Two Novels By New Zealanders

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 201, 26 August 1939, Page 10

Two Novels By New Zealanders

IN his latest novel, "The Young Pretender" (Massie Publishing Company), Mr. C. R. Allen has the story of an English orphaned boy's experiences in Dunedin. King Dale is the boy's name, the "Young Pretender" being a nickname playfully given to him by one of his admirers, and an apt nickname it was, for he was "bonnie" like Prince Charlie, and had all Prince Charlie's better and more engaging qualities.

When introduced to us lie is a slim boy of 12, an unusual boy, and a musical genius. It is not long until his genius is discovered, and lie becomes a chorister. By and bv he meets and falls in love, and. on his departure to his father's people in England, makes her promise that «hc will always love him, and will wait for him.

A simple story, one would say. But -Mr. Allen mt>'<es it an engrossing story, telling it willi the humour, the charm, ami the distinction of style that are among the features of his previous book*. And there are characters in the story that linger in one's memory. There is King's schoolmaster guardian, and, most of all, there is Mrs. Troubridge, the elderly invalid lady who was, ill her day, a famous pianist, and who knows everything that goes 011 in the street, and is outspoken in her comments 011 her neighbours, "opinionated provincials.," and people from Home who "turn up their noses at everything New Zealand."

Another novel by a writer of New Zealand birth that will be read with interest by New Zea landers is Beryl -McCarthy's "Castles in the Soil," (Reeds, Wellington). Its setting, for the most part, is a sheep station in Hawke's Bay, and it is a record of the lives of three generations of a pioneering family. It opens in the middle of the last century, when Napier was just beginning to make a show as a town, when its port was known as the Spit, and light was got from home-made caudles, and it carried on to the years of the world war. The dominant figure throughout is Mary, the daughter of the first generation. Her mother and young brother are murdered while she is yet a girl by a marauding band of Hauhaus, and, not long afterwards. her father is murdered and she is left with the management of the farm on her hands. She marries later, but Mark Morley is too absorbed in nature study, and, in writing for the Press, to be of much assistance to her. He is a somewhat colourless person, dumbly conscious of his limitations. Her sister is selfish, and equally unhelpful.

Mary is an exceptionally fine character. capable and self-reliant, she bravely brings up her family and lights her battles. As the story progresses, her son Fred comes into prominence, chiefly on account of his love for a beautiful, sensitive Maori girl. He joins up 011 the outbreak of the war, but before setting out, secretly marries licr. Arolia gives birth to a son, Fred is killed, and Aroha takes her life, and the story ends with little Fred, a baby, taken ito her heart by Mary. Mary is now old, but not too old to plan a trip to England and France. It is not often one comes upon a first novel of such considerable merit as this.