Among The New Novels

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 105, 6 May 1939, Page 14 (Supplement)

Among The New Novels

THOSE who read Miss Susan Goodyear's two previous works, "Cathedral Close" and "College Square," will warmly welcome a third novel from her pen. In "Such Harmony" (Chatto and Windus) Miss Goodyear maintains the style which characterised her two previous books, and demonstrates that the great tradition of Trollope in still alive. The scene (of cow rue) is an old church, in the West of England; its roof, one of the architectural glories of the country, is found to be In a parlous state of disrepair. just at the time when the heroine, Rachel Helmslev. has arrived at J|redostowe to stnv with her sister Catherine, the rector's wife. Rachel is forty, and attractive, and the main interest of the novel is the story of her courtship by the famous architect who is called in to do the work of reconstruction. Rehind the foreground provided l>v this love story there is the situation which arises between the self-indulgent Catherine and her husband. This is a well-told, well controlled, artistically complete story which contains no breath-taking thrills, few unpleasant people, but which will give many an hour of quiet pleasure to the discerning novel-reader.

WHEN in the spring of 1817 the news of the discovery of the fertile Ohio country came to their little settlement in Maine, the farming community in Miss Elizabeth Coatsworth's new novel "Here 1 Stay" (Harrap) decided to a man to abandon the unequal struggle and migrate to -the new land of promise. Only one remained, Margaret Winslow, a young girl who was einglehandedlv working the farm left to her bv her father, who had just died. To " Marjraret her father's lightest saying wa« law, and it was enough for her that the dead man had cleared their farm himself and bad believed the land to be good. She stayed on alone, and the novel in little more than an account of her year of struggle against the wild forces of Nature that forever strove to reassert themselves against the one remaining representative of civilisation. This is well enough done, but it is over-loaded with the sayings of her dead father (which will seem ordinary enough to the reader) with which Margaret is prone to comfort herself in every situation; the sentiment of these passages, we regret to say. sometimes goes so far as to remind us of Mrs. StrattonPorter's "The Harvester."' The book finishes satisfactorily with the coining of a lover who is willing to share Margaret's isolation in the hard Maine count ry.

accurate in the portrait of .Tephtliah that lie gives us. The Bible story leaves on our mind the impression that the outlawed Cilcadite was a man smarting from wounded pride and burning with revenge. Mr. Watson depicts him as a man strangely silent and aloof, a mystic and a religious fanatic. AVhen we ask where .Tephtliah got the notion that his unnatural vow would be pleasing to his Cod (for he did not get it, in the Pentateuch writings, with which he must have been familiar). Mr. Watson says he got it from some hermits. Rut is it not more likely that he got it from his heathen mother?

WHILE novels of the real Chinese culture are now plentiful, and we have always had stories of the English people who live in the East, the Eurasian has been neglected by novelists as by the world in general. But Margaret Mack ay has realised the possibilities of this theme, and in ' Like Water Flowing' (Angus and Robertson) her heroine is Linda Hevwood. whose father, formerly in the American diplomatic service, has married a Chinese girl. This marriage, though bringing personal and domestic happiness, has meant social isolation for him. and lie has retired to the outskirts of Peking, where he spends his time studying and translating Chinese verse. Ry the distinction to which he attains. Phil and Linda, his son and daughter, escape the worst of the humiliations suffered by Kurasians in China : but l.inda. is forced by the pressure of public opinion to break off her engagement to an Englishman, and Phil's sense of insecurity leads him to exces-es which wreck his career. The book is mainly Linda's story, and a more charming heroine one could not wish for. Its pictures of the ('hincse people and countryside are delicately done. A note of hope and the hint of a solution for the future redeem the book from its complete, if quiet, tragedy. ♦ ♦ * ♦

Books In Local Demand

The following list of hook# in demand at the Auckland Public Libraries is supplied by the chief librarian: — FICTION. Mr. Campion and Othopa—By Margery AIII Britain. Tha Young in Haart and Othar Stopiaa— By I. A. n. W.vllr. Mo Stap la Loat—By James T. Farrrll. Puxila foe Flajrara—By Patrick Quentin. Apron •tringa—By Mary Kelaher. Oynaaty of Daath—By Taylor Calrlwell. Tha Long Vallay—By John Steinbeck. Tha Commandar Shall—By Htimfrey Jordan. Thoy Wantad to Livo—By Or.ll Roberts. South Hiding—By Wlnirrert Holrby. NON-TIOTION. Wagraea Abounding—By Douglas Reed. Lhaaa, tha Holy City—By F. Spencer Chapman. Surgaon extraordinary—By l.oyal Davis, •una op Buttap—By R. H. Bruce l.ockhart. ■pava Naw China—By l.ady Hnir. Munich and tha Dictator*—By R. VV. :*eiiin Wat'on. Foraignap* Apan't Knavaa— By Qhnstopher Hollis. Battap Sight Without Blaaaaa—By Harry Benjamin. Tha Nappowad Toad—By F L. Comb; •olf Taehniqua Simplified—By George E. Lardnar.

NO story in thtf Bible has been the subject of more controversy than the story of Jephthah's daughter. Did Jephthah offer her up as a burnt offering, or did he surrender her to a lite of celibacy V The sacred writer does not make it perfectly clear. Josephus. the Jewifh historian, says yes to the first question. And so do many after him; but many others as emphatically s»v no, and argue skilfully for the unbloody sacrifice. There is a pood deal in what they say, and their contention that her unmarried state, involving a* it would do the loss of posterity, would be cause enough for grief and sadness to Jephthah. For she was his only child. A new writer has appeared on the scene in the person of Mr. E. L. (Irant Watson, the novelist. A convinced believer in the bloody sacrifice. as it k called, he makes it the climax of hia latest novel, which he calls, borrowing the words from Scripture, "A Mighty Man of Valour" (Duckworth). The novel, its publishers nay. i-° written with merciless precision, and that is as good a description as anv that might be given. The style is suited to the story, as Mr. Watson tells it. ft has precision and much that is dramatic, but no glow. He helps us to visualise the Palestine countryside and the camp Life of Jephthah and his follower 4, but ;* is doubtful if ha is as

From The Publishers

FICTION. The Wild Paims, by William Faulkner: The Amazing Te»t Watch Crime, bv Adrian Alinsrton i Ch;>tto and Winrlu«i. Remember the End, In Agnes Slijrh TUrnbllll 'Collins.. East of Eden, by I. .1. Singer: Wiqtoun Ploughman, by J..1111 Mr\eiiiji. (Putnam >. NON-FICTION. Harris of Japan, by Curl Crow: How to Raise a Oog, by .l.iiri"; H. Kinney ari l Ann Honeyrutt iHami-h Hamilton 1. Thome's Complete Contract Bridge, by "Petroniu-" (Eyre and ~pottis\vooje>. History of the London County Council, by Sir Gwilym Gibbon and Reginald W. Bell (MaemUlan).