BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 36, 11 August 1934, Page 24

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "Corporal Tune," by L. A. G. Strong, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:—

"Corporal tunes pacify our incorporeal soul," is ■ Mr. Strong's text, taken from Burton 'a '' Anatomy •of Melancholy." The dedication "to certain members of the medical and nursing professions, with my gratitude," recalls that the author of this tale of an invalid has himself known a good deal of sickness. Born in Devon in 1890, his father half West Country i English and half Irish, his mother! altogether Irish, Mr. Strong grew up in the wild and lonely Dartmoor country which he describes in "Dewer Kides." An illness contracted when'he was fifteen left him delicate,- and 'at Oxford he broke down. He was rejected by a record number of medical tribunals during the war, and-finally did civilian work till the war ended. "Then," he says, "I went back, and spent a last year (largely in a bath chair) taking my degree." Mr. Strong warns us not to take "The Garden" for an autobiography, but admits that some of the characters are based on real people. The same is probably true of "Corporal Tune." He takes us, with tho careful steps of an invalid—impatient steps, though, sometimes —out on to the headland where he says good-bye to the country in which he has lived. Wo go with him down the echoing corridors of the nursing home to his own little room. With him we enter the consulting room of Dr. Tilkens, the. great Swiss specialist. Ignatius Farrclly is the invalid. His two sisters, the Mary and Martha of the story, are the main subordinate characters. There, aro few others. Stella, his dead wife, is constantly in his thoughts. Forsyth, the cautious doctor, the man' completely hidden by his bedside manner, the two nurses, the matron, all play their part. Ignatius, on Tilkens's advice, enters the nursing home. It is surprising that there is so little incident in the story, for the interest never flags for a moment. Almost the great doctor succeeds in revitalising Ignatius, who has i lost the will to live, who sees nothing to live for, and in his invalid exaltation contemplates the future calmly and without fear. The study of Ignatius is drawn with a succession of master strokes. The nursing home is as vivid as the headland. We have in this book the result of experience and intense feeling, controlled by a mind with a strong feeling for perspective. And with these ingredients it is hardly strange that the book is an outstanding one. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows:—General: "The Life of Andrew Carnegie," by B. J. Hcndrick; "With the 'Italia' to the North Polo," by Umberto Nobile; "Lotters from Holland," by K. Capek; "A Rendezvous with Life," by T. E. Ruth; "My Struggle," by Adolf Hitler; "Forward from Chaos," by A. P. Young; "Hindeuburg," by G. SchultzePfaolzer. Fiction: "The Free Fishers," by John Buchan; "White Python," by M. Chaiming; "Wild Strawberries," by A. Thirkell; "Pelican Walking," by G. B. Stern; "Portrait of a Gentloman," 'by Eden Phillpotts; "Devil's Cub," by G. Heyer; "Gerry Storm," by Silas K. Hocking; "Too Dangerous to Live," by D. Hume.