Books: Perversed English

A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE—John Cowper Powys—Simon & Schuster ($3.75). In spite of the considerable success of his two-volume novel Wolf Solent, in spite of Critic H. L. Mencken’s dictum that no two-volume novel ever failed, Author Powys confines the 1,174 pages of his latest fanciful vignette within the covers of a single book. Hard on the reader’s wrist, its insistent author’s perverse philosophizing is liable to be hard on many a reader’s patience too. “Folks ‘ud rayther brew their own broth theyselves then be fed wi’ all the Milk o’ Paradise” is a bit of Penny Pitches’ Glastonbury wisdom that fits the odd-lot characters in Author Powys’ romance. Glastonbury’s broth begins to bubble & boil at the reading of the late Canon William Crow’s will. To the disgust of the assembled Crows the old man has left his money to his secretary-valet John Geard, an evangelistic fanatic who can cure old Tittie Petherton’s cancer pains by holding her in his arms. The stage is set for the struggle between Philip Crow, the rich industrialist who expected to inherit Canon Crow’s money and industrialize all Glastonbury with its help, and John Geard, who with the help of his new-found wealth and the communist enemies of Philip Crow, gets himself elected mayor of the town. To advertise Glastonbury to the world at large, Mayor Geard stages a Passion Play, crossed with Arthurian Romance, for the town is near Stonehenge, and Arthur’s sword and the Holy Grail make their appearances at times. What with mystic visions, and an unrivaled collection of sexual affairs, mostly clandestine or perverse, Novelist Powys allegorizes his conception of the “divine-diabolic soul of the First Cause.” In the end Geard rescues Philip Crow from his fallen airplane, is drowned himself. In dithyrambic periods Author Powys sings his hero’s praise: “He had never been a fastidious man. He had got his pleasure from smelling at dunghills, from making water in his wife’s garden, from snuffing up the sweet sweat of those he loved.” “A great book is a great evil.” said the Greeks. A Glastonbury Romance, no exception, goes a long way to prove the rule.