GREEN DOLPHIN STREET—Elizabeth Goudge—Coward-McCann ($3).
Louis B. Mayer would love to make a piker out of Alfred Nobel. So it was natural that when M.-G.-M. handed out a prize for a novel Louis Mayer did not stop at a mere $30,000 to $40.000 (the Nobel Prizes vary). He made it a flat $125,000—plus a bonus of up to $50,000 if the book becomes a bestseller.
So, Mr. Mayer's underlings having pored over 99 manuscripts, Mr. Mayer handed out the money, for his $125,000-plus acquired screen rights which, at a generous estimate, he could have bought in the open market for $50,000. What he bought was Green Dolphin Street, by Britain's lushly lyrical Elizabeth Goudge 13th City of Bells; The Castle on the Hill). It was already the September choice of the Literary Guild. Flushed with good fortune, Publishers Coward-McCann (who got a $25,000 pourboire from Mr. Mayer) promptly prepared to increase the $10,000 they had already earmarked for advertising a book that looked like a sure bestseller.
The prize-winning novel for which Mr. Mayer gouged himself is Author Goudge's 13th. It lacks the sterner virtues of good literature, but it is tasty as a marshmallow, and practically written in Technicolor. Its setting swings between Britain's romantic Channel Islands and New Zealand, from 1830 to 1900. Its atmosphere is one of gentle domesticity, flavored with salty thrills of sea journeys and pioneering among the Maoris at the world's bottom.
Absent-Minded Hero. Hero of the book is orange-haired William Ozanne, son of a Channel Islands' doctor. The heroines are the beautiful sisters Marianne and Marguerite Le Patourel, who both fell in love with William at first sight. The plot, spun out to 502 pages, depends on the fact that absent-minded William was no good at names and could never remember which one was Marianne, which Marguerite. Chic, brunette Marianne ("hostesses delighted in the brilliance of her conversation") made indolent young William work so hard that he passed the Royal Navy exams. William was "deuced fond" of Marianne, but he loved vivacious Marguerite, whose hair was "a riotous mop of natural curls" (Marianne had to use curlpapers).
William sailed away to China with the Royal Navy. Ashore he met a satin-cheeked Chinese girl, who murmured: "You will comfort me. . . ." When William woke up his money was gone—as was the girl and the Royal Navy. Fearful of being charged with desertion, William fled to New Zealand, soon became a successful pioneer and a heavy drinker.
One night William, remembering Marguerite, wrote a letter asking her to come to New Zealand and marry him. It was quite a shock to him when Marianne arrived instead, carrying a reticule and a parrot. As usual, William had got the sisters' names twisted. But he was too much of a gentleman to say so.
Marianne tried to stop his drinking, hated his hearty companions. Back in the Channel Islands, lovely Marguerite pined, refused to marry. "It appears," said Housewife Marianne chillily, "that she has not been able to summon the emotion that would have enabled her to overcome her natural reluctance for exertion."