Sheean & Sin

SANFELICE--Vincent Sheean--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

In Personal History Vincent Sheean wrote the autobiography of a 30-year-old newspaperman who had seen and participated in some of the most momentous events of the post-War period: the pacification of the Riff in Africa, the Chinese Revolution of 1927, the German Inflation, the Allied occupation of the Rhine. The book revealed a sensitive and searching intelligence that honestly faced the dominant political issues before the modern world, contained careful expositions of Communism and Revolution, gave a general impression of intelligent inconclusiveness, of dismay before the towering threats to contemporary society. Last week Vincent Sheean followed his best-selling (100,000 copies) autobiography with a volume which, while it seemed less likely to enjoy popular favor, was even more clearly in the nature of a call to readers to consider seriously the future, to appreciate fully the consequences of social irresponsibility, inertia and misjudgment.

A long (449 pages), rambling, historical novel, Sanfelice strikes a contemporary note in its exhaustive discussion of the ephemeral Republic of Naples, established after the revolution of 1799 and overthrown a few months later. Central figure of the novel is Luisa Sanfelice, 34-year-old daughter of impoverished nobles, unloved and unloving wife of a dissolute, treacherous aristocrat who has run through two fortunes, abandoned his children, left his wife in a state of dull, stupefied despair. At a ball given for Admiral Nelson on his return from the Battle of the Nile, Luisa meets Fernando Ferri, an ill-favored, impetuous, garrulous lawyer's clerk, secretly a radical who lacks the courage to state his views or the resourcefulness to try to achieve them. Luisa recognizes Fernando's weaknesses, loves him as the one individual who has broken the monotonous pattern of her life.

In 1798 Naples was ruled by Maria Carolina, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria, sister of Marie Antoinette who had died on the guillotine only five years before. Carolina's husband, King Ferdinand, was a lazy, ineffectual, long-nosed barbarian whose concept of statesmanship was simply to keep out of trouble and throw coins to any crowd of the lower classes. Carolina's life was dominated by her hatred and fear of the French Republic, by her determination to lead Naples in a holy war against France. She was encouraged in this suicidal plan by the English, particularly by Lady Hamilton, wife of the English Ambassador, Nelson's mistress, a huge, handsome, hearty woman who had been picked up in a London brothel only a few years before. It was commonly believed that Lady Hamilton's influence over the Queen was the result of a perverse relationship. The court was one of the most corrupt in Europe. Yet revolutionists like Fernando did little more than repeat scandals about the nobles, fearing the wild, starving, superstitious Neapolitan mobs almost as much as did the aristocrats and the Queen.

Carolina got her war and, on the heels of defeat, the revolutionists got their revolution. Fernando found himself a prominent member of the provisional government. Luisa, who believed in the old order and supported the Republic only because of her lover, was elevated to prominence in the minds of the common people as the mother of the Revolution. The Tsar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, the Sultan of Turkey promptly declared war on the small republic. When the revolutionary government fell, Luisa was one of the first victims on the proscribed list. As she waited for death, a living embodiment of the irony of history, Fernando, who "was not one of those who die," was exiled. The executioner became nervous at the behavior of the crowd, smashed the ax into Luisa's shoulders. Although a new prince had just been born, "there was no rejoicing in Naples that day."

Significance. Artistically an awkward, badly constructed book, Sanfelice is nevertheless written with a gravity and earnestness that give it distinction. Its discussions of European politics and of the meaning of the French Revolution are precise, convincing, sometimes brilliant. Vincent Sheean excels in characterizing such tangled intellectuals as Fernando, who recognize the need for drastic social change yet are paralyzed by their very ability to perceive the broad significance of the events in which they take part. In Personal History Author Sheean has pictured himself as a character not dissimilar. Whether or not he means Sanfelice to be taken as a statement on the tragic futility of revolution, the book gives the impression that for him. Original Sin is social irresponsibility. "The Revolution is eternal," one of his characters says. "It is the lifting of more and more people to the surface of life."

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