What London Is Reading

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 11 (Supplement)

What London Is Reading

LONDON", October 21. Mr. John Brophy is acquiring a distinctive place among the younger English novelists, and his newest book, "Behold the Judge" (Collins), should add to his reputation. The main theme of this long novel ia the position of a judge and his reactions from the Bench to the

world around him. The reader has to go a long way before he reaches the actual trial for murder. There are many and well observed scenes in a large departmental store, and the author has many telling and strongly felt things to say about the treatment of employtes and the terrible life of industrial uncertainty which may mean sudden unemployment to-morrow.

But it is not by any means all crowded town life with which Mr. Brophy deals. There are sensitive descriptions of the country which are fine examples of literary skill. There are, too, a number of well-defined characters —the judge's wife and son, the shop girl with whom the son is in love and the shop girl's parents. But the crux of it all comes when Sir Henry Gaston has to sit on the Bench and hear his first trial for murder. It is in this that the author shows his fullest measure as a novelist. As "the trial proceeds the judge discovers many things about his own son; he, being a sensitive man, shrinks from his responsibility in the face of a possible capital sentence. It is in this phase of emotional distress that the book is of unusual quality and holds the reader with exceptional tenseness. It is the work of a writer who takes his task with conscientious seriousness and is not content to be merely an entertainer.

Mysterious Murder Of President Lincoln

We are used to detective stories which are frankly fictitious and we have had a large number of volumes which have retold the means by which murder mysteries have been unravelled by Scotland Yard or other police agencies. Mr. Otto Eisenschmil has developed a first-class detective theme with a famous historical subject in "Why Was Lincoln Murdered?" (Faber and Faber).

Everybody knows that the American President was killed in Ford's Theatre, Washington, by an actor, John Wilkes Booth. The act has been widely accepted as that of an irresponsible madman, but Mr. Eisenschmil will not accapt such a theory. He has been at great pains to go into the facts and the evidence, and has come to the conclusion that Lincoln's murder was the result of a deliberate plot, at the head of which was Edwfn M. Stanton, the Secretary for War. Certainly the evidence he produces seems very strong. The usual guard was withdrawn from Ford's Theatre on that night; the portrait circulated as being that of the escaped Booth was not Booth at all, and when the murderer was finally rounded up he was shot dead and not taken alive as he might have been. Thoge who enjoy detective fiction, as well as students of history, will find no little satisfaction in following the careful steps of the author through the maze of evidence.

Admirers of Mr. H. G. Wells never cease to regret that he has departed from the ways which produced "Kipps," "Mr. Po.ly" and the scientific romances such as "The Food of the Gods." Looking back, one sees that this great writer

— By Charles Pilgrim

has always been a man with a purpose

that "The Shape of Things to Come" is really a continuation of "The Time Machine," the etory which first made him famous.

At last Mr. Wells has obliged the complainers and given them a novel in something like the old manner. "Brynhild" (Methuen) is about a novelist and his wife. The novelist, who goes by the unusual name of Palace, finds himself more or less discontented with partial success. He has his public, but he wants to make that public much larger, so he engages the services of Mr. Cloote, a publicity expert. While he is engaged with Mr. Cloote, Mrs. Palace (the Brynhild, described as a "quiet lovely") meets her husband's rival in fiction, Mr. Bunter. Mrs. Palace becomes so interested in Mr. Bunter, a person with a decidedly unsavoury past, that he becomes the father of her child." That is the outline of the story. The end is sudden and perfunctory and no particular moral appears. Yet it is all good reading." Mr. Wells, in spite of his 70 years, is still able to kick up his literary heels with the energy of a two-year-old. Palace, Cloote and Bunter are drawn with immense vivacity.

Those happy phrases to which Mr. Wells has accustomed us are flung all over the pages. He shoots tremendous arrows of irony and sarcasm in all directions. Some of the characters he introduces are obviously fonnded on contemporary life, and his attacks are not always benevolent. Thie casnot be accounted a great novel, but no one can deny that it is great entertainment.

Complete Modern Esxayist Mr. E. V. Lucas is, and has been for a long while, among the best-sellers. He is something of a butterfly among writers, but a butterfly with a business ability to manage the great publishing house of Methuen. Readers all over the world know him as the "E.V.L." of "Punch," and more serious persons (if there be more serious persons) render him respect es our greatest authority on Charles Lamb. Then there is another side of Mr. Lucas. He has travelled,, and as a wanderer has given us some of the most delightful guides to Paris, Florence and other European cities. But, perhaps, his most constant output is to be found in those volumes of short essays which help to keep alive the Elian touch. The latest of these itf "All of a Piece" (Methuen). In this book there are any number of short writings about almost every subject under the sun. It is in these collections that Mr. Lucas is able to display his erudition and culture. There seems to be little he does not know or know about; jmen, horses and dogs; cooking, walking [and riding; pictures and furniture, fairy tales and travel books. No one would read a collection of Lucas essays at a sitting. They are not intended for such reading. But everywhere we can. dip in and find something for enjoyment and education. E.V.L. cannot be staled by custom and his infinite variety never fails.