A Study in Sublimations*

Sublimation, in the newest phrase, becomes a criterion of adjustment to the problems of living. In May Sinclair's latest and incomparable novel, the core of this psychological phenomenon is exposed, turned hither and yon to flash with diamond facets upon her story of human striving. We are ready to admit that life is not an easy thing, that the trends of the average existence, if they are to be at all vital, must encounter and dispose of infinite problems; the most vital of these, psychically, being individual love life. Here, when the libido is checked, sublimation must intervene, or stagnation, illness and death result.

The story begins with a death, that of Anne Severn's mother. Upon Anne's handling of this trauma all the rest of her life depends. She stands on her own feet, staunchly, accepting and rejecting on their merits the fragments of her old life that she will piece together to make the new. She rejects Mrs. Fielding, rival for her mother's place. She gives freer rein to the early attraction that has existed between Jerrold and herself. In other words at a turning point in her life she is ready to make the difficult transition from narcissistic love, fixed on the mother (so keenly pictured in May Sinclair's former book, The Life and Death of Harriett Frean) to object love that will ultimately develop along normal, adult lines.

Anne grows up. Adeline Fielding grows down. At seventeen Anne is psychic mother to Mrs. Fielding, as interesting a hysterical character as has been pictured in modern literature. There are three sons in the Fielding family, Colin, the youngest, neurotic, musical, abnormally dependent on Jerrold, his next older brother; Jerrold, Anne's idol, groping to manhood, already sensing the tide of his adult love turning toward Anne; and Eliot, the oldest son, scientist, inquirer, faithful believer in things as they are. The effect of the mother on her sons is magically evident. The reality of the family group is overwhelming. The interplay of c