Holiday novel
ANOTHER holiday event has been the reading of a rather strange novel; "The Burial", by Jennifer Lash (Hart-Davis, 13s. 6d.). It is a study, told in the first person, of a neurotic girl and I found it most gripping.
As a picture of mental illness, it fascinated me, and gave me quite strongly the "There but for the grace of God. . ." feeling one gets from observing people with mental troubles. (Perhaps this makes it a less good novel? I don't know.) The heroine is a Catholic -- and the fact that this seems hardly to matter to her makes it more tragic and -- to me, at any rate -- more horribly fascinating.
A good novel,
however strange the picture it presents, does in the end help us to see
our own situation more clearly.