NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18603, 30 January 1926, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

A PRIZE PLAY. It is not the best way to tempt the average reader to tell him that "this play was awarded the silver medal in the Tailteann Literary Competitions." I hat is the advertisement printed on the wrapper of "Autumn Fire,'' a play in three Acts by T. C. Murray, and it suggests either that this was not- tlje best play submitted, or that the best was not very good. In any ease it is a ridiculously tame substitute for the things that might have been printed on the - wrapper—as, for example, that Mr Murray suggests Synge, or that "Autumn Fire" could be compared without too much absurdity with "Riders to the Sea," or that Mr \Y. B. Yeats regards Mr Murray as a man who has not to go very much further to make the Abbey Theatre again attract the attention of the world. There are two or three extraordinary flaws in Mr Murray's work. At- the very beginning, ajid on at least two other occasions when he finds it necessary to explain what is happening, he lapses from drama into novel-writing, and not very good novel-writing. Thus about halfway through - the first Act he introduces a character like this:

Ellen returns into the room. They are silent till Michael comes in. We seo in Michael a milder image of the father in his youth. The same wonder which held your mind when you first saw Ellen and Owen Keegan returns in more vivid forco seeing brother and sister. The imaginative mind would be likely to explain that Nature, subject to spiritual moods, like her children, had created the boy in some mood of gentleness while fashioning the girl in some ecstasy of distemperj The man of plain sense, enquiring into Ellen's forbears, would discover that she was true to the type of her dead mother, whom neighbours used to describe unkindly

as "a married old maid." That is annoying enough, but the worst lapse is when the heroine, Nance, at the very crisis of the play, tells a perfectly stupid and unnecessary lie. There may be great tragedy in the telling of a lie, and great art in adding deceitfulness to the character of a normally open, frank, and charming girl. But in the lie which Nance Desmond tells, and the circumstances in which it is told, there is neither moral tragedy nor dramatic necessity, neither art nor commonsence, nor any kind of justification at all but bad sub-editing. Apart from these faults, however, "Autumn Fire" is an arresting piece of work, and there is not the slightest exaggeration in tho comments of those who have ranked it, with the necessary modifications, beside the best work of the school of Synge. (London : George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. Cliristchurch: Simpson and Williams.) ICE-FOLK. To Captain Henry Toke Munn the Eskimo are a "strenuous, indomitable, and cheerful little people" to whom the world has not done justioe. Peary, Amundsen, Stefansson, Hanbury, Anderson, and Jenness, he tells us, all found them faithful to their word with those white men to whom they had given .their confidence. But Amundsen's wish that, civilisation might never reach them has not been fulfilled, so that jn setting down these "Tales of the Eskimo" Captain Munn feels that he is saluting them before they disappear under the "blighting shadow of a complex civilisation." He is careful to tell us, however, that while some of his stories are fact, or founded, on fact, otb©rs ar© wholly fiction, which will comfort those whoso hair has been raised by his. account of Spirit Island. Most of the other stories could be ! read comfortably in bed, if not always at the dinner table. But of Spirit Island Captain Munn himself confesses that he publishes the narrative reluctantly, "accepting the fact that it will not be believed, but hoping that it may inspire some credulous and courageous naturalist, with a taste for adventure, to visit Spirit Island and return with a live or a dead specimen of what I saw there. If he can do this his name will go down in history, and the museums-r-and the circuses—of the world will grovel at his Teet for its possession. But he needn't ask me to accompany him. The purpose of the stories that are not fiction seems to be to make clear to the warmer worM that the chief end of man in the Arctic is to eat. (W. and R. Chambers, Ltd.,. London.) NOVELS. The adventure upon which '"ill® Girl Who Dared" embarked in May Christie's latest novel was nothing very dreadful. It was simply the severance of humdrum associations to become typist to a genial author who, accompanied by his wife, wandered wherever fancy took him. The. story is somewhat hackneyed, and the love scenes on occasion over-mushy, but that is not a new complaint in modern novels. One feature that will attract readers is the fact that most of the action is located in the United States, where Prohibition is the law, but where, if this is. a faithful narrative, all who desire it can get as much liquor of sorts as they can pay for. Apart also from the political question, the night blubs, jazz parties, petty intrigues, and jealousies will hold the attention of those to whom such things mean life. (London: Header and Stoughton; Christchurch: Simpson and Williams.)

"Lawyers are put into life like a bunker into a golf course—to make the game more difficult. AH good players avoid them, all bad ones curse them." There is much of this variety of wit in "Evervman's Desire," a nicely-shaped novel by G. V. Ellis. A philosophical bank clerk is suddenly emancipated by an annuity of. £SOO left him by a deceased aunt, and so he does his best to turn his back on life's little problems. He meets a girl, Sybil (a New Zealander, by the way), but the stock romance does not develop; in the last chapter we have the hero still a bachelor. The author's idea seems to have been to lay hold of a difficult problem and unfold it with a show of erudition and wit. In other words, "Everyman's Desire" is light without being frothy, and it does really contain a good deal of wisdom. (London: Duckworth and Co.). No experienced reader ever accepts a publisher's appraisement of a new book, but "The Judgment pi Solomon," by Flos. Jewell WilHams, which is labelled "a noble theme, with a moving human story," comes well up to description. The incident may be a bit fanciful, but that will not worry the reader of light fiction, who does not delve too deeply. Blake Lamon, a medical student, gives up a promising career in order to fulfil the promise he had given his mother that at her death he would earry on the farm. Farming life bores him, and ho seeks the society of Mary Samis, heiress to an adjoining farm. Blake marries her, to find very soon that they are ill-matched. Then, at a time when relations are strained, Mary's cousin, Anne Thurston, arrives on the scene, and as she is a girl with a personality, Blake is immediately attracted by her. (The Tesult need not be disclosed here, but the progress to it will please most readers. (London: i Hodder and Stonghton.)

NOTES. A most useful and attractive textbook has been issued by the University of Londoil Press under the title of "Stories of World History." The author, Dr. F. W. Tickner, has already written books 011 British history and 011 social and industrial history, and in the present volume ho has attempted, and mastered, the much more difficult task of writing a clear and readable' review of world history from the Stone Age, and beyond it, to the present time. To do such a thing in 230 pages is impossible without great knowledge, great judgment, great courage. There must be no lingering over the purple patches, no dragging in of the supporting details, no fussing about proofs or too nicely balanced a proportion. The thing cannot be done at all except in the manner in which Dr. Tickner has done it —by sitting down and writing out of a full head such a survey of the big things in history as a father who knew enough would tell his children. If maps and pictures aro included thoy must enliven and illuminate the narrative without delaying it, and in this matter also Dr. Tickner has shown himself a teacher, and not merely a compiler of text-books.

To their Popular Library of Art Messrs Duckworth have added a useful littlo volume called "Hours in the National Gallery," the text by Mr Stewart Dick, official lecturer to the National Gallery, and the sixteen plates the joint selection of Mr Dick and Sir Charles Holmes, the Gallery's Director. The approach to painting being "precipitous and uncertain," tliero is safety in guides who not only know tho way, but can lead at a pace that beginners do not find too furious. It is, of course, useless to bo told that tliero is beauty in Rubens and in "Van Eyck, in Constable, or in Poussin, if we lack tho eyes to see and the hearts to understand. On the other hand, it is a profound blunder to imagine that if we have the eyes it is a waste of time for any one to tell us how to use thom. This littlo book helps us not only to use our eyes, but to use our heads, shows us that art is thought as well as sensation, and proves that the interval separating the aesthetic ignoramus from the "Old Master" can be immensely reduced by intelligent criticism.

It is perhaps a sign of the times that the latest handbook on Committee Procedure is the work of a woman, Miss (or Mrs) Eleanor Lambourn. Miss (or Mrs) Lambourn assumes, as she should, that her roader knows nothing whatever about committee work or committee rules, so begins at the beginning by explaining how a society, club, association, or other similar organisation is usually started. She then explains what officers are necessary and what their duties are, how meetings are called, and how they are prepared for, before getting down to her real task of explaining how they are conducted. . In addition, she has a chapter on the writing of minutes and another on the conduct of the annual meeting, with instructions how to prepare for auditors, so that the only reason anyone can offer for not knowing how to do these things in future is that Miss Lam bourn's book has not been bought and read. But as it costs only 2s buying it is not an adventure, and since it has a four-page index with careful cross-references, reading it can be carried out in sections. (London: George Allen and "Unwin, Ltd.)

The best of the child verses in "Punch*' ar© perhaps the "best in. "the world, but it would not do to suggest that the "Child Verses from' Punch' " of Messrs Saville and Co. contains many of these. It contains some excellent things, with some a good deal 1 short of excellence, but is so admirably produced and so pleasant to open and handle that it is sure of a ready sale. (Our copy comes through Robertson and Mullens, Ltd., Melbourne.)

The "Morning Post's". reviewer of a recent volume of Chinese plays points out that, it was due to a political • catastrophe that. • the Chinese drama received the first great impulse in its development from a shapeless product of the mummer's art to a thing of form and substance, of ' character and dialogue. When the Mongols in the thirteenth century established their capital at Peking they sent packing the Chinese officials who had won their offices by literary examination, and appointed Mongols in their stead. Deprived of office and income, the Chinese literary men were forced to turn a penny where they could. In shame and disgrace, and with elaborate precautions to hide their identity, they began to write plays to please the masses.

These plays were at first written in the vulgar language of the people, but when, less tha.n a century later, chines© culture conquered the Mongols and the literary men came back into their own, they still amused themselves with playwriting, but now in the classic literary language. Even in this respectable form, however, the drama, like the novel, was looked down unon by Chinese scholars until less than a decade ago. But in the sweep of the Renaissance movement which is revivifying all Chinese thought, the drama has been caught up and is becoming not only respectable, but honoured. Scholars like Dr. Hu Sfcili, of Peking University, are delving into its past, studying its principles,* and even writing plays of their own.

A surprising thing about the Chinese stage is its lack of tragedy. Sad scenes abound, but the Chinese audience, knowing full well that there is plenty of misery in real life, refuses to accept more from the make-believe world. It demands a happy ending, and practically without exception Chinese playwrights have bowed to the force of this convention. This does not mean that death is excluded. For death may be made very amusing, as in the play which tells the story of a miser. On his deathbed he instructs his son not to buy a coffin, but to bury him in the watering trough in the yard. When the son objects •that it is too short, the miser orders him to cut his body in two to make it fit. "And there is one mor* important thing I wish to say to you before I die: Don't use my good axe to cut me in two, but borrow one from the neighbour." "Since we have an axe, why should I bother the neighbour!" "Perhaps you don't "know that my bones are extremely hard, and that if you'd use my good cutting edge you'd have to spend some coppers to get it resharpened." After these instructions the miser sinks rapidly, but he remains his true self to the bitter end. The miser's last words are inaudible, but he persists in holding tip two fingers. All the relatives assembled in the death chamber are very much puzzled, and try to please him by doing this or that, but the dying man's diseomfort increases. Finally his old servant enters, and understands. There are two candles burning where one might do; and after one of them has been extinguished the miser dies in peace.