98. OLIVER ONIONS. THE STORY OF LOUIE.
"The Story of Louie" is the last and finest volume of an astonishing trilogy—the first two volumes of which are named respectively "In Accordance with the Evidence" and "The Debit Account."
The mere fact that in the midst of our contemptible hatred of "long books" this excellent trilogy should have appeared, is an indication of the daring and originality of Mr. Oliver Onions.
Mr. Onions is one of the few modern writers—along with Hardy, Conrad and James—who is entirely untouched by political or ethical propagandism. His trilogy is a genuinely creative work of a high and exclusive order. The manner in which, to quote Mr. L.U. Wilkinson again—"the whole prospect is, as it were, strained through the character of one or other of the leading persons is in itself a proof of this writer's fine artistic instinct." The way in which all the leading persons in the book stand out in clear relief and indelibly print themselves on the mind is evidence of the value of this method. And what masterly irony in the contrast between "Evie" for instance as Jeffries sees her and "Evie" as she is seen by her rival Louie!
Nowhere in literature, except in Dostoievsky, has the ferocious struggle of two women over a man been so savagely and truly portrayed as in the great scene in "Louie" between that young woman and Evie when the latter visits her in her rooms.
Oliver Onions' humor has that large and vigorous expansiveness, touched with something almost sardonic, which we associate with some of the very greatest writers. There is always present in his work a certain free sweep of imagination which deals masterfully and suggestively with all manner of sordid material.
99. ARNOLD BENNETT. CLAYHANGER.
"Clayhanger" with its sequels, "Hilda Lessways" and "These Twain," makes up an imposing and convincing trilogy of middle-class life in the English Pottery Towns. To these books should be added "Old Wives' Tale," "Anna of the Five Towns" and all the others among this writer's works which deal with these Pottery places he knows so superbly well.
Outside the Five Towns Mr. Bennett loses something of the power of his touch. He is an interesting example of a writer with a definite "milieu" out of whose happy security he is always ill-advised to stray.
But within his own region he is a powerful master. No one in modern English fiction has treated so creatively and illuminatingly the least interesting and least romantic strata of human society which is perhaps to be found in the whole world.