Tale Of Latin Lands

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

Tale Of Latin Lands

THE hero of Mr. H. W. Freeman's latest novel, "Andrew to the Lions" (Chatto and Windus), has an understanding and love of the Latin countries which is rarely a characteristic of an Englishman, but which one has met with before in this, author's novels. Andrew is a Suffolk man, & schoolmaster, with vague leanings towards writing; his life | is disturbed by the conflict in him between his love for the English countrywide and his desire to live among the Latin peoples as one of them. He goes first to Italy, determined to stay there as long as his slender savings wiH last, and he managea io stay some years.

Then a tragedy in his private life decides him to return to Suffolk, where he settles down contentedly to earning his living by gardening and handwork; he enjoys the life and his neighbours, and plays darts in the village inn. But he is easily tempted to abandon this when circumstances invite him to Spain. Even as he reaches Spain, the civil war is imminent and after days of tension and disaster he makes a last-minute escape into France with a circus.

Mr. Freeman's technique has changed considerably since his earlier novels. This one is much shorter and less detailed, and at the same time leaves a more vivid impression. It contains the wsence of what is best in this author's other novels, together with new qualities which place it above them.