PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 69, 18 September 1937, Page 26

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "The False Nero," by Lion Feuchtwanger, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:--

Varro, one of the Emperor Nero's senators, remains loyal to the memory of his master long after his death. He has a servant named Terence, who has impersonated the Emperor during his lifetime to Nero's own satisfaction. Varro has lost sympathy with the new Rome, the Rome of Titus, and has become more than orientalised in his strong belief that Nero's Eastern policy is still the best. The Roman Governor of Syria, Cejonius, is a thorn in Varro's side, and his rank and office cause Varro, who has been deprived of senatorial rank, a certain amount of annoyance. He decides to use Terence in a fantastic scheme to discomfit Cejonius. There have always been rumours that Nero had secretly escaped, and the stage is well set for what he proposes to do. Herr Feuchtwanger has not so far written a book about a period of which he is not completely master, but the mists of antiquity seem to drift between our eyes and his characters, who to some extent remain the characters in a history book, and do not quite come to life as men and women. None the less the windings of the plot, the clever and fantastic moves which the astute and cynical Varro makes in his game against Cejonius, until finally Terence,-swollen with his ideas of his own grandeur, cracks like the puppet he is, form an intricate and really clever patchwork which fascinates the reader with the skill of its construction. The tale on which "The False Nero" is based is recorded by Tacitus and other less well-known historians of the time when Eastern and Western Rome were subsisting side by side. A strange facet of the book is that Terence, the pawn, in assuming the name and appearance of the dead Emperor, seems also to have inherited various weaknesses and cruelties of Nero's own character. Terence was an actor who could deceive himself just as readily as he could deceive other people. It is curious that most of the characters in history who have been called upon to play the parts of other people often lack the nerve and courage to maintain the imposition. Had Terence been less like Nero and more sincere in his humbug, less deceived by his own delusions of grandeur, he might have made more of a success of his impersonation. The author brings out to the full the contrast between East and West, and the final passages of the book describing Terence's flight from Edessa, his refuge in Pythia, and finally his execution in Antioch are strongly drawn and in Herr Feuchtwanger's best style. This is a book which, on its appearance in England a few weeks ago, was hailed by critics as a book which is "not an extremely good book," "not a very great book." All" seemed to feel there was something wanted. Probably it was the element of life and it is possible that even through the very admirable translation with which we have been furnished, the book has lost to some extent. None the less the" reviewers have been unanimous in according the author admiration for the skill with which he has pieced together the fabric of this ancient plot, and even if their admiration has been , grudging, it has definitley been sincere. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent ac- j cession lists, are as follows:—General: "The Underworld' of the East," by J. S. Lee; "The Duchess of Windsor," by E. H. Wilson; "James Matthew Barrie," by J. A. Roy. Fiction: "Thirteen i Moons," by M. L. Tyrrell; "Joyce and Jane," by M. M. Price; "The Citadel," by A. J. Cronin.