SOME RECENT FICTION.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 149, 30 July 1914, Page 5

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"DODO THE SECOND." It must be now a good twenty and more years since Mr E. F. Benson captured the novel-reading public by that briskly-told story, "Dodo." For some months the story was on everybody's tongue. Oldsters who could remember Mrs Lynn Linton's famous attack on 11 The Girl of the Period'' in the '' Saturday Review'' recalled that satiric triumph and made comparisons between the article and the novel. Mr Benson now gives us "Dodo the Second" (Hodder and Stoughtim), and although he can hardly expect the story to rival the success of its familiar predecessor, he must fairly be congratulated upon interesting his readers almost, if not quite as much, in a Dodo who owns to fortyfour as in the brilliant, but whimsically erratic, young lady of less than half that age. '' Dodo the Seeond'' is the original Dodo's daughter, Nadine, whose father was Prince Waldenech, the stupid sot who had been Dodo's seeond husband. Her first husband, Lord Chesterford, had died, and the Prince she had divorced. Nadine, or Dodo the Second, can and does say almost as many flippantly smart things as Dodo the First was wont to do twenty years ago. She is interesting enough in her way, and deserves a better husband than Mr Benson duly gives her in the last chapter. But she is not a little selfish, and most readers will plump for the original Dodo, the matron of forty-four, as being easily the most fascinating figure in the story. Even at forty-four, when the most flighty of onceyoung ladies ought to have learned to behave themselves sedately, the natural diablerie of Dodo the First finds amusing presentment, and whenever she is on the stage there will be no stifled yawn from the audience. ' It is the old, the original Dodo, who is still first favourite, although it is only fair to the daughter to admit there are times when she runs her mother very close. Mf Benson writes of ultra "smart" society, but he always remembers that he is the son of an Archbishop, and his heroines, mother and daughter, rarely say or do anything which will very severely shock what I understand is the author's ever faithful "country vicarage'' audience. As for Dodo, the ; resurrected Dodo the First, all who make her acquaintance will wish her every happiness with her "third/' who, by the way, is a cousin of her 1 ' first,'' and Dodo the Second impresses so much as the story proceeds that we hope to meet her again in yet another Dodo story. SHORTER NOTICES.

In "The Music Makers, the Love Story of a Woman Composer" (Mills and" Boon), the author gives us a very interesting novel, in which the two principal figures are a brilliantly-gifted young Hungarian composer, and a young American lady, who, though her father is a multi-mil-lionaire, prefers to earn her own living as a professional pianist. Jess Levellier discovers that Ferencz, who cannot get a hearing for his opera, is starving. She gets his opera produced, but through a chapter of accidents is herself acclaimed as its composer. Ferencz, who has fallen deeply in love with his benefactress, now believes her to be a mean and selfish creature, and the explanation which would have set everything right is delayed through machinations of a seifish and spiteful operatic impresario, who, not until the very end of the book, discovers the fact that Ferencz, the man whom he has tried to rob of his fame, is actually his own son. Mrs Creed gives some interesting of the musical worltl ol London, Paris, and Rome, and her story \s decidedly readable."

Matrimony and the artistic tempera-; ment are often a misfit. The popular j actress who marries and leaves the; stage is apt to regret her absence from; the scene of her past triumphs,. and; resisting a husband's entreaties, to re-i turn thereto. Such is the experience i of the heroine, Victory £aw, of "Thej Playground" (Mills and Boon). Shei marries a rising young Ameri-j can lawyer and politician, and j for a time at least, regrets I having quitted the stage. The story is j well written and throws some interest-; ing sidelights on theatrical life in New; York. The call of the stage is, for a time, irresistible, but in the end it is the husband who gains a double "Vic : tory.''

Three new additions to John Long's "Colonial Library" (John Long), are ' * Desmond O 'Connor,'' by George Jessop; "Angels in Wales," by Margam Jones; and "Sylvia," by Upton Sinclair. Mr Jessop 's story relates the adventures in the French Army (Louis Quatorze period) of a young Irishman. There is much description of the gallant exploits of the famous Irish Brigade, and a pretty love the heroine of which, in order to escape marriage with a profligate German nobleman, disguises herself as a page. Such prominent and historical figures as John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Marshal Villars appear in the story, which has much picturesque historical colour, and is a very readable production.

There is a strong sectarian flavour about Margam J ones's '' Angels in Wales," but the story is spun out to an inordinate length, and is a somewhat dull and uninspiring production. Its chief value ft the light it throws upon the narrow-mindedness of Welsh sectarianism.

Despite its somewhat unpleasant motif, Upton Sinclair's " Sylvia" has considerable literary merits, and no one can doubt the evident sincerity of the author's attack upon certain disagreeable phases of present-day society. Publishers are evidently finding profit in the sale of what may be called "white slave traffic" fiction. The latest story of this kind, "The Story of Lena," by W. N. Willis, appears in a shilling edition (John Long). It is frankly put and crudely sensational, and can only appeal to the morbid and prurientminded. Miss Robins's and the Kauffmans' terrible stories possessed, at least, the merit of being written in decent English. Such productions as those to which Mr Willis's name is so frequently attached can do no good, and were better left unwritten and imprinted.