Storm Passage

by James Hilton

A woman suffering through a bad marriage is given a second chance at happiness. Her desire for security wars with her desire for passion, for a life fully lived. Which will she choose?Alice Anne is a classic Hilton intelligent, headstrong, practical, unsentimental, and acutely aware that she doesn't fit in. She tries to create psychological order by obsessively arranging items in the store where she works, all the while leaving her emotional life untended. She sees love as an affliction, and when it does arrive in the guise of a wandering artist, she's unprepared and loses control. Succumbing to passion nearly always ends in disaster or some life-changing event in Hilton's fictional world, and such is the case in "Storm Passage". Later, Alice Ann meets the amoral, brilliant, con artist John Wilson — whose character owes a debt to Raffles, lovable rogue of the great E.W. Hornung stories — and finds she must choose between Wilson and the moral but boring intellectual Manley.In this, his second novel, James Hilton sounds themes that will dominate his fiction for decades to Is love its own justification? Is goodness the same as morality? Are there second acts to failed lives?

217 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

James Hilton was an English novelist and screenwriter. He is best remembered for his novels Lost Horizon, Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Random Harvest, as well as co-writing screenplays for the films Camille (1936) and Mrs. Miniver (1942), the latter earning him an Academy Award.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She had not been so calm, so utterly serene, as this for a long while; she had let life sweep her amongst the rocks and shoals of perilous adventure; she had fought and striven so many ways in vain, yet not without victory. But now, after it all, she was on the high seas again, steering for distant lands. And, like an old friend once separated in the fight, her calmness was with her again. She could face the future without eagerness and without fear. "

"Then, after tea they took a walk into the forest, and he began to talk to her very slowly and quietly and with a half-sad intonation of the voice. She felt at the outset that it was a mere histrionic and elocutionary performance, and she made up her mind that she would not be impressed by it. Yet slowly, almost insidiously, the man’s gloriously modulated voice and finely constructed sentences worked their spell upon her, till she was almost hypnotised into believing that the perfection of utterance was natural and spontaneous, and that it was Felkin’s soul, his rich, all-comprehending soul, that was looking into hers."

"She could not imagine a more utterly lonely place. The noise of the departing train and the yellow flare of its furnace lasted for several minutes, and then there was silence, illimitable and profound. Her footsteps on the stone platform sounded like gigantic hammer-blows; she could even hear the faint crinkle of the bank-notes in her bosom."

James Hilton, the English novelist, published his second novel, Storm Passage, at the age of 21 in 1922. His first novel, Catherine Herself, was completed at the age of 17 and published three years later, a year before he graduated from Christ's College in Cambridge. Consequently, one would think that this prodigal would long be remembered, but it was not to be. Unlike many great writers who stood the test of time, Hilton is unfortunately and sadly forgotten by virtually all of today's populace notwithstanding his popularity in the early 20th century with such classic novels as Random Harvest, Lost Horizon, and Goodbye Mr. Chips and screen plays such as the Oscar winning Mrs. Miniver. So one might be wondering why I am reading one of his forgotten novels, when there are so many new and exciting offerings currently coming to today's literary forefront. The reason is that I love Hilton's writing style, the attention capturing story, the well defined characters, and the mesmerizing flow that holds my interest from the beginning until the end of each of his novels.

Storm Passage centers around an attractive young woman named Alice Anne Hargreaves who initially works in a country shop in a small English hamlet named Lakering. Alice Anne is an orphan and lives with an elderly lady. At the beginning of the novel, due to an indiscretion committed by Alice and a stranger who arrives in town, she is forced to leave Lakering and eventually finds herself on the outskirts of London, thus the heroine takes a journey. Due to her several strengths, which includes her mind for business and organization, and her beauty, she is able to persevere notwithstanding various hardships which she endures. As in all of us, however, although some of Alice's strengths are virtues, she also has flaws such as her ruthless and deceitful nature that result in unhappy and unexpected consequences.

In reading this novel, it seems that Hilton was personally grasping, at his young age, for the universal meaning of life similar to the main character since there exists the moral dilemma that continues to arise as Alice progresses through her youth. Accordingly, she is continually influenced by other characters with whom she comes in contact, rather than her own ethics, because she, unfortunately, never was taught such virtues as integrity or decency, although she does have some awareness of right and wrong because of her conscience. Consequently, the book is an amazing study of this young lady, but the reader may find some disappointment on Alice's ultimate choices and how those decisions affect others around her with no clear outcome. It's as if Alice resembles a turbulent wind that sways, bends and breaks objects as it passes but never cares to look back to see the result. In many cases, Alice was the storm.

At any rate, the book was beautifully written and easily understood. There were no secret agendas, but the reader won't forget Alice Anne Hargreaves and the people she influenced along the way.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what the title has to do with the content of the story, to be honest. If it had been called 'Soul Searching' that would have been more appropriate. The protagonist Alice Anne is indeed tragic, as she's told repeatedly by Laurie at the start of the book. To anyone other than Alice Anne, he might have been her 'first love' but she is only capable of feeling degrees of happiness, comfort, intellectual superiority and orderliness.

All the characters (all men) are outlined and filled in with colors of increasing depth - Laurie, John Wilson, Manley and Felkin. They each made a significant impact on her life and I wondered with the start of every new chapter where she was going and who she might actually learn to love.

Give me James Hilton over Jane Austen any day.