ALONE IN SPAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

ALONE IN SPAIN.

WOMAN JOURNALIST ABROAD Miss Nina Murdoch, the Australian journalist whose first travel book, “Seventh Heaven,” was so well received a few years ago, has now published another. “She Travelled Alone in Spain” (Harrap) is a chronicle of her wanderings in Spain, whither a Spanish streak in her ancestry had called her since her childhood. Though the overdone whimsicalities of the introductory chapter are rather alarming, one soon settles down to enjoy the quiet, careful observation that characterises Miss Murdoch’s account of her travels. She is perhaps a little over-emphatic about the magnitude of her exploit in travelling alone—surely many other women have done likewise and have not thought it worth while to say so much about it—but her book was worth writing despite this defect, and is worth reading too. Miss Murdoch kept rather definitely to the beaten track that most tourists follow, and describes many things which most tourists see, but it is not her account of the ordinary tourist sights that justifies the writing of her book. It is rather the observations by the way, of unimportant ordinary matters, made in passing and recorded by the pen of a true journalist: “I splashed back to my hotel and read with intense pleasure the notice behind my bedroom door. It informed me that I must not spit upon the floor. And as if that were not a sufficiently shattering deprivation, it went on to announce that senoras might not receive Caballeros in their rooms, nor vice versa. I always read the rules in foreign hotels. You get from them such intimate glimpses of local weaknesses.” There is a pleasing story of the American woman graduate whose Spanish husband would not permit her to move outside their home unless escorted by himself or their old servant. If she had gone out in defiance of orders he would have had her brought back by tho police.’ Then there is the picture of the elms in Granada, planted there by the Duke of Wellington to remind him of home.' And last (and perhaps loveliest to an Australian) the gum trees planted here and there throughout Spain, and looking thoroughly at home. Between Seville and Cordova Miss Murdoch passed through reafforested areas where the railway runs for miles on end through slender Australian eucalyuts and wattles; in tho dry Spanish air the Australian trees “have a happy look, not nostalgic like the white poplar trees, which bear themselves as listlessly as slaves in exile.” In spite of some defects and considerable limitations, this is a book that will be widely read with much enjoyment. A concluding word should be added to commend the excel.ent photographs and the sympathetic drawings by Victor MacChire, which are a real addition and adornment to the book.

WINIFRED HOLTBY.

One of the best-balanced minds of the post-war generation in England has been lost with the death this week of Winifred Holtby,- director of “Time' and Tide.” Readers of her friend Vera Brittain’s “Testament of. Youth,” will have gained a vivid impression of her character—eager, generous and gay.' >she had written several novels, besides works of criticism ■ and “satire. It is especially interesting at this, time to learn of the. circumstances in which-she wrote one book, “Mandoa, Mandoa,” the readers of which imagined that she had visited Abyssinia. But, as she wrote recently to a friend: “As a matter of fact, I have never been to Abyssinia nor anywhere near there. I have been in South Africa, and am spending this coming autumn iu West Africa, especially Liberia; but I wrote ‘Mandoa’ in nursing homes and such like unadventurous places recovering from a long illness. I had, of course, studied guide books, histories, geographies and political reports, and had met several people who had just returned from the royal wedding there. What amused me was to find, while writing political articles on this (Abyssinian) crisis, how right many of my shots in the dark four years ago seem to have been. Lord Buxton, who was the British adviser sent to the Emperor about tho slave trade, sent for me to ask how I had obtained much of my information, which was true but supposed to be private. I can only suppose that sometimes satire is nearer the truth than the satirist knows; but I must warn you not to take tho facts too seriously. The feelings seem, alas, all too true.”

A PHILOSOPHICAL POET.

“Three Poems,” by Allen Curnow, recently a University student in Auckland and now living in Canterbury, reflect the philosophical prc-occupation of many of our New Zealand poets. It is a far cry from pretty verses about tuis and bellbirds to Mr. Curnow’s “Aspect of Monism.”

This was untrue, that there is division between body and mind, making sin

and matter for secret speaking or derision out of the act where sight and strength begin.

Such writing is too intellectualised to appeal to many, but it has the kind of beauty that informs true poetry.

And the day has one white foot on the very far first step from darkness, and a white arm

takes the sea in a bowl held upward in a glory. There is no earth nor any other star.

Mr. Curnow is worth watching. The book is printed with distinction by the Caxton Club Press, Christchurch.

BOOKS IN LOCAL DEMAND.

AUCKLAND LIBRARIES’ LIST. The following list of books in demand at the Auckland Public Libraries is supplied by the chief librarian:— NON-FICTION. Broncho Charlie—By G. S. Erskine. Labour’s Way with the Commonwealth— By G. Lansbury. Hell’s Angele of the Deep—By W. G. Carr. Don Fernando—By W. Somerset Maugham. Fire on the Andes—By C. Beals. Arctic Trader—By P. H. Godscll. Grief Goes Over—By Merton Hodge. The Enemies—By Sylvia Lynd. The Flying Flea—By H. Mlgnet. The League on Trial—By M. Beer. FICTION. John o’ the Green—By Jeffrey Farnol. The House of Four Winds—By John

Buchan. White Ladies—By F. Brett Young. Illyrian Spring—By Ahn Bridge. Sackcloth Into Silk—By Warwick Deeping. The Wedding—By Denis Mackall. The Seventeen Thieves of El—Kalil—By Talbot Mundy. All Quiet in Garmany—Ry K. Bllllngcr. Tpe Little Country—By J. Guthrie. Poison in the Parish—By Milward Kennedy.