Book Review

WORSHIPING SIS

North, Michael, Michael North is the author of "Henry Green and the Writing of His Generation" and "The Final Sculpture: Public Monuments and Modern Poets."

1986

Overview

There is a kind of psychological explanation for [Eustace Cherrington]'s dependence on his sister, in the early death of their mother. But nothing is made of this explanation, in part because Eustace takes his condition completely for granted. The metaphor of shrimp and anemone suggests that Eustace's extinction is inevitable, but [L. P. Hartley] sees such victimization in a peculiar way. The cause of all the events in the trilogy is, as in so many Victorian novels, the weakness of the father. ''Isn't that like Daddy?'' [HILDA] complains. ''We can't depend on him, can we?'' Mr. Cherrington's ''gay nature,'' his effeminate weakness, throws off balance the purely Victorian moral system on which these works are based. ONE of the general themes of Hartley's work is the instability that the 20th century introduced into sexual relationships. Mr. Cherrington's quasi marriage to his sister, Eustace's dominating aunt, seems the norm that Eustace must follow in an age in which only women are strong. When the trilogy ends with Eustace dying as he tamely offers his finger to another voracious anemone, the trilogy has almost reduced itself to one simple Freudian fear.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: Cecil, David / Cherrington, Eustace / Hartley, L P / Losey, Joseph / NORTH, MICHAEL