OTHER NOVELS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 237, 7 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

OTHER NOVELS.

"PEBBLE IN THE rOND."

Tho repercussions of spcech, the written word, or actions, are limitless in a corporate community, social group, or even throughout a nation. This spreading influence has been compared to the ripples in a pool disturbed by a stono thrown into it. Mr. J. Cabot has made use of this idea in his ingenious novel "Pebble in tho Pond" (Hamish Hamilton) in which a doctor's somewhat carelees advice concerning a paralytic grandfather extends its ever-spreading influence to many persons in varied social positions. Tho knowledge of tho novelist of men and women and children of almost all ranks is remarkable, and their reactions to tho push of the distant splash of tho doctor's order aro most faithfully recorded. To continue the simile to tho infinite (to which, of course, tho ripple goes), is not in the capacity of any writer, and Mr. Cabot is forced to a "fade out" which is not a climax. Tho book is itself an illustration of spreading slowly-weakening circles, for tho vigour of the opening chapters is toned down to almost commonplace narrative as tho story unfolds. The intentional bathos is quito effective. Tho characters are a "London Mixture" and like that ancient confection, all sweet, although not all equally so.

In opening "Captain Sinister" by G. Goodcliild, at random, wo read that of a shipwrecked crew of an open boat four had died from lack of water, after sixteen days at sea, and that the survivors (three of whom were women) sang as they neared the land. Even if sixteen was a misprint for six the singing is beyond the ordinary limits of fiction, as anyone can prove by avoiding all drink for six (or sixteen) days and singing to Mr. Goodchild's publishers (Ilodder and Stougliton). Tho quality of the story is equal throughout.

"Patchwork Palace" is a social and domestic story which at first walks, then runs, and finally rushes to a climax of such misfortunes as may befall quite ordinary people. A new Kensington block of flats, which let, unfurnished, at a pound a day, is occupied by a variety of tenants whose personal alfairs soon become complicated by their association with each other. Love, jealousy, hate, suspicion, crime and tragedy leave few of the tenants unscathed, and the authoress, Mabell Tyrrell, gives consistent character to each and every one. Tho interdependence of all occupations and professions is fully demonstrated. Artists, makers of underclothing, company promoters, and stock brokers, far apart in interests, aro linked by the interaction of their lives. This novel from Hodder and Stoughton follows others in the selection of a number of people grouped, as it were, bv the limits of special environment, and therefore offering concentrated study. The palatial flat is new in fact and in fiction.

One expccts a story of Australia to bo sternly realistic, and more often than not it is with life in the open spaces, where men aro few o,nd Nature is hard. In contrast, "Money Street" (Hodder and Stoughton), by J. Iv. Ewers, presents to us a group of people living in a humble street in Perth, and its principal weakness is that it is too sentimental. Elman Day, a partiallydisabldd returned soldier, without an aim in life, drifts into lodgings in Money Street, and there becomes tho friend of its inhabitants, in most of whom the conventional heart of gold beats strong beneath the rough exterior. Mr. Ewers over-taxes probability, and some of his characters are a little too good to be true, but he tells the tale with gusto, and the cheerful spirit in which it is written leaves a pleasant impression.