Books: Mysterious Clods

THE WHITE PATERNOSTER — T. F. Powys—Viking ($2.50).

You will probably never meet just the sort of English yokel Theodore Francis Powys writes about; you will certainly never run into a whole village of them. His Sexton Truggins, Farmer Beerfields, Dame Tastes are symbolic figures, but they are more than merely parabolic types. Such earthy behavior and marrowy speech never was indulged in by men of straw. Son of a parson, Powys is much concerned with village religion, but his Rev. Silas Dotterys, Rev. Mr. Gassers do not always behave in an orthodox pastoral manner. Rev. Mr. Dottery, for instance, once hinted broadly from the pulpit that he felt it inconsiderate of his parishioners to die at his dinnertime; the hint was sufficient. Parson Sparrow, whose predecessor’smorals had been lax, found to his dismay that the more upright he was, the wickeder became his people. In humble desperation he went a-walking with gay Betty Wing, and the villagers trooped back to church, “for a little wickedness do make a lot of talk.” These 26 short stories show Powys’ sympathy for pastoral paganism; show too his awareness that bucolic simplicity does not lack subtlety, that country kindliness contains a broad streak of country cruelty.