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FATHER MALACHY'S MIRACLE—Bruce Marshall—Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).*
Far & few are the writers who can monkey with fantasy without getting just too cute for words. Inimitable Max Beerbohm managed it; some still think Sir James Matthew Barrie, Alan Alexander Milne. Christopher Morley have made surprisingly few errors. Fantasian Bruce Marshall follows a less gossamer authority, Gilbert Keith Chesterton; but in his hands the Chestertonian whimsy loses its robustiousness, gets all buttered up with sticky sentiment. Not that Author Marshall cannot be very sharp on occasion, but, like the latter-day Chesterton, he is sharp only with non-Catholic things.
Roman Catholic Father Malachy Mulligan was summoned from his monastery to an Edinburgh parish to teach a slipshod congregation how to chant plain song. Across the street from the church were two grievous eyesores: a Church of England edifice placarded with snappy ads for religion, and the Garden of Eden dance hall. Of the two, the Garden of Eden was slightly more offensive to the Catholic priest. Father Malachy, meeting the Anglican parson on the street and becoming involved in theological argument, became so annoyed that he promised to perform a miracle: he would cause the Garden of Eden to be transported wherever the Anglican parson wished, at precisely 11:30 the following night. Next evening they met; the parson chose Bass Rock, a little island some 20 miles away; Father Malachy prayed; the deed was done.
Unfortunately the result was not all that the good Father had hoped. Newspapers made a great but skeptical fuss. Protestants openly disbelieved; agnostics thought there was a trick in it; the Roman Catholic Church was more or less embarrassed. Finally Father Malachy, persuaded by an anxious colleague to clinch the matter by performing another miracle, prayed that the dance hall should be returned to its original location. It was done; and in 48 hours the public had forgotten it had ever moved.
Father Malachy's actions may offend some rigidly Catholic readers, but that is not Catholic Author Marshall's intention. Father Malachy is supposed to be a sweet old thing; it is his sweetness (not to say sappiness) that may offend most. This is the way you catch him thinking about God: "Dear old Almighty God; He was a One, He was."
The Author was crippled by the War; brims with Roman Catholic sweetness & light. He works at accounting, writes novels in his spare time, hopes soon to have more spare time. Other books: This Sorry Scheme, The Stooping Venus, The Little Friend.
Too Bad
AND No BIRDS SING—Pauline Leader— Vanguard ($2.50).
And No Birds Sing bears out the popular notion that blind people are happier than the deaf. Ostensibly the heart-wring-ing autobiography of a poor girl who lost her hearing, this book reads almost like a parody of the o-pity-me school.