Abstract

Bland Futility

This article presents information on the book "John Merrill's Pleasant Life," by author Alice Beal Parsons. This is a novel about love or about ambition or about ingratitude according to the author. She merely tells her tale quietly, competently, as a matter of fact. One must take it or leave it; one may understand it or be puzzled by it; be moved or left cold, for Parsons refuses to help one out. But this is the story of John Merrill upon whom the impacts of experience made no mark; who was either so hard as to be impervious or so soft as to be completely resilient to the stings of unrequited love, to the boredom of a stupid, nagging wife, to whatever pangs of conscience might result from ingratitude to his benefactor and unfaithfulness to his wile.