WEST'S SECOND
Whedon, Julia
West's Second Daughter of Silence, by Morris L. West. Morrow. 275 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by Julia Whedon Morris L. West became someone to read and watch with the publication of a novel called The...
...The good guys and the bad guys fight for Rienzi's membership...
...It should be explained that it is vengeance which is the daughter of silence...
...Landon, Rienzi's consultant and friend, has an affair with wanton Valeria...
...There are of course, some complications, which give the book its dimension of depth...
...It just goes to show that things are not so black and white as they seem...
...In the black trunks we have volatile, promiscuous Valeria and her father Ascolini, mentor, tormentor, and elderly advocate extraordinaire...
...When it works it is quite majestic...
...Like his earlier book, West's new one is a treatment of philosophical and moral ironies and polarities...
...Wicked Ascolini does the kind, instead of the rotten, thing now and again...
...West, who can write so well, may have to be added to the casualty list of writers gone commercial...
...There is nothing, in short, that can be said in defense of either the characterization, or intellectual content, of the book...
...Vengeance leads one silent daughter to gun down a town official, mid-day, Chapter One, for murdering her mother during the war, Rienzi, the fledging lawyer, sees his chance for notability and masculinity, takes on her defense (against fearful odds) and, miraculously, rescues the girl from a lengthy prison sentence (she's put in a nice mental hospital because even if she looks all grown-up, she's an emotional eight year old), administers justice (read and learn how there's a difference between the letter of the law and justice), and wins the respect of his family, friends, and community...
...Reviewed by Julia Whedon Morris L. West became someone to read and watch with the publication of a novel called The Devil's Advocate...
...Among the uncommitted, we have Rienzi, Valeria's cuckold husband, Ascolini's apprentice, and Landons good friend...
...There are no absolutes...
...The conflicts are played out, the opposites human and intellectual, queried and compromised, in the context of a murder trial...
...The contest goes the full fifteen rounds with a TKO in the last chapter...
...A book which many felt had genuine literary merit, it was promptly processed by the mass media...
...Everything is relative...
...We are very hard on good writers...
...It might be pointed out, however, that this contemporary truism about relativism is expressed by some of the most lifeless, archetypal characters created since Frank Yerby was last heard giggling all the way to the bank...
...Perhaps you have heard of them: the Good Guys and the Bad Guys...
...It is sad, but true: when a writer has been commercially successful once, he is forever exposed...
...The notion is that the characters, in wrestling with slippery principles, should emerge a little wiser, or a little more human, depending upon their individual deficiencies...
...The counsel for the defense is strangely attracted to the defendant...
...His new novel, Daughter of Silence, is dreadful...
...In West's defense there are flashes of that articulate, evocative, descriptive line which lent distinction to The Devil's Advocate...
...He is denied the privacy for experimental trial and error...
...But when the ingradients are phony, it is leaden and prosaic...
...It's wonderful...
...Stylistically, West is given to orchestrating words, action, and setting very closely...
...In the white trunks we have Landon, equable British psychologist and his girl friend Ninette, flexible French artist...
...West has simplified some of the ambiguity by dividing his characters, roughly, into two teams...
...Hold, hold...
Vol. 26 • February 1962 • No. 2
