NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20280, 4 July 1931, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

FIVE MASTERS. Boccaccio, Cervantes, Richardson, Stendhal, Proust. By J. W. Krutch. Jonathan Cape. (123 6d net.) When life and art are dissected by cold intellect, most critics resemble the wary surgeon who goes to his biliary operation with a gall-stone in his pocket. But this sort of thing has obvious limitations. Only the calm philosopher who is at the same time a conscious mystic can lay bare the roots of art with tho tools of creative analysis. Fortunately Mr Krutch has these things in his favour; he is honest, temperate, unegotistical, and widely informed. Like a scientist he searches; but, unlike the ''instrinctive psychologists" who infest biographical literature these days, he knows at what' point his instrument ceases to be a truth-discloser, and stops short of the secret place of the creative soul where words cannot enter. What emerges most conspicuously from his fascinating essays is a sense of evolutionary change in the emotional-intel-lectual nexus that is tho parent of art But this gradual trend seems to have periods of advance when humanity unquestioningly follows the heralds of the noit- order; and these five masters of the novel were, in Mr Krutch's opinion, such heralds. The novella begins with Boccaccio, a naive, passionate child in the morning ■of the Renaissance. He is interested only in tho contact of fresh, gustful senses, with love And the sun; and "the good life" for him is nothing but nianaIvsed primitive enjoyment of primitive things. With Cervantes comes something different. His vision has depth find solidity, for bo sees with two eyes, one, Quixote, and the other, Sancho, and as a result tho substance of life begins to disclose its shadow. The Don tilts at windmill?; nevertheless the crazy knight is pleased with his craziness, and asks, fairly enough, whether shadows after all are not' more worthy objects of a good knight's endeavour than what men are pleased to call "reality." Then Richardson with hif> appalling Pamela and nearly as appalling Clarissa gave the novel the structural pattern that its development rei red. Minute emotional details hituerto neglected were for the first time dexterously woven into the interminable letters of tho besieged maidens, till, not only all England, but all Europe, sobbed and wept with unendurablo nerve-strain. As Mr Krutch puts it: "The world began to languish and gaze with a kind of narcissistic admiration at the spectacle afforded bv its own sensibilities. Rousseau read Clarisso and wrote 'La Nouvelle Ileloise.' Goethe read both 'Richardson and Rousseau and wrote 'Werthcr.' Richardson in all innocence had looked into . the human heart." This was hint enough for his disciples who now discarded the vogue of conventional moral fableß and entered into the anarchy of full-blowa romanticism. Richardson would have been _ horrified to discover that liis technique for recommending virtue ns conceived bv the prudent, respectable citizen, was to be used for anything eo pernicious; but fortunately for hia» peace of mind he died of apoplexy before ho even suspected what was happening. Stendhal is tho romanticist complete, the Bevlist, the apostle of romantic love, and tho cult of the superman. Here is externality and society, and, at the same time, the drearo egoist and tho little boy lost, not as yet clearly drawn in "La Chartreuse do Parme" and "Le Rouge efc le Noir," hut undeniably in .the great confessional, "La Vi© de Henri Brulard." Last wo come to Muriel Proust. The external world woe, but is no longer, shut off by asthma and "mother-fixa-tion." The poot—for the novelist is now a poet—gazes back on the things of chijdhood, on the adolescent's romanticism, on the adult's strains between social pressures and the ego, and in a mnny-volutned sigh sums up the world that ha« defeated his will and taken away the delight of big senses. And after him only Theodore Dreiser remains, making every pound of earth or flesh weigh a pound, while Wnssermann extends the intellectual view, high, low, and wide. But the great discoveries are all made. Yet, as Mr Krutch indicates, there never' was any discovery that a wise mail might not have known about in advance, since the world was ,bound to learn in art and science, what philosophy had learned long ago, that whoever begins with Aristotle will soonor or later end with Plato.

GOLF. The Gaine of Golf. By Joyce and Soger Wetherod, Bernard Darwin. Horace Hutchinson, and T. C. Simoson. The Lonsda'e Library. Vol XX.: Soolejr, Service and, Co., Ltd. (15s net.) Bacon said that studies serve for delight, and the quotation is generally offered with an air of challenge, as to a world of scoffers; but this book has been designed to make at least one study a delight. Mr Horace Hutchinson, for example, leads off with two excellent chapters, on the history and the literature of golf, closing the second with a high but just compliment: And now we read golf in all the paper*, and in most of them very readably written. Not seldom it surely do« 8 rise to the level ot literature. I cannot see how we are to refuse that name to very many of the always light and witty and sometimes really brilliant little essays beneath which, as we know long before we come to the last stroke, wo shall read tho signature' of "Bernard Darwin." And hero Mr Darwin writes no fewer than five chapters, on Practice, Match and Medal Play, Watching for Profit, Middle-aged Golf, and Famous Courses. These are not, of course, slight essays, but most wise and ample treatises; yet Mr Darwin's wisdom is gay, and he covers his ground with a springy step. TEe more technical chapters are contributed by the Wethereds, Roger and Joyce, who have mastered the difficult art of technical analysis and exposition as they have the use of clubs. They collaborate on Wooden Club Play; then Mr Wethered takes the iron and the short approach, and goes into the bunker and gets magnificently out, while Miss Wethered attacks the problems of the green and of' Ladies' Golf. But nearly—and perhaps quite—the most fascinating pages in the book are those in which Mr T. Simpson lays down and illustrates the principles of Golf Architecture, making capital use of photographs and diagrams. He writes two useful chapters, also, on the Upkeep of a Golf Course. The photographs, numerous and skilfully related to the text, could not be bettered; and the whole book is produced in the handsome style of the Lonsdale Library.

A COUNTRY NOVEL. Dear Irovers. By John C." Moore, J. Iff. Dent and Sons, IAA. In his first novel, "Dixon's Cubs," Mr Moore succeeded very well in relating his characters to a country landscape and its life. Ho does the same in his new book, and the harsh, sweet smell of the land drifts from its pages. The story is bold in outline, though Mr Moore softens it by occasionally sentimental handling. A yourig farmer's struggle to earn renewal of the lease of the'farm his father had heljl is defeated by his offending the land-owner's conventional standards of morality; but iho defeat i» not final.

WOMEN IN THE THEATRE. Enter the Actress. The rirst' Women in tho Theatre. By Rosamond Gilder. • Georgo G. Harrap and Co., Ltd. (Xss net.) The chapters of this book give a very interesting account of women's increasing influence and activity in the theatre, from the origins of drama in popular festival and rites to Madame Vestris's management of Covent Garden and tho Lyceum. The second, for example, deals with the work of the first woman to write plays, the nun Hrotsvitha of Gandersbeim, in the tenth century. She dramatised sacred st6ries, with no little skill in construction and the definition of character; but what she did contributed nothing to dramatic development,. It was remarkable, intrinsically and because of the conditions in which she worked. It was unimportant, because tho walls of the convent closed it in, because the very record of it was forgotten for centuries, and because it moved nobody to imitate or to experiment. Still, Hrotsvitha deserves Mrs Gilder's attention as one of the most surprising and independent literary figures. In the following chapters there arc treated such phases of the subject as the mediaeval Italian stage, and the appearance of actresses, chief among them Isabella Andreini. It was her achievement, not only to become the first actress of international reputation, but to raise acting, as a career for women, above the disreputable. France was a little before Italy yin admitting women to the stage, a little later in advancing their art as far; but by the time liacine, Corneille, and Moliere required them tho French stage had produced ae tresses capable of rising to the full height of this great age. Shakespeare wrote for boys and men; half a century had yet to pass before women played bis feminine characters; but Moliere could writo as confidently for his wife, Armande Bejart, and for others, as Shakespeare for Burbagc or "Will Hews." Madeleine Bejart, what is more, controlled tho company in which Moliere took his first steps to mastery, and so it is lier distinction to have moulded his genius, with however faint a pressure, as well as to have interpreted it. For the rest, Mrs Gilder describes the first appearance of an actress in England, at Sir William D'Avenant's private production of "The Siege of Rhodes," and makes tho career of Mary Betterton central to a study of the new dispensation She makes too much fuss of Aphra Behn, a brilliant opportunist merely; and she shows,how Caroline Neuber accelerated the sluggish pace of dramatic progress in Germany and gave It direction. The two last of the pioneers are La Montansier and Madame Vestris, both managers and producers and successful experimenters in stage technique. _ The book is entertaining, s so entertaining that it carries lightly its considerable learning; but it 'would have been the better for a general chapter, either introductory or final, measuring more carefully the effect of the various feminine impulses recorded.

WHAT TO READ. Better than Golde. By J. H. Harvey. Unity Press, Ltd., Auckland, (35.) Mr Harvey has immense reading and revels in literature. He writes this book about books to help young readers to choose well and to find happiness in them. Perhaps it is no bad thing to crowd the page with authors and titles, especially as Mr Harvey's eagerness and flow of conversation create something like the atmosphere of good company; but a deeper impression might have been made if a little more' had been said about rather fewer books and if they had been allowed to wake their own appeal by a . more generous use of quotation. Mr Harvey is inclined to overwork the method of personal assurance: I liked' this—you read/ it, boys and girls, and you will like it too. Buch assurances are less convincing in print than in the classroom, where tney nave the backing of the teacher's credit with his class. Some may think also, remembering the child's dislike, of any sort of treatment de haut en bas, that it would bfe better to say nothing of some books (Thackeray's greatest novels, for instance) than to say "I rather think you had better leave them aldne for the present"; but it is a more serious matter that Mr Harvey's guidance is. sometimes erratic. "Actually,", he says, "I do nbt think 'Pickwick' is the best of [Dickens's] to begin with. I should recommend 'Nicholas Nickleby' as a good introduction, or ' A Christmas Carol'; and then if, like his own Oliver Twist, you should 'ask for more,' try the story with that title, 'A Tale of Two Cities,' 'David " Copperfield, 'Barnaby Budge,' 'Martin,. Chuzzle? wit,' and 'Dombey and Son,' " Th© child who had to be nursed into "Pickwick" by way of "Barnaby Budge," "Martin! Chuzzlewit,'' and "Dombey and Son" would be a monster, if he existed j but he does not exist.

THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM. I Am of Apollos. By A. J. Walker, MJL Williams and Norgate. (6s net.) This is a decidedly original study at the synoptic problem by one who describes himself as belonging to "the school of John the Baptist." From the references to Apollos in the Acta of the Apostles, Mr Walker concludes that "in the early days of the Church there were two teachings of the 'things concerning Jesus': there was the teaching of the sort whioh Apollos used before he met Aquila and Priscilla, and his teaching after he had met them. The second did not deny the first but Was (in part) founded on the first." This clue, small but significant, gives a line of approach to the synoptic problem which is at once new and illuminating. Mr Walker sets out to prove that the Synoptic Gospels also. are "founded (in part) on a teaching which definitely related Jesus to John." Hitheory involves regarding Q as two documents; one the source of the narrative sections of the Synoptists, and thei other the source of their parables and sayings, which were recorded without reference to time or place. Furthermore, there is in the Synoptic Gospels a great deal of editorial arrangement; "rearrangement of narrative sequences for the propagation of a greater truth," as Sir Walker puts it. His conclusions are not likely to meet with general acceptance among critical scholars, but in seeking to establish them he brings so . many interesting things to light that the student who perseveres with the study will be amply rewarded even though he may not be converted. Canon Raven commends the book in a judicious introduction.

OVER THE BORDER. Let's See the Lowlands. By A. A. Thomson. An gits and Bobertson, I/W. (9s net) Tliis is the account of a motor tour of part of Scotland, and Mr Thomson is a humorist. The tour begins at Coldstream, near the month of the Tweed, goes to Kilmarnock, and ends at Carlisle, and it is described in the manner made fashionable by Robert Louis Stevenson and Hilaire Belloc. But Mr Thomson is a little too selfconscious about it, and all the time it is being drummed into the reader that the way is being made easy for him. There are some good descriptive passages, and many old border ballads and local legends are resurrected to good advantage. •