What Londoners Read

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 10 (Supplement)

What Londoners Read

LONDON, March 17. THE cinema shows us beyond question that there is still a large public who can enjoy a simple tale of adventure with an unmistakable hero. Therefore there should be not a few readers for "The-Silver Swan" (Heinemann), by John Clayton. Mr. Clayton has nothing whatever to' do with the psychological niceties of the kind of novel which is generally considered modern. His hero, Samson Smith, the eon of a blacksmith, comes out of Shropshire and plunges into the London of Shakespeare's time. Mr. Clayton knows his period very well and has made full use of his knowledge. Samson in London meets Burbage, the actor, and discovers a cousin, Nan Ball, who ie in the thick of the theatrical world of the time. Realising the kind of novel it is, the reader is not surprised to come across Shakespeare, Marlow, Greene, Essex and Elizabeth herself. . Samson is ae strong as he fe brave, and his adventurous spirit is put to the full test in the dangerous underworld of seventeenth century London. But still greater dangers await him. He sails with Drake and Grenville and takes part in some of their fiercest fights; he is captured by the Spaniards and toils in the galleys. He rescues both his father and his sweetheart, and, of course, is rewarded with a happy ending. It is a-real old-fashioned, blood-and-thunder, cut-and-thrust yarn. It is long, but it moves at a terrific pace and therefore its length is not irksome. Boys of all ages will romp through it. Leonardo da Vina Recently there have appeared from the Press a number of books about that greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci. Amongst the most readable and popular of these is "Leonardo da Vinci," by Antonina Vallehtin, translated by £. W. Dickes

By--Cftas. Pilgrim

(Gollancz). Mme. Vallentin has endeavoured to make her chief character live in a dramatic atmosphere. This is not j to say that she has neglected her facts 'or has not been at infinite pains to accumulate them, but she has endeavoured to draw the Italian world with all ite colour and movement and to set her subject moving in that world with a plausibility of a contemporary man. And what a man he was! Painter, poet, statesman, philosopher and natural scientist. In all these roles he stood out as an'" astounding genius and pioneer. But Mme. Vallentin has not contented herself with giving us a catalogue of his accomplishments and discoveries. She has associated him with his family and hia friends. She has attempted to explain his difficult and abnormal psychology. In a word she has drawn a very full and satisfying portrait in a book which is easy as well as reliable to read. Dramatist and Poet Another remarkable personality who has set his stamp on the tale of the theatre is Sean O'Casey. Mr. O'Casey has written the record of his life in "I Knock at the Door" (Macmillan). This dramatist writes in a very different mood from that of the great actor. He has lived in the most sordid poverty, and the memory of it is in his soul. Mr. O'Casey does not mince his words - when he tells us of poverty in Dublin, poverty made more bitter by the terrible affliction of near blindness. But through the sordidness of it all shines the spirit of a poet. Only a poet could have given such names to his almost realistic plays, "The Plough and the Stars," "Juno and the Paycock" and "The Silver Tassie." This is not an ordinary autobiography, a mere tale of things that happened. It is a work to be read for its own sake as the expression of a man who may never have attained to his full stature, but one to;whom we,can apply that indefinable quality "genius."