NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19114, 24 September 1927, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

PIERRE LOTI. Constantinople. By Pierre Loti. T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. This, the thirteenth of Werner Laurie's uniform edition of translations, is not Loti's best book, or his second best. It is, however, the book which best reveals the writer himself—9o vain, so simple, so sensitive, so. selfish, so sincere. Like all Loti's books it is neither novel nor autobiography nor book of travel, but a mixture of all three. Loti had not enough imagination, not a strong enough mind or a complete enough power of detachment, to write pure fiction, and he was far too roman* tie to write pure fact. But what really makes'"Constantinople" his most revealing book —it is a pity it is not still "Aziyade" —is the fact that Loti realised himself more completely among the Turks than anywhere else, and came nearer there than anywhere else to living with real purpose and dignity. It is true that Aziyade herself does not seem to have had much more to commend her than green eyes, comeliness, and sensibility, although her love for Loti was rather move worthy than hisfor her. But after all these years it is not Loti and Aziyade alone who interest us. The East has long since been stripped of its romance' and the harem of mystery, but it is still interesting to find out what the Turk was thinking and saying 50 years ago —a generation and a little more before the landing at Anzac Cove. Besides, wc do not often get so frank and faithful a picture of a thoroughly self-centred, selfish, amoral young man who is entirely free of every trace of nastiness.

, GAIETY IN THE JUNGLE. i Six Tears in the Malay Jungle. By Carveth Wells. Cornstalk Publishing Co. This is the kind of book that keeps the doctor away. It is not literature, or science, or philosophy, and one is not, always quite sure that it is gospel truth. But it is as full of quaint facts as an egg is full of meat, and about as serious as travel books ought to be. In other words it is not serious at all, not for a page, not for half a page. Mr Wells is a Fellow of the Eoyal Geographical Society, and » Member of the Institute of Civil Engiueers, and his time in Malay was devoted to solid work. He went on a two years' engagement, got- caught by the Great War and had to stay six years, and spent most of the time in solitary camps in the jungle surveying routes for new railways. He was often sick, often hungry, sometimes at least in peril from wild men, and every day and night within striking distance of some wild beast or venomous reptile or insect. But he writes, as you feel he worked and lived,' not altogether like a schoolboy having a holiday, who never writes at all, and not quite like a popular entertainer, who stops if you don't laugh, but with a manly irresponsibility that takes you in without taking you down. It would not be fair to him to isolate too many of his scientific discoveries, which, even though they have been "passed" by the Director-Emeritus.of the American Museum of Natural History, are safer .in their context than standing stark and bare in a reviewer's extracts. But this is the kind of shock for which you must prepare yourself: "Once I spent an hour watching one of these, fish (periopthalmus schlosserii). I saw it come out of a hole in the ground, hop, skip, jump, and walk up to a tree, climb up, and deliberately wink its eye at me! .... After it had enjoyed the ozone, it climbed clown, walked leisurely to a pool, stood on the edge, dipped up eome water in its fin and throw it over its head." It is not the truth, and it is not- a lie, but it is far more than your money's-worth. MARRIED FRIENDS. Fires of Isis. By Alexandre do Comeau. A. H. Stockwoll. It was bold, even for a publisher, to describe this book on the jacket as "a groat love romance." It is certainly a love romance, but it is not a great one. The plot is not only slight, but preposterous—the story of an innocentminded girl who' agrees to marry a young Englishman on condition that they should live merely as friends for six months. Nearly all of the second half of the book is taken up with a smartly superficial account of their life under those terms. The action takes place mainly in , Zurich, and in the early stages of the book there are some interesting accounts of Swiss life and customs. These, however, seem detached and have no particular bearing on the fortunes of the hero and heroine. MAINLY FOR MEN. • The Crimson Trail. By Charles Wesley Sanders. . G. H. Watt. Like most modern Wijd West novels, this book depends for its main theme i on the tracking down, of a murderer. ! McGregor, foreman of a big ranch, decides to spend his vacation exploring somo recently opened country. He reaches a town just as Henry Hammersley's execution has been staved for a month. McGregor sets himself'to find the villain and does so by methods and. reasoning which would be a credit to Scotland ■ Yard. One knows that the book is a Western one because of the guns and cowboys and deserts, but otherwise there is no indication of locality. The writing is "virile," the characters strong "he-men," and there is just sufficient love interest to save Mr Sanders from having a purely masculine following. (Through Dymock's Book Arcade, §ydriey.) BOARDING SCHOOL GIRLS. The Glad School. By. Constance Mackness. Cornstalk Publishing Company. Children's tastes ' in reading go through various stages from fairy tales to Indians until, usually between the ages of 11 and 14, they discover the boarding school book. The difference between this book and others of its class is that the boarding school is in Queensland. In her preface the writer states that the story has been written at the request of past and present pupils of the school it describes. It is a jolly story with more variety of incident than most books of its kind and can be recommended to worried parents.