Word: sylvia
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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WHETHER A DOVE OR SEAGULL-Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland-Viking...
...Sylvia Townsend Warner (Lolly Willowes, Mr. Fortune's Maggot) and Valentine Ackland, a new writer, protest "against the frame of mind, too common, which judges the poem by the poet." By lumping 109 poems together in Whether a Dove or Seagull without specifying which are by Poet Warner, which by Poet Ackland, they conspire to baffle lazy readers, force them to take or leave each verse on its own merits...
...taken a bungalow for him in the exotic colony of Alta Vista, introduces him to all of Alta Vista's queer characters. Before any of them can say "Roanoke," Caslon has them all in a book, finds that they are his characters. He falls hopelessly in love with Sylvia, and she does him a favor, but she remains devoted to her surly absentee husband. Sinister Mrs. Forgate, who has a reputation as a husband-poisoner, watches with a cold eye the passionate friendship between her gigolo Antonio and the Keatsian poet Dacbe. Lad Greengable, godlike lifeguard with literary leanings...
...Greengable goes off to Europe to drown his love for Sylvia in dissipation. Jacqueline puts her discords into music. Sol has the happy thought of poisoning his wife; unfortunately he overindulges and she dies. Angela discovers a simple soul who believes he is Jesus; under her tutelage he acts the part. Arthur Brisbane writes: "So Jesus has returned! Millions all over the world will welcome the news. Other millions will wonder what He is going to do about international debts, politics, taxes, love, prohibition and the grasping public utilities. But whatever happens, you may rest assured that California, as usual...
Climax of the publicity campaign is to be "Jesus' " miraculous walking on the water at Santa Monica. All goes well until, some distance from land, he catches sight of Sylvia swimming beside him, without a bathing suit; he sinks without a trace. Mrs. Forgate poisons Dache. Just in time Author Roanoke goes back to New England : a few days later a last and greatest cataclysm swallows up California...