PLOTTERS IN ANCIENT ROME

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 146, 17 March 1934, Page 19

PLOTTERS IN ANCIENT ROME

A Fine Historical Tale and Other Recent Novels

“Rome For Sale,” by Jack Lindsay (London: Elkin, Mathews and Marrot) ; “Wonder Malady,” by Francis Watson (London: Lovat Dickson) ; “Uncouth Swain,” by Roger Dataller (London: Dent); "Scandal of Spring,” by Martin Boyd (London: Dent); “Four Days’ Wonder,” by A. A. Milne (London: Methuen); “Death at Broadcasting House,” by Vai Gielgud and Holt Marvell (London: Rich and Cowan).

For the story of his ambitious novel Mr. Lindsay goes back two thousand years to the time of the Cataline conspiracy in Rome, when the citizens were oppressed by usury, and plot and counter-plot sought to overthrow the established order. He has reconstructed the scene on a grandly colourful and satisfying scale and his splendidlywritten and frequently exciting book should appeal to all readers of historical fiction. It is probably the best of its kind to appear since Margaret Irwin's “Royal Flush” was published last year. How true it may be in its descriptions of characters and actions the ordinary reader must leave to the historian to decide, but if one may accept the judgment of Mr. Colin Still, who writes a foreword, its correctness in essentials can be taken for granted. “ ‘Rome For Sale’,” he says, “belongs to the domain of history rather than to that of fiction. Its setting, its characters and the incidents of its story are drawn so largely from recorded fact that only a thoroughly competent scholar will be able to determine with any assurance what is fact and what is fiction.” The book, he continues, has considerable importance as a critical commentary by reason of the new angle from which is envisaged the character and motives of the illfated Roman conspirator, Catalina. It adds interest to know that what is written is an adequate record of actual happenings, but from the novelreader's point of view all that is required is an assurance that the plot, the characters, and. the drama, as Mr. Lindsay presents them, will well repay the reading. And that can be given with unreserved enthusiasm. To say that Mr. Watson’s novel is the story of a young man in love is to speak but half the truth. “Alias, what is this wonder maladye?” cried Chaucer. Mr. Watson takes a particular case and does his best to answer the question. It is a very entertaining best, equal in cleverness to his last effort, “Trine!” and with an adequate philosophising which, while it may be more apt than profound, is nevertheless well suited to the situation in which the hero finds himself. He, like Troilus, could say:—

.... thus tossed to and fro Al stereless with-lnne a boot am I, A-mld the see, by-twixen windes two Taht in contrairie stonden ever-mo. Mr. Watson treats his theme seriously but with more than enough humour and piquancy to prevent any suspicion of solemnity.

For his first novel, Mr. Dataller, the author of “A Pitman Looks at Oxford,” has chosen as his scene the period in England subsequent to the Napoleonic Wars. This was the time of reform agitation when William Cobbett’s “Political Register” was passed from hand to hand and discussed in much the same ray as happens with certain communistic magazines to-day. The background against which the characters move is painted vividly and convincingly. The plot has not much originality but this is well compensated for by the manner in which it is set out. Mr. Dataller has a time gift for story-telling.

Adolescent love is not an easy theme for an author to handle without going to one extreme or another. It therefore says much for Mr. Boyd’s ability and sense of fitness that he has avoided foundering on the Scylla of undue frankness and yet has not been drawn into the Charybdis of sickly sentiment. “Scandal of Spring” preserves a good balance and is written with freshness and an understanding of youthful problems that makes it most attractive. Mr. Milne combines the manner of “When We Were Very Young” with a situation complete with corpse, detectives and suspects, and. produces in “Four Days’ Wonder” a book peculiarly his own. All the well-known Milne whimsicality and humour will be found in it in good measure. One American journal headed its review “Mr. Milne plays corpsey-worpsey.” It was fair comment.

Lastly, a real detective story, from the authors of that successful thriller, “Under London.” Their second effort, “Death at Broadcasting House,” has an ingeniously worked-out plot, and though the experienced reader of this type of fiction should have no difficulty in guessing the murderer's identity, he will find much pleasure in following the logical sequence of events that goes to prove it. JACOBEAN ROMANCE “Romance of the White Rose” by Grant 11. Francis (London: Murray). Mr. Francis’s book does not belie its name, for the author, in delving into Scotland's Jacobean past, has not sought for gory details, He wants, as he says in his foreword, to carry his readers back to the very quintessence of modern "Romance,” which is to be found in what has come to be known as "The Jacobite Movement,” when the successive attempts to replace the illstarred Stuart princes on the throne of their forefathers and the self-sacrifice of their supporters, created such romantic incidents and stories as no thrilling fiction of these days can excel. Mr. Francis has taken material for his stories from many known sources and also giving originality to his work, from important documents discovered by his own research. These latter were mostly found in the charter chest at Cluny Castle and they formed the last link in the chain of evidence documenting James’s last bld for his crown on British soil, so far as the province of Bodenoch was concerned. By their aid Mr. Fraucis has been able to put a fresh aspect on the vital campaign of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee.

The book contains an excellent series of miniature biographs and character sketches of the principal participants in the movement and is unusually well Illustrated.

CHARLES LAMB AND ELIA “Everybody's Lamb,” edited by A. C. Ward, illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard (London: Bell). Having compiled so successfully “Everybody’s Pepys” and “Everybody s Boswell,” the publishers of this series have now turned their attention verj happily to Charles Lamb. From the Elia essays, the letters and miscellaneous prose Mr. Ward has chosen with wise discrimination. All but two or three of the essays are included and except in the letters there Iris been no abridgment. Those people who have confined their reading to the essays of Elia can have only a one-sided and distorted view of the writer as he actually was. The Lamb who once exclaimed "Give me a man has he ought not to be” was someone very different at bottom from the Elia of the convivial whimsicality and charming gentleness. So in presenting this selection of his writings, Mr. Ward has endeavoured to present not only the essayist but also much as has been revealed of the natural man himself. His aim has been, as he puts it in his introduction, to reunite Lamb and Elia—to bring together again, somewhat as in life, the man and his familiar—in a form at once readable and illuminative, showing the steady front the man himself presented to the goads of harsh experience, as well as the elusive fancy with which Elia afterwards skipped in domino and mask. WESTERN TALES “Smialta Gold,” b.v Harold BiudlosS (London : Ward, Lock). A tragedy pt a Canadian ranch despoiled by exploiters for gold. Romance in Mr. Bmdloss s best style. “Open Land,” by B- M. Bower (London : Hodder and Stoughton). Another of this author's romantic ranch stories. Plenty of action and comedy. “The Outlaw Sheriff,” by Hal Dunning (London: Ward. Lock). An outlaw known as the White Wolf tries bis hand at sheriffing. "Dynamite Smith —Cowboy,” by Robert Ormond Case (London : Ward, Lock). Good Western humour and excitement. Half the price of the usual novel. MISCELLANY “Time was,” remarks Mr. Basil de Selincourt, “when novels were the plumcake of literature; but now, as oats once did in Scotland, they support the population.” • » • The “Times” Literary Supplement thinks the short story in England to-day is tending to become standardised. Its writers seem to work in most cases from one of half a dozen accepted patterns, and an air of staleness is the result. » • » Mr. Hugh Walpole hopes there will not be in 1934 too many biographies so gayly imaginative that there is nothing to differentiate them from fiction. • ♦ » Few things are easier, says Mr. John Sparrow in “The Spectator,” than to write a fine line of poetry; few things more difficult than to write a fine poem. ♦ ♦ » A contributor to, “The Manchester Guardian” advises writers of travel books to make notes of their wayside conversations. These remain characteristic, fresh and amusing much longer than the descriptions of the speakers do. ♦ ♦ ♦ A film is being prepared from Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s “Thy Servant a Dog.”

A novel Russian view is that some of Shakespeare’s plays can be used as Communist propaganda. “Twelfth Night” has been chosen for the Moscow Arts Theatre as a powerful challenge to "sanctimonious bourgeois prudery.”

Mr. John Masefield propo-ses to write a history of the White Star Line, and appeals for information to all of those who possess papers, logs, photographs, or other useful material. He is especially eager to secure photographs of the older ships, showing the full broadside view

Mr. Richard Sunne says he is always surprised and rather indignant that the solid merit of our humorists is so little acknowledged. Far more honest work and honest thought go, he maintains, to the making of a good humorous book than to,the composition of many of our solemn tomes, our novels in 3,000,060 words, our analytic biographies, our portentous discoveries in foreign travel and economies and contemporary history. .

In the opinion of Mr. Sisley Huddleston, no author must expect to touch the topmost heights of himself more than once or twice in a lifetime. The perfect whole is a rare thing, that depends on a spark that comes out of the invisible ether precisely at the right time, precisely in the right place.

According to Mr. Desmond MacCarthy, great critics are extremely rare; rarer than great poets, novelists or dramatists: rarer even, perhaps, than great historians, who are few and far between. . .

Mr. Humbert Wolfe is pleased to note in recent English poetry a modified optimism, which displays itself not only in the writing of strong, original verse, but in a disinclination in its authors to engage in the old, unoriginal depreciation of their rivals. .

In these frank and shameless days, fays Mr. Hugh Walpole, when the Oxford Group method of sharing experience is becoming, in literature, very popular, one wonders that, at the end of it one gains sn little. Apparently it is not enough to tell everything; more important is it that you yourself should be somebody exceptional

Telling stories of poor handwriting, “Peterborough” remarks in the “Daily Telegraph” that during a debate in the Lords in 1867 the clerk intimated that an amendment which had been handed in was so badly written that it could not be read. It was discovered that the author was Lord Lyttelton, and that the amendment proposed to disfranchise all persons who wore unable to write.

A LAND OF “MANANA” A Fascinating Story of Travel in Ecuador “Interlude in Ecuador.” by Janet Mackay (London: Duckworth). For various reasons, Miss Mackay might safely be called one of the most modern among women, but it is easy to gather that she lias visions of a greatly enlarged economic and social horizon for her sex “in another hundred years or so.” “A barrister-ess. intent on showing the world that she can do a man’s job as well as most men,” she starts from Vancouver for Santa Elena to visit a sister who has made a romantic marriage with an unknown brother-in-law. If seems a pity that after the reader’s interest has been aroused in the awful possibilities of “Philip” lie is never given a “good look” at Mary’s husband who just slides in and out of this entertaining book in the same casual way that all the other characters do. It is well for Miss Mackay that she has initiative, humour and, above all. plenty of time, for the difficulties of getting anywhere in this land of “Manana” seem to be legion, especially for a lone female with an inadequate knowledge of the language. Her relations do not trouble to meet her or to speed her when she leaves them—thev appear to have the “Manana” feeling badly—but perhaps one can hardly blame them for thinking that “Jane” is well able to look after herself. She takes her troubles with amorous gentlemen in her stride, and they gain in a caustic and not especially kindly humour what they lose in romance. The picture of “Carl, complete in dress-ing-gown and white nightie, all frilled round the neck and wrists with cunning little blue-bordered frills” will probably amuse everyone—except Carl. Miss Mackay has the knack of thoroughly arousing the reader’s interest. She is writing now of her train journey to Quito: — Curtains of rain, n surjid muddy river, jungles of slghtly-woven palms and grasses and lianas, fields of sugar-cane extending mile on mile, cocoa, bananas, papayas, pineapples—and rain. Low blue liills, patches of bright sky, hills that are higher, rolling domes of wheat and maize, flocks and herds —and brilllhnt sunshine. Grim flat plains of grey, studded with grey ichu grass, lonely shepherdesses with their flocks and their ceaselessly swirling spindles —low heavy clouds and swirling sleet. A valley, green with eucalyptus, soft temperate sunshine, roses and violets, peaches and strawIrerries. Once more the scowling highlands, with ■ Chimborazo and Tunguralnia. greywrapped in cloud. That was a day. Ecuador with its contrasts, its beauty and squalor, its dreary stretches of sand and seeming jungles, its reminders of ancient civilisation, its crude official pomp covering inefficiency, and the problems of its strangely mixed population, come to life at this writer’s touch. Her fitting remarks on social conditions, and her vigorously-voiced resentment at the attitude of the European (German excepted) and American toward the “damned native” show unusual sidelights on the future possibilities of this fascinating land of contradictions. A VICTORIAN SURVEY “The Threshold of the Victorian Age,” by Gamaliel Milner (London: Williams and Norgate). “The Victorian period,” says Mr. Milner, “was the nineteenth century come of age, become self-conscious.” It did not necessarily begin with the accession of the young Queen, and for various reasons the author fixes tlie opening of the Victorian age ati 1830, the date of the accession of William IV., of 'whom we are given a distinctly human, if not particularly edifying picture. Later, the author says, “There are two schools of historical writers. To the first school history is the development of impersonal forces of changes in the mental climate. ... I Another school, more agreeable, perhaps, to the general render, finds in history a drama full of surprises, where much, if not everything, depends on the actions of a few characters, and where chance or Providence frequently intervenes bo change the course of events. . . . . In a perfect history . . . the two points of view would be complementary.”

Iu the present work, Mr. Milner has given a scholarly and comprehensive survey of the various forces which, taken together, produced what is known as the Victorian age. The political history of England in the period under consideration is closely followed, and the sketches of various politicians and leaders of the day are enlivened by a dry and penetrating humour. Many ■brilliant, able and interesting characters play their part on Mr. Milner’ stage, but the presentation is too carefully balanced to allow of the appearance of the conventional hero or demigod. The interplay of religious and political forces, and the influence of the morals and literature of the period are woven with painstaking skill into an intricate pattern that makes itself felt, in a definite atmosphere. Students of national and social development are likely to find absorbing interest in this illuminating survey of the age which immediately preceded that indefinable _ yet palpable thing known as Victorianism. The foreword is by F. J. C. Hearnshaw, M.A., LL.B. IN NORTH QUEENSLAND “Taming the North,” by Hudson Fysh (Sydney: Angus & Robertson). This is the story of Alexander Kennedy and many of the other Queensland pathfinders who opened up the North, fighting drought and flood, menaced by fiercblacks, hampered by lack of food and suitable implements, lonely, but true pioneers, taming the wild and forging ahead to open up the country for the oncoming settlers. “Flynu of the Inland," in a foreword, says: “Readers of this book will, like myself, find themselves deeply indebted to Mr. Hudson Fysh for this story of Alexander Kennedy and other adventurers who opened up our north when life there was one long adventure. Mr. Fysh is peculiarly fitted for his selfimposed task of biographer, for he spends his. life pioneering the air above lands which Mr. Kennedy helped to subdue. He knows the naked souls of those whose lives contribute stirring pages to his story. . . . The adventures and endurance of Alexander Kennedy’s generation challenge our youth of to-day. Whether , the future be peace or war, the issues will again depend on individuals who, in simple faith, match their weakness against vast forces—without one pause to calculate the odds.” Alexander Kennedy was born at Dunkeld in Perthshire, on November 11, 1837, and lived a quiet country life until he reached the ago of 23, when he called

for Australia in the Persia the first immigrant ship to sail direct to Central Oneensland. He went to Rockhampton, landing in 1861. He says: "There were then about three and a half million sheep, half a million cattle, and twenty-fou thousand horses in the colony. . . . When I reached Rockhampton the town was only in its infancy. The streets were quite unformed, and stumps and trees stood here and there in the rough thoroughfares. Bullock-teams moved about what are now main streets; I have seen a team well bogged to the axle in what is now East Street.” , His first job was clearing trees and stumps out of the streets. He then went into the country to a sheep station, ana his pioneering work began in « • He journeyed further inland, clear ng land, stocking it.with sheep or cattle, then moving on opening up the country. His wife and two young sons wenthim. living under primitive conditions. They had many narrow escapes from - death the blacks were often hostile and treach erous, food supplies were scanty, and often very bad ; water too, was scarce- and the heat almost unbearable. Fortunes were made and Jost again in a few hours, and many exciting races were run to stake claims in the newly-explored territory.