the colonists' casual af- fairs, and he has humor, with a welcome spice of irony. Few historical novels give us as frequently as does "Arundel" the il- lusion of living in past time. As Steven Nason goes about his chores, or to Cam- bridge to see Washington, or through the horrors of the march to Quebec, we often sense the eighteenth century as something actual and present. Against this background of social life and of history, there is a personal narrative: the love affairs of young Nason, and the complicated doings of his friends. This, the story aspect of the book, is good enough, though it is seldom defin- itely interesting. There is only one thing the matter with "Arundel," but that one thing is a rather serious error of judgment. The novel is much too long. It lolls and expands in unbuttoned ease, and is apparently quite innocent of the blue pencil. It is almost a third longer than "Kenilworth ," and four fifths the length of "Vanity Fair." We look askance at such extensiveness these days, especially when it seems to have been far from necessary.

Saturday Review of Literature May 17, 1930 .

�