Books: The Sanger Saga, Cont’d

THE FOOL OF THE FAMILY—Margaret Kennedy—Doubleday, Doran ($2).

Old Albert Sanger died, Tessa died, Lewis Dodd went back to the efficient arms of Florence Churcill, whom he had married without knowing exactly why. With things that way The Constant Nymph ended; the story of the Sanger family, Sanger’s circus, seemed to be over. But Tessa’s brothers, Sebastian and Caryl, were left. The Fool of the Family tells about them. With these two so different Sangers Margaret Kennedy continues the story that The Constant Nymph started in 1924.

Caryl has little in common with Sebastian. He likes him as a brother, as a reminder of the strange happy days when the family was together. But Sebastian is too much the turbulent, nose-thumbing Sanger for intimate comradeship. And Caryl, so far as Sebastian is concerned, is little more than the fool of the family, a queer fellow simply because he is quite without eccentricity or individuality of any sort. When they meet, things usually happen to the advantage of Sebastian, whether he especially wants them to or not.

In Venice they meet. Disaster immediately pounces upon Caryl. Powerless to prevent it, he sees his first opportunity to attract some notice as a pianist casually swept aside by his brother. Sebastian’s motives are purely fraternal when he starts out to help Caryl find Fenella, the girl Caryl loves, the girl who has sworn eternal love to him. Caryl again sits by while Sebastian’s fraternal motives are overcome by something warmer. After Venice, where his ambition has foundered, and the Dolomites, where the search for Fenella and Sebastian’s conquest of her has taken place, Caryl goes to London. Sebastian follows, continuing his bland usurpation of Caryl’s life. The reasons for these happenings are bona fide. They are found in Sebastian’s genius, in his egotism, his self-sufficiency, which enable him to disregard the minutiae that make up most of Caryl’s life. They also are found in Caryl’s defeatist recognition of Sebastian’s genius.

But if the Sanger strain is not strong in Caryl it is nonetheless there. He has its troubled spirit if he has not its fire. Gemma, the little hoyden that Sebastian has picked up and lives with contentedly and illegally, knows it is there before the others do. She provoked it one afternoon in the Dolomites. Gemma knows, too, that Caryl’s solidness is a much-needed compensation to Sebastian’s brilliance. When Sebastian goes off to Paris to conduct the opening of his first ballet, he leaves Gemma in an ecstasy of fear for her sick baby and of anger at Sebastian’s incomplete sympathy. The baby dies. It is Caryl who soothes Gemma, takes care of her, distracts her from bitterness and madness.

The Sanger strain in Caryl becomes completely apparent to Sebastian on his return from Paris when Caryl, told by Gemma of Sebastian’s relations with Fenella, kicks him downstairs. Sebastian promptly calls Fenella and runs away with her. But this time Caryl profits. Like most things brilliant, Sebastian’s charms are not particularly adaptable. When Caryl, bent on delivering a message to Sebastian and resigned to the loss of Fenella, finds them together, he discovers that all is not harmony between them, that Sebastian is thinking of Gemma, Fenella thinking of Caryl. After that Caryl takes Fenella away. Sebastian will go back to Gemma, who will be waiting for him.

The Author. Margaret Kennedy went to Somerville College, Oxford, where, in Sir Hugh Allen’s famed Oxford Bach Choir, she acquired the knowledge of music that is demonstrated in many of her books. Still in her early thirties, she has written six books, including a modern European history text. Her husband is David Davis, onetime secretary of Herbert Asquith.