Saga Done

Two FORSYTE INTERLUDES ($.50); SWAN SONG ($2.50)--John Galsworthy--Scribners.

Though descendants of the Forsytes "may make up fresh adventure for the morrow" (their creator is 61), the Forsyte saga is done. Done because the cycle of old Soames Forsyte's life is complete, and his daughter Fleur, the only descendant that bred true to Forsyte pride and cynical acquisitiveness, has worried her fate to tragic anticlimax. In The White Monkey fate (and Soames) wrenched her from the love of her cousin Jon; in The Silver Spoon fate (and Soames) taught her to snatch what she wanted; in Swan Song again fate (but not Soames) brings her Jon that she might snatch him only to lose him forever. For of the Two Forsyte Interludes one has told charmingly of Jon's new love, and the other poignantly of Soames' meeting his old love.

Though Soames had adored his first wife, and forced his adoration on her as his propertied right, he was true to his Victorianism in casting her out when she was "unfaithful." By contrast, his daughter's husband suffered bitterly over Fleur's affair with Jon, but he bore with her infidelity. Whether the difference in the two generations is an advance in civilization or a deterioration in force of character, Mr. Galsworthy rather emphasizes the latter by Jon's vague back-to-nature farming venture, and Michael's disarming but nonetheless softy campaign to clean up the slums. Somehow the younger generation hasn't quite the stamina of old Soames, cynical, Victorian, who puts an indelible stamp on his generation.

Swan Song picks up familiar threads of earlier episodes in the saga, yet such is the artistry that the final portrait is complete for one unfamiliar with the earlier volumes. Such one, unfortunate, may indeed sense that dramatic action is over and done, but there remains the thrilling finale fire, and there remains a generous supply of Galsworthy's sound philosophy, and his engrossing though rather unsound sociology.

Author Galsworthy was born in 1867, of oldest and best Devonshire stock. He qualified for the law, but was sufficiently well off to be bored with it and travel. On a voyage between Adelaide and Cape Horn he became fast friends with Joseph Conrad, sailor. Thereupon he took to writing. Besides the volumes of the Forsyte saga, which total with the swan song 2,000 pages, he has done numerous other novels (The Patrician, etc.), stories (Five Tales, etc.), and powerful plays (Strife, Justice, The Skin Game, etc.). Of recent years his hobby has been launching obscure writers. Trader Horn (TIME, June 27, 1927) he heralded from South Africa. Bambi (TIME, July 23) he praised because it had minimized the rough tedium of a channel crossing.