Vol. 2 No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

BOOKS
THE LAND OF SPICES :
(Heinemann, 8j
By KATE
In her later novels Miss Kate O'Brien has developed a
cool, delicate skill which, at its best, is delightful to watch.
Her patience has been its own reward and she can now
deal with those peculiar complications of our mentality
which put less experienced writers into a rage. Pray for
the Wanderer^ despite the early nostalgic associations
which the very title calls up, was an attempt, and not a
very successful one, to escape from Ireland past and
present. But in this new novel Miss O'Brien has returned
to her real themes. The Ante Room, or to give it its original
title, Triduum, was a concentrated study in religious tension
and was the first of its kind to be written here. Her new
book explores more fully the organised religious mind of
this country and, serenely, in its own way, it solves all the
problems of touchiness, irritation and suspicion which
surround that guarded theme. In religious subjects we
have been dominated for years by the English convert
mentality and have developed a self-conscious feeling of
inferiority. But, as writers, we have one considerable
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