FOREIGN NOVELS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 115, 16 May 1936, Page 28

FOREIGN NOVELS

SOME RECENT TRANSLATIONS

Alexei Tolstoi is a nephew of the famous author of "Anna Karenina." Leo Tolstoi was content to make mankind his study, but his nephew adventures more imaginatively into the realms of science. In "The Death Box," a translation of which is published by Methuen. he tells a lengthy fantastic story about a death-ray which shrivels everything in its path.. The author proves himself to be the H. G. Wells of Russia. "Waters of Life and Death," published by George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., is another Russian novel to make its appearance in English. The author, A. Voronsky, tells in it a vigorous story of the life of a young revolutionary from 1905 to 1912, when Bolshevism finally defined itself and cut adrift from the other factions of Russian Socialism. Tfhere is a good portrait drawn of Lenin, and the other characters provide a rich variety of types. Mingled with passages of meditative philosophy is an undercurrent of romance, adventure, and humour. Ranking high in the school of Scandinavian dramatists, Gustaf Janson has told in "The Old Man's Coming," published by Lovat Dickson, a story which will be appreciated by discerning readers. There are depths of wisdom under the placid, even lethargic, exterior of Ragnhild Sneijder, grown stout and middle-aged among the turmoils of domesticity. Her children, the nervewracked Marianne, and her study son Bengt, bitten by Nazi idealism; Aunt Louise, a bird of evil omen; the gentle Gunvor, with whom Bengt fancies himself to be in love; May, the ingratiating lovechild; the wily Judge Hempelmann, and his seductive young wife. Dagny; the hobos Kalle arid Albert, typical by-products of "industrialism; Blomgren, the corrupt steward, and his fanatic wife; the servants Ulrica and Birgit:all are palpitating with life, and we come to know them with complete intimacy. Overshadowing all is the figure of Charles-Henri de Grevy, the old man, whose influence we accept as the siifister thing it was felt to be by everyone gathered under the roof of the Holinge farmhouse, in occupation of which—somewhat equivocally—he had left Ragnhild and her children. And after his return, long delayed but inevitable, his personality remains enigmatic—to all but Ragnhild and those readers of the story who will find their sympathies drawn' to her. "A-House in Vienna" has been translated from the Dutch, the author being Marianne Philips and the publishers Lovat Dickson. The several inhabitants of a house in Vienna have their characters sketched with a sure hand and, although there is very little actual plot in the story, interest in the people so' vividly described never flags. V'lvalu, the Eskimo Wife," published by Lovat Dickson, is a folk tale by the famous Danish explorer, Peter Freuchen. He lived among the nomad hunters of northern, Greenland for ten years and married the girl who is the model for his heroine. His novel is the story of Ivalu, the Eskimo: girl, who, ever since her childhood experiences on Perry's ship, had the desire to marry a white man. She grew up into a flirt, was carried into a hut-.to become the wife "of a hunter,-and was made, a widow by the jealousy : <of another man. The arrival of a white trader brings her to the drama of her ! wooing and winning. The story is distinguished by elemental wisdom, iand is a true revelation of Eskimo life.' j