PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 24

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The Chief Librarian of- the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "Honour Come Back," by Naomi Jacob, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:—

The idea that Christ has taken upon himself the sins of the world is a particularly interesting one worked out in its application to the individual who realises that he believes in the idea, and that he himself had, something to atone. "Priests down the ages have taken as a text for Good Friday the words 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do,'" and from the pulpits of two centuries the doctrine has been taught that Christ suffered for the sins of other people. Michael Benham, the hero of Miss Jacob's story, feels something of this responsibility. It is his belief that Christ's atonement is carried out through humanity; that some of the sufferings of Christ on his account are born by the rest of humanity. He finally reaches the belief that the pain of the world can be banished only by bis own death. The sufferings of others means much- to him, but his own suffering means very little.An idea which is gaining a great deal of currency in literature as the result of the agitation against blood sports is the picture of the sensitive son of a hunting and shooting father who refuses to be drawn into pastimes of his father. Michael is the son of a retired colonel who cannot realise the pain to which a vivid imagination subjects his son when he sees the misery of other human beings or animals When the war begins, although only sixteen, Michael enlists and obtains a commission. Self-control has become a strong factor in his life and he is able to avoid the appearance of cowardice and sympathy. Like some men in real life, he overcomes his cowardice through sympathy and wins the Victoria Cross for bringing in wounded under fire. His courage is of course not the actual and phlegmatic bravery of the unimaginative, but the result of his very vivid imagination worked on by the cries of a man caught in barbed wire1 which make him forget his personal danger in the appreciation of a greater suffering. The nervous strain is intense. Drink and the fear that he will be recognised for a coward are responsible for the breakdown of his nerves. He becomes convinced that he is responsible for all the agonies of war and believes that each outrage happens only to make him suffer. He begins to think that' in his absence hostilities would cease for there would be no further cause for such sufferings to go on if he were not present to be tortured by them. He deserts, and the next day the Armistice is announced. His conviction becomes a certainty. Unable to kill himself, he buries his identity with his uniform and goes to Italy as Michele Plumo. He constructs _ for himself a new identity and settles into his new environment He builds up for himself a calmer and more collected frame of mind and his delusions trouble him no more. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Otlier titles selected from recent accession lists are as foUows:—General: "Sunrise and Evening Star, by M. King- "The Successful Life," by C. D. Farmer; "Confucius in a Tailcoat," by M. Dekobra; "All in the Game, by N Clark; "The Nazi Dictatorship," by R Pascal; "Jipping Street," by K. Woodword; "Rome and the World Today " by H. S. Hadley; "Behind the Front Page," by W. Forrest. Fiction: "The Stars Look Down," by A^ J. Cronin; "More than Kind," by C. Seaford; "Affair at the 'Vere Arms," by A R. Weekes and R. K. Weekes; "The Dark Road," by H. Pendexter; The Five Silver Buddhas," by H. S. Keeler; "Australia Hops In," by A. Crocker; "White Buffalo," by R. A. Bennett; "Death at the Horse-Show," by V. Loder.