A Satisfying Tapestry
p. 93 · Read in the full issue
With boundless skill, Miss Rumer Godden has merged then and now into a timeless tapestry of human lives in her new novel, China Court.
FIVE generations of Quins have lived at China Court, a house built in a remote village on the Cornish moors by Eustace Quin in 1840 and named after the china clay works from which the family makes an income.
Old Mrs. Quin —the third genera tion—can remember old Eustace, and bridges the generations to Trady, her grand-daughter.
Youth and age, love and bitterness are all retained in China Court, blended into a fugue of human lives in which the different subjects sing out for a moment and are gathered in again to the whole. The canvas is a large one, and despite the method of telling the story, there is no confusion.
There is Lady Patrick, whose pride destroys her; her sons, handsome Borowis and steadfast John Henry; Ripsie, the nameless child from the village who became mistress of China Court; her worldly daughters and their husbands; the diffident Tracy, and earlier than all these is Eliza, plain, clever daughter of Eustace, whose thwarted intelligence turns to eccentricity and whose energy finds an outlet which has repercussions long after she is dead.
A flower, a dog, a scent, the decorations of a dinner table, a word
sharply spoken, a look evaded—all are significant in the pattern of life which flows through China Court.
So are the pictures in the illumin ated borders of the Book of Hours Mrs. Quin reads. And it is the Book of Hours, with its intricate en chanting pictures and its tranquil words, which not only plays a vital part in the story but also forms the frame for this rich portrait of a family and of a house.
Those who remember An Episode of Sparrows by the same authoress will need no recommendation to this novel. Altogether a very good book, well worth reading.—EN. (CHINA COURT. Published by Macmillan. 22/6.)
The Chrysomelidae Of China
AND KOREA, Part I, by J. L. Gressitt and Shinsaku Kimoto, has just been published by The Entomology Department of Bishop Museum, Honolulu, inaugurating a new series of publications titled “Pacific Insects and Monographs”. The authors estimate that there are 2,000 species of these beetles in China and in this first part, 691 species are described or enumerated. Sixty-eight species are described as new to science. The second half of the study is scheduled to appear in another Pacific Insects Monograph.
Despite its size, 299 pages and 77 figures, the cost of this publication has been kept to a minimum, and Is available to collectors for 4 dollars, or £Stg.l/9/-.