The brothers are _Jim_, the eldest, hereditary
master of the great farm of Bodingmares; _Clem_, the youngest, living
contentedly in the position of his brother's labourer; and _Bob_, the
central character, whose dark and changing fortunes make the matter of the
book, as his final crop of tragedy gives to it the at first puzzling title.
There is too much variety of incident in _Bob's_ uneasy life for me to
follow it in detail. The tale is sad--such a harvesting of green apples
gives little excuse for festival--but at each turn, in his devouring and
fatal love for the gipsy, _Hannah_, in his abandonment by her, and most of
all in his breaking adventures of the soul, now saved, now damned, he
remains a tragically moving figure. Miss KAYE-SMITH, in short, has written
a novel that lacks the sunshine of its predecessors, but shows a notable
gathering of strength.
* * * * *
Would you not have thought that at this date motor-cars had definitely
joined umbrellas and mothers-in-law as themes in which no further humour
was to be found? Yet here is Miss JESSIE CHAMPION writing a whole book,
_The Ramshackle Adventure_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), all about the comical
vagaries of a cheap car--a history that, while it has inevitably its dull
moments, has many more that are both amusing and full of a kind of charm
that the funny-book too often conspicuously lacks. I think this must be
because almost all the characters are such human and kindly folk, not the
lay figures of galvanic farce that one had only too much reason to expect.
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