Cousin Honoré
$2.50 By MACMILLAN
Cousin Honoré might be interpreted as an allegory of the recent history of France; only, Miss Jameson does not write allegories. Nevertheless, Honoré Burckheim — married to an English wife, reading Vergil, passionate lover of wine and vineyards, strange mixture of courage and cynicism, greed and poetry — evidently stands for France, or at least for Alsace; and his relatives and friends for the peasantry, Naziism, patriotism, the fifth columnists, the cultured classes, the politicians, and so on. The types, however, are such as would naturally be found on the Rhine border, and they illustrate quite clearly the effect of divided loyalties, human weakness, and national decay, as well as intense love of the land and the indomitable idealism of the people. Honoré himself is a puzzling creature, but no more so than millions of other Europeans before the war — or Americans, for that matter. His story is an impressive one, and enlightening. R. M. G.