No Harm at All

COUNTY CHRONICLE (311 pp.)--Angela Thirkell--Knopf ($3.50).

"My most remarkable 'fan' letter," confesses British Novelist Angela Thirkell, "was from an old lady of 79 who said she was tired of reading my books, so would I stop writing them?" Deaf to this honest plea, Novelist Thirkell has gone forging on, hammering out (since 1933) at least one, sometimes two, novels a year. "And after all," as a lady-novelist character in Novelist Thirkell's latest one observes, "no one can say my books . . . do any harm and anyway they are all exactly alike."

As all Thirkell fans know, the main element of likeness in Thirkell novels is that practically all of them are about the gentry of Barsetshire--the English "county" created by Novelist Anthony Trollope for his own convenience and taken over by Novelist Thirkell. There is little further resemblance between them. Where Trollope was gruff, Thirkell is pert; where he peered keen-sightedly, she drops a whimsical, astigmatic glance. Trollope loved a knotty plot, but Thirkell prefers to meander undramatically through Barsetshire, finding husbands for her heroines and painting the local watercolors. When in doubt as to what to say next, she just says: "The months moved on in their usual way."

Thirkell fans are sure to enjoy County Chronicle, in which two nice girls land two nice husbands, a brave widow is spliced to a gallant bishop, and pudgy babies are born and crow in almost every chapter. But students of the contemporary novel are likely to be far more fascinated by Author Thirkell's indefatigable struggle to bring old Barsetshire up to date while simultaneously keeping it out of date.

Thus, on giving some of her characters a whacking oldtime breakfast of bacon & eggs, Author Thirkell feels bound to give credibility to the occasion by explaining that a friend of one of the guests "had a licence to keep pigs" and the host's hens "happened to be laying." A well-stuffed tea bin is hastily attributed to "hoarded American gifts," while the gay poppings of corks (which resound throughout the book) are thanks to "a pal at Portsmouth" or even "an old pal of mine, Pinky Smith [who] sends me . . . rum from the West Indies." There is also an enviable abundance of maids, nannies and cooks, which Author Thirkell explains by declaring that their employers have "a genius for getting people to work for them."

In short, in whatever direction other British shires may be moving, Thirkell's Barsetshire is firmly marking Thirkell-time.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.