BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 111, 6 November 1937, Page 26

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

• The Chief Librarian : of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "The South Wind of Love," by Compton Mackenzie, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following; review:— Every novelist has to get a certain amount of autobiographical material out of his system at some stage. Mr. Compton Mackenzie's tetralogy is becoming, with this second book, more and more autobiographical. In the "East Wind of Love" John Ogilvie, about whom the action revolves, is shown, as a schoolboy, acquiring information about life, and obtaining his first morsels of experience. In the "South Wind of Love" he has grown up and become a successful dramatist. He is in the United States where Julius Stern, the brother of an old school-fellow of his, Emil Stern, is compiling the music for an opera which has been made out of John's latest play. He is entangled with a French actress who lives at Sorrento, who is beginning to fall too much in' love with him for his peace of mind. He is not anxious for marriage-on which Gabrielle has set her heart. He persuades her to give him up. •With the coming <of the war, John is shown in the Near East in intelligence work. He is at the landing at Suvla Bay, and comes again in.contact witti Emil, who is Vice-Consul. at Mileto, over the intrigue which brings Greece into the war, and is responsible for the final disposal of "Tino." A second romance, rather pathetic, with a Greek girl, is doomed to an unhappy conclusion. The force of circumstances is too great, for the war intervenes, and the girl is killed. Perhaps Mr. Mackenzie was not anxious to have his hero married in the second book of four. What amatory developments are in store for him hi . the future are not .so far foreshadowed. The discussion of the emotional passages between the characters are very much in Mr. Mackenzie's usual style. John and Gabrielle are both egoists and succeed admirably in the inflicting of mutual pain. The one a dramatist, the other an aatress, the situation is one which Mr. Mackenzie is perhaps more competent to handle than any other modern novelist. Acting for their own benefit and for the benefit pf each other, the real feeling underlying what they say and do, they give the impression of living m a world of mirrors. The little idyllic love affair with the Greek girl is a simple and more natural aftair, but one which would not have made for her happiness or John's. Mr. Mackenzie is obviously looking at it simply as a step in the development of his characters. Whether John will go on from strength to strength in the succeeding books is a matter. about wnich the critics are speculating.. It is common knowledge, however,, that whenever a book is autobiographical, in tone, things generally end more or less happily. Jphn Ogilvie, carries enough of the reader's sympathy with him to make us hope that it will be so in his case. i , RECENT LIBRART ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows:—General: "Mrs. Astor's Horse," by S. Walker; "Movie Merry-go-round," by J. P. Carstairs; '.'Forbidden Journey," by E. K. Maillart. Fiction: "W.orth While/: .by ■P. C. Wren; "Under Capricorn," by H. D. Simpson; "Storm Girl," by J. C. Lincoln: