PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 26

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "Women Also Dream," by Ethel Mannin, as the book of the weeK, and has furnished the following leview:— :

But for his aeroplane crashing i». the park surrounding her home (and thus, as her mother plaintively complained, destroying one of the oldest caks) it is unlikely that Janet Forrest would have ever met the famous airman-ex-plorer, Addison Maitland. This romantic meeting was followed by1 an unusual friendship between the two. Maitland became enormously interested in the reserved, withdrawn young woman he found "smouldering" in this English country home. He felt that she was reserved and withdrawn simply because her latent energies had uo proper outlet. She obviously did not belong there in that stately English home with a hunting mother who wanted her presented at Court; to have her "come out" in the regulation manner, and eventually marry into another good county family. Janet was equally out of sympathy with her retired major father. Previous to Maitland's coming into her life, her chief companion nad been her brother, Terry. Terry, however, to Janet's grief and his father's disgust, had married Anna, a middleclass doctor's daughter. Major Forrest had wanted his son to go to Sandhurst, but Terry preferred architecture, and after his marriage had gone to live in Hampstead. Both the Forrest children were a disappointment to their parents. Janet was an expert horsewoman and rode extremely well, out she refused to hunt. Since the Forrests lived in.the centre of the best hunting country in England, this was hard to explain. Friends and neighbours concluded that she was eccentric, much to the embarrassment of her conventional mother. Mrs. Forrest, however, made the most (which was very little, since no one believed her) of the polite untruth that Janet was not strong. Janet's delicacy was by no means confirmed by the life she adopted following her friendship with Maitland. She began careering all over the world exploring out of the way places in Mexico and South America. This, of course, was the last straw as far as her parents were concerned, and they promptly disowned her. Major Forrest stopped her allowance.

It was following her return from one of her trips that Janet met Richard Dam, managing director of Dam's Luxury Flats, Limited. They met at a dinner at which Janet was booked as one of the speakers of the evening. Richard fell deeply in love with Janet. Though he appeared nothing more thana hard-headed, self-assured, alert business man, Richard had an unexpected depth of feeling, imagination, and understanding. He wooed Janet ardently and successfully, and they married.

This is an outline of the opening chapters of Miss Ethel Mannin's new novel, "Women Also Dream." It is a beautifully-written book, rich with the emotion of life and living. Most writers have certain basic ide^s or concepts concerning life as it is lived today in the civilised world. They are personal things—personal feelings, emotions, and reactions to the many injustices, inequalities, and circumstances which cause unnecessary sorrow and distress. Miss Mannin writes of these things with exceptional insight and understanding. The fundamental theme of "Women Also Dream" is the injustice and hopelessness of trying to confine the free and venturesome soul of Janet Forrest within the cast-iron mould of the commonplace and conventional. In the past, Janet Forrest's type was rare, but in this changing world, with the emancipation of women, her type is becoming less rare. How she meets the conservatism and reactionary elements which prevent her full self-expression is excellently portrayed by Miss Mannin. Yet, though this broader problem colours the story, it is entirely individualistic. The characters are alive with the joy and excitement of life, and thus we are primarily interested in them and their affairs. As a novel, "Women Also Dream" can be welcomed as the achievement of a writer who has studied her medium and sees for us with understanding and observing eyes the problems of life and the conflict of human desires and ambitions. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows:—General: "Arctic Journeys," by E. Shackleton; "Growing Wings," by A. B. F. Young; "Postman's Horn," by A. W. M. Bryant. Fiction: "The General Died at Dawn, by C. G. Booth; "Mrs. Miller's Aunt," by G. A. Birmingham; "The House on the Nile," by A. Duffleld.