Dulcimer Street

THIS is a novel about London, not the whole of London, but a fragment of it, a small fragment at that, confined as the scene is to a single street and, more specifically, to a single house. This particular house stands on what they call in London “the Surrey Side,”that side of the Thames which holds the Southwark Cathedral but also Elephant and Castle, Old Kent Road, Lambeth Road, Clapham, Sydenham, Kennington. Here tiny houses — “dolls’ houses" as Mr. Collins calls them — stretch in the thousands, for mile upon mile. There are no Mayfairs and Piccadillys here to beguile the prosperous tourist; the poor live here, and the “mids" and “lower mids"particularly the poor. It is these people that Mr. Collins writes about — with knowledge, understanding, and sympathy.

The reader should look for neither Shakespeare’s nor Thackeray’s London here; the novelist’s leanings are decidedly Dickensian. Simple, humble people are his heroes and heroines, and, like the author himself, they are not afraid of the sentimental touch. The leading character, Frederick Josser, is sixty-three when the story begins on Christmas Eve of 1938. He is retiring from a countinghouse job after forty-two years, and it is at this point that Josser’s real life begins, a life not without pathos, yet also rich with generosity, sacrifice, and courage. It dominates the story, and is properly interrelated with the lives of his wife, daughter, and all the tenants of No. 10 Dulcimer Street. In Flaubert’s phrase, these are individuals who rise to the dignity of types.

Despite the variety of these people, the author has managed to create a common atmosphere which embraces them all in a single coherent pattern. Connie, the superannuated actress who works in a night club; Perey, the garage mechanic who, for a modest ambition, courts crime; Mrs. Boon, his mother, a simple, honest woman who dotes on her son; Squales, the pseudo spiritualist, a sinisterish type; Mrs. Vizzard, the landlady, whose sentiment makes her his easy victim; these and many others fill out an immense picture rich with minute observation. The story ends during Christmas of 1940, after we have had some glimpses of cockney courage under the airblitz.

JOHN COURNOS