The Ability to Loathe

ONE OF THE FOUNDERS by P. H. Newby. 285 pp. Lippincott. $4.95.

One evening after a hard day at the office, a chap named Hedges is met at the front door by Mrs. Hedges, who hands him a stiff shot of sherry and a nasty bit of news: he is now, and for several months has been, a cuckold. A bit of rough weather, that. But as a British civil servant, Hedges takes a firm grip on his brolly and does the decent thing. Even after his wife divorces him and marries the other bloke, he still sends her birthday cards and occasionally advances the new couple a few quid to keep things going. People call him a chump, and Hedges is vaguely aware that they are right, but what can a man do when he lacks the "ability to loathe?"

Bloody well develop it. And so he does in the course of this minor, deft, deliciously droll and sometimes startlingly profound little novel by P. H. Newby (The Barbary Light, Revolution and Roses), the most ingenious and beguiling Puck to appear on the scene since Henry Green came popping out of the all-too-hollow log of contemporary English literature.

Learning to loathe isn't easy for a man who would much rather learn to love, and for a long time Hedges evades the issue. He sneaks off to spend the night with a "sordid woman"--he is shocked to discover that she doesn't have twin beds. He makes a pass at a cute trick who works for him--he is startled to get stabbed through the instep by her stiletto heel.

And then one day, after a symbolic and gloriously silly baptism in an oily-slimy estuary, he strides sopping and transfigured into what may or may not be a religious vision: "He saw the ball of shining fog float ever so slowly along until it caught up with him. Now he walked in the ball of fire, in the feeling that at last he could stop fighting. He surrendered. He had no anxiety. He gave. He floated and gave, like a cloud breathing out light." Somehow, after that, Hedges can both love and loathe. He loathes his ex-wife and publicly informs her of the fact. He loves the girl with the stiletto heel and promptly takes her to wife. Happy ending? In his concluding sentence, Author Newby murmurs drily: "They lived more or less happily for quite a long time after."

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