THE BOOKSHELF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

NEWS AMD REVIEWS. A NEW THORNTON WILDER. IRISH MEMORIES. On page one "Cyrano" reviews a history of the Presidents of the United States.. Believo me, tho old Philistine or Puritan prejudices against the loose trousers and ties and long hair of Chelsea and Bloomsbury was a sound one.—Mr. A. A. Baumann. An engineer of Swedish training, divorced from his wife, and invalided home with malaria from Africa, meets his only son after many years, and becomes the lover of a girl librarian who is friendly with the son. Out of this trite material Dagmar Edquist, the Swedish novelist, has, in the "Marriage of Ebba Garland" (Lovat Dickson) woven a gripping story in which every domestic detail, and every daily employment has its place and meaning. The publisher has probably been ready to acknowledge the skill with which Eliza Sprigge and Claude Napier have retold this tale in colloquial English. The bright intelligence of both parties to the solvent bonrl, the conduct of the son and the separated wife, and the opinions of all friends and neighbours are demonstrated and discussed in a thoughtful analysis which never obtrudes, but only appears when the story is concluded and considered.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE.

A DRAMATIST ON SHAKESPEARE.

Another characteristic piece of criticism from Mr. St. John Ervrne: "The lovers of Shakespeare may be divided into at least two groups: 'The first consisting of all those awful people who, having through the malevolence of fate, become pedagogues—l distinguish between schoolmasters and pedagogues—are for ever attempting to prove this or that about Shakespeare by means of small, fiddling facts culled from textbooks; the second, consisting of people who, starting off with- the knowledge that their author was a man of the theatre, regard him primarily as a playwright, and do not seek to clutter up his work with stuff about the number of years Macbeth reigned and the exact significance of some topical allusion. There are actually poor fellows who believe that the date of a play's composition is to bo fixed by the date of its first performance, and they will tell you as offensively as they can that 'Macbeth' must have .been written subsequent to 'Hamlet' because it was produced about four years later. Now, I happen to know something about the inside Of a theatre, a knowledge which is not possessed by many, if any, of the persons- who make oracular pronouncements on Shakespearan chronology, and I tell these persons that even the fact that there are topical allusions in a play does not establish beyond all doubt the date on which the play was written, for authors add lines to their plays in rehearsal when these can be topically useful, and omit them again when the occasion has passed, and the allusion has, therefoi e, ceased to have any meaning for an audience. It is only dud authors who will not allow a comma to be removed from their heaven-inspired plays."

SOMBRE SEA STORY.

It is not easy to describe "Captain Bottell" (Boriswood), the latest novel by James Hanley. It is the story of the last voyage of an old tramp steamer, and of the people aboard her. Bottell, her master, seems conventionally stolid and steady until, in his own etrange way, he falls in love with a woman passenger, the only woman on the ship. She is less interested in him than in a stoker named Mulcare, with whom she has long philosophical discussions on the deck, with Bottell jealously listening from the bridge. The reader himself must extract the humour from this situation, for the author gives him no help. Bottell becomes exceedingly eccentric, and his officers, separately and privately, but at last publicly, reach the eonclus : «*i that he is mad. In this conclusion ti.e reader has probably anticipated them. Then comes a hurricane, and with the captain locked in his cabin under guard, the old ship is pounded and battered into her grave. The mad captain, just before she sinks, descends her hold and begins chasing phantoms. It is certainly no bedtime story, and nobody will hurry to secure its cinema nights, but it has a sombre fascination. The description of the hurricane is the finest thing in the book, and in quality has had few rivals. It is so real that the reader longs for some relief, or even a less miserable ending. In this he is disappointed, for Mr. Hanley is not made liko that.

« LUCRECE."

AN OLD TRAGEDY RETOLD. The author of "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is strongly drawn towards drama. He lias written several short plays and a strikingly original long one. "The Woman of Andros" is a moving version, in the form of a novo!, of a classical play. Now Mr. Thornton Wildci has "one to -another old theme, the rape of Lucrece by Sextus Tarquimus, the deed of shame" that Macaulay refers to. Shakespeare made it the subject of a poem. A Frcnch Andre Obey, made a play of it, and it is a translation of this play that now appears under Mr. Wilder's name, ihe hideous wrong worked 011 the beautiful and virtuous wife of one of Sextus' brother soldiers is one ot tlio great tragedies of history and literature. Many people would, consider it much too painful for stage representation—there are some who feel that way about "Othello" —but tins play has already been produced in London, Paris and "New York. The method is peculiar in that a great deal of the dialogue is spoken by two Narrators, one 011 each side of the stage. J hey e present during much of the action and explain it. When Tarquin enteis Lucrccc's chamber and makes known his infamous purpose, the Narrators intervene and try to dissuade him. llie ordering of the action from the opening scene outside the war tent of Collatine to the climax where the crowd prepares to expel the Tarquins, is skilful, and J the story is told in bare but moving prose. The drama has the distinction of treatment one expects from Mr. Wilder. Longmans, Green and Co. publish this in a format uniform with Mr. I Wilder's other books. 1

" KNOCKMAROON."

THE LOVABLE IRISH SCENE. © ' ' Miss W. M. Letts' poetry of Irish life has many admirers outside Ireland, and a* large public is assured for her volume of prose, "Rnockmaroon." Here this understanding lover of Ireland and the Irish describes for us first the Irish scene in the old days of British rule, when she was a child, and then gives us miscellaneous sketches of a later Ireland, descriptions and dialogue informed with sentiment and humour. The "Knockmaroon" of her childhood is a big square house on the Lilly, where the children played in their world of garden and make-believe, and many elders moved about in the background. There were aunts and grand-aunts, all interesting, all invested with the flavour of Victorian drawing rooms. One had sung hymns to the Emperor Maximilian. Another married a botanist absorbed in saxifraga and primulaceae, but she was always radiant. Charming, accomplished and temperamental, she found happi- j ness in the daily round of her home, and Miss Letts evidently contrasts her with the unsatisfied longings of to-day. But the book is notable for something else than this vivid picture of an upper-middle-class Victorian household. It contains most sympathetic portraits of Irish "working" types, from the wonderful dignity of an Irish peasant woman to Lanigan, "the Rectory man," who at some critical moment in a battle gave advice to his colonel and changed the tide of war. It is a peaceful, kindly Ireland that Miss Letts writes of with such charms, an Ireland which, we may be sure, still lies in truth behind the disputes of political parties and the shadow of the gunman. The tang of peat-smoke is in the leaves of this book, which will go far to explain to the "foreigner" the nature of the Irishman's love for his country, the sights, sounds and smells of it. Some excellent verse is interspersed. The volume comes from tho house of Murray.

CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNISM.

"It is tlio duty of a Christian to stand by the downtrodden and oppressed, and ho must pray for the strength never to disown the poor. It is not his duty to support blind revolutionary movements of the proletariat. Still less is it his duty to co-operate in deliberately fomenting violent revolution in' alliance with Marxists, whose policy is based on principles the Christian is bound to deny." Such is one of the conclusions of H. G. Wood in "The Truth and Error of Com-, munism" (Student Christian Movement Press), a useful examination of the theory of Bolshevism, to which much thought is being given in England, as elsewhere. Mr. Wood is sympathetic to the Labour movement, which, he describes as "a much bigger thing than Communism." He believes that the choice Ln Britain is between a reconstructed Capitalism and a thorough-going Socialism, and that either is better than the breakdown for which the Communists hope. So "the first duty of both the parties" is to co-operate, once the election is over. This seems a counsel ofperfection, for the only basis on which such "co-operation" has been reached is the basis of compulsion, as in Germany. But Mr. Wood believes, and with justification, that the British character and the Christian "convictions of so many people in the British Labour movement will bring about a different solution there. The Marxist emphasis on classstrife has steadily misled Labour, which needs now "to be definitely constructive, to bo prepared to weaken itself as a fighting force by share, it may be a lion's share, in responsibilities." Communism "sacrifices a spiritual good, namely, liberty, with no guarantee that the ends for which the sacrifice is demanded will bo realised.'' This little book should be a valuable guide to many people.

THE SPANISH REPUBIJC,

So little is known about the present conditions in Spsrin that any book dealing with this new republic is welcome. In° "The Spanish Republic" by "Anonymous," published by Eyre and Spottiswoode, the point oFview of a monarchist is given. The author paints a gloomy picture of present conditions, and lie contends that the liberal nature of the Constitution lias been completely nullified bv the Defence of the Republic Act, under" which ,the Minister for the Interior has been given powers which enable him to ignore all safeguards for the protection of the rights of the individual. He contends that the piesent Government is exercising a despotism that was unknown even, during the dictatorship of de Rivera. He gives instances of the dismissal of judges and magistrates because of their supposed polftical leanings, of the waste of public funds, of deportations of citizens whose only crime has been opposition to the Government, and of outrages by the "Shock Police." There is, of course, another side to the story, as is shown by the fact that the recent attempt to replace the present Government by one representing the more Conservative elements in the community failed, though it had the support of the President. The Government has to contend against the Syndicalists and the Monarchists, and together they probably represent a majority of the Spaniards, but thev cannot unite, to form a Government, and so the present Ministry remains in oflice. Rebuilding Spain under a democratic franchise is not an easv matter, and the present volume shows how profound is the discontent felt by the Conservative elements in the nation with the Cabinet of Senor Azana It throws much light the recent troubles and the many disturbances which have marked the coming into power of the Socialists and Left-wing radicals. The story is not encouraging to those who hoped a new era of liberty had dawned for Spain.

books received,

The Way of All Flesh, by Samuol Bullor; French Short Stories of the 19th and ?oth Centuries. scl6ctc(l toy 1'• *• .' At \ ph.D. (Everyman's Library, Dent). The Mantle of Ishmael, by J. S. Fletcher Mu ( rn; rr w byet SWWi. of Belinda!' by ton down by liufrnlrl Macradyen; Pilgrim Cottage, by Cecil Roberts (Hodder and . stoughton). The Somerset Year Book, published l)y Society or Somerset Folk. King Edward VII., by E. F. Benson (Longmans). The American Presidents from Washington to Harding, by Herbert Agar The Spanish Republic; A Survey of Two Years of Progress, by Anonymous (byte and Spottiswoodc). From Chaos to Control,. by Norman Angoll; , Let's Start Over Again, by A.ihh o i US', ' Youth in Soviet Russia, by Mails MetiI nert- The Death of materialism, by ' wiiateley Caring ton (Allen and Unwl.n). Six-Gun Melody, by William Colt Macdonald (Collins). The Laughing Christ, by Pearson Cboate | (Angus and Robertson). Cricket Stories, collectcd by Howard Mar--1 shall (Putnam).