A TENDER TUNE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 19

A TENDER TUNE

“Good-bye, Mr. Chips!” by James Hilton. (London: Hodder and Stoughton. 6/-.) Mr. Hilton, author of that first-class imaginative story, "Lost Horizon,” which recently was awarded the Hawthornden Prize and bad in its hard brilliance nothing to show the direction in which its author would next launch out, has now dared to be sentimental and by his daring has achieved great success both in England and

America. “Good-bye, Mr. Chips!” is only a neat trifle, a charming sketch of the last days of an old schoolmaster, delicately written and definitely limited in scope; but it affords an opportunity for escape from the present pervading greyness of the world of novels — hence the popularity it lias had overseas ami will undoubtedly have here. Mr. Hilton plays a tender tune upon the heart-strings.

“. . . BUT HERE THERE IS NO LIGHT.”

“Tender is the Night,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (London: Chatto and Windus, 7/-). Particularly subtle analyses of emotional feeling distinguish Mr. Scott Fitzgerald’s remarkable novel, “Tender is the Night,” the first from his pen since tlie success of “The Great Gatsby’” nearly nine years ago. His characters live a butterfly life and attend to little more arduous than their social duties. Moreover, the hero is handsome and intelligent, and the heroine is a film star beauty. To a writer less capable than Mr. Fitzgerald the effective handling of such characters as these would be impossible. Yer here it is easy to believe in them. Their actions and conversations arise from impulses that have no suggestion of falsity. Psychological truth and an unfailing sense of artistry are attributes of this author’s writing, and they carry him safely past the pitfalls. His story, a study of moral degeneration, is not on the face of it attractive. Yet its developing strain of coarseness is fascinating to follow, and emphasised by the faint note of despair that can lie heard throughout, the lurking tragedy in the plot becomes progressively more impressive.