NOTES ON NOVELS.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 11

NOTES ON NOVELS.

Thqie seems to,be a certain vogue for the book of more or.leds desultory Reflections. Mr Foster Fraser's iiew effort— ‘ Life's Contrasts ’ —which has 'just come to r litind' per favor of Mr Braitkwaite, is a bdok of this sort. Mr Fraeer’s )«flectionb are .lthose of ■an active man, of a joarnalisl ip'(a, hurry, whose impressions,, are formed.-from the outside, and put upon paper to- catch a news sheet before the last forme is. locked away. He admits it himself. AMy books are mainly impressions of travel,-founded on hurried journalistic experiences in various corners of the world. They are what they are, and make 1 no pretence td be anything else.” Suph a statement .is , a passport to tire favor of a whole host of readers, to whom these, extra-earnest writers will never give th© opportunity of. relaxing over a book. And that-is-Mr Fraser’s real gift, which he bestows with both hands upon Iris large circle of readers. He looks at things great or small with an objective eye keen to note trifles and import them into the scale of great issues; and, above all, in his pleasant, chatty, intimate w r ay, he makes pictures that have all the clearness and boldness of a photograph, if (like a photograph again) they are, wanting in suggestion. The authoij has garnered the experiences set down in ‘ Life's Contrasts ’ from every corner on the earth, from Canada to Burmah, from the sombre “ pottery ” towns in North Staffordshire to Caucara, from Piccadilly to China, from Lancashire to Siberia. All of these, experiences are told simply as from the author to each reader comfortable liefore the fire. And the many thousands of these who found pleasure in ‘ The Real Siberia,’ ‘ America, at A\ 7 ork,’ and -'Red Russia’’, wall find equally genuine pleasure in ‘ Life's Contrasts.’

“ It is most true,” says the author of 1 The Anatomy of Melancholy,’- “ stylus virum arguit, our style bewrays us.” Mr (Maurice Hewlett is the most pronounced of our more modern stylists, and seeking a comparison, we can only fiud.it in the works of two'such dissimilar writers as George Meredith and Joseph Conrad. AVith them he shares a certain nervous, tense faculty of characterisation, a meticulous accuracy

in choice of word or phrase. And here, abruptly, the comparison breaks down. For Mr Hewlett possesses more than either of those two writers, more, indeed, than any living writer, the faculty of clothing characters with such individuality that incident becomes dependent upon their personality. The reader is made to forget that the incident was conceived first, the character later.' As for the strange, almost lurid, decorativeness of his language, it is not (as some critics would have) mere literary foppishness which refuses all conventional garments of speech, that decorous uniform accessible to all in our public civilisation.' His decoration is nob of this corrupt kind, but rather is it a persistent effort at perfect self-expression. Mr Hewlett uses words as they have meaning for him, not as they have meaning for you, for us. ’The commonest, meanest, most conventional words he uses in a new sense, so that they strike us with the force of an explosion. To use the phrase of a great critic, “ he not only finds words for a meaning, but also a 'meaning for words.” And he docs something more. He captures in a word the atmosphere of ! his story, a nation’s philosophy of living, j the race attitude of a country. Which brings us to that latest book of his, ‘ The Spanish Jade. ’ This is a simple narration of the slight adventure of an English gentleman in Spain in 1860. In describing the simple stoic acceptance of life as it is by the Spanish people, Mr Hewlett’s style is unwavering in its simple directness. It is a directness full of exquisite cadences, vivid, graphic, engrossing, but with never a glimpse of the satyric horns with which we have,become so intimate in ‘ The Forest Lovers,’ or, say, ‘Pan and the Young Shepherd)’ ‘The Lure of the Mask’ is a good title. It sounds as though some deep psychological study might'he expected from it. some unveiling of hidden mysteries of character. Harold MacGrath’s pretty little story (forwarded by Mr BraithwaTte) deals in nothing like this. The title, though appropriate enough, has to do. with no complexities of our manifold nature. It is a well-told story oft love and adventure in America and Italy, "with a heroine of extraordinary beauty, a millionaire herd who is all that a hero ought to be, a wandering opera, company, a tricked Italian prince, an Italian peasant seeking ■ .revenge, etc., etc., all useful ingredients for a melodrama. Such a tale is too well known in style • to need, any: ■ further description. To a reader desiring-'merely amusement and the means of passing! an idle hour, a pretty love story is always welcome, but .to a reader in search of foo'd for thought it offers very little. A word in passing bri the excellent way in which the later American books issued by the host of rival publicising houses, are printed and bound. Clear-large-type, good paper, neat covers, and often good , illustrations ngike them a pleasure to handle. ‘ The LureloLthe Mask ' io hoaded by a dainty frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. A very different tjtpe of book nf : “Thc Iron Heel,’ Jack Lbhdon’s latest production, which has also arrived from Mr Braithwaite. Mr Loudon’s 1 freshness and (Versatility of imagination ‘have already been fully demonstrated in bis earlier books, such as i' The Cull of the Wild ’ and ‘ Before Adam.’

<Th?y -showed, alee, -yery i.o'joaxly.- hia eWm; "ordinary- power of .thpowing himself .completely. Into. the. ojivironmonb hq describes.-and-vof r repyodueing-fife <with - a vivid. ■ amt drigHMtTpein. Thifs'latest book all these qualities in a very striking'’way; Mr Loudon has taken' tip the subject 6f Anieri.can trpste and tjie dppresaidii bl the ■working classes, but his book is ndfc a treatise, nor is it. a .defence of eitjifer' gide. Certainly ft purports' to be ivritten by. an enemy tb© trusts organisation- ‘The Xrop Heeb’ and-tho ultimate outcome is foreshadowed being Die brotherhood' of man. bttt the author endeavofsV on - the whplo , rather tp' Ngive a picture 'of what may. be. expected 'to ” happen in the (year* E/to , come, aiid then leaves .us to draw' i< 6ur own The way in which, this is done' is,’ by no means new, but the old idea ofaburjed manuscript is most skilfully worked out. Avis Cunningham, the daughter-of ..an American professor,; becomes the wife of Ernest Everhard; an ardent Socialist reformer, somewliere 'about • 1912, and in the days of the “Second Revolt,”' about 1932, sue wrote,t)ie unfinished manuscript that is supposed to have been discovered 700 years afteriyards. This 'manuscript is: edited by one Anthony Meredith, who deals with it os commentators of our jay deal with somp old Latin author—explaining obsolete customs and obscure allusions, and commenting 'on the significance or want of significance of eontemporary points of' view. Space fails lis to enter into any account of the gvents and opinions recorded in the manuscript. From 1912 onward the war between the Oligarchs and the Labor party .was waged furiously. Revolts, communes, bloodshed, slaughter, treachery on both sides made the passing of' the years hideous for three -centuries, after which “the world-movement of Labor" came into its own. Four centuries more, and Anthony "Meredith, in thp year 419 of the Brotherhood of Man, atjthe “wonder city” of Ardis, coolly and critically edits Avis Everhayd’s manuscript.

Mr London has, dealt with his subject in his usual clear and masterly way.. He throws himself -so thoroughly into the personality of tins scribe of the future, who comments with such amused-tolerance on nineteenth century customs and pecu-

Rarities. Here are one or two of Meredith's footnotes In those days it was fetill. the custom to fill the living rooms with bric-a-brac. They had not discovered simplicity of living. Such rooms were 'litUßeums, entailing endless labor to keep clean.. The dust demon was the lord of the household. There were a myriad devices for: catching dust, and only a few devices for- getting rid of it.” In explanation of the: apparently, obsolete word “prizefighter ” ho says: “In that day it was the custom of men to comjxflo for purses of money. They fought with their liands. AVhen one was beaten into insensibility or killed tho survivor took the money. 1 ' It is such remarks ns these that’ give the atniosphore, the reality, of another age than ours. The whole style of. the book is excellent, and the explanation of such theories as Karl Marx’s of surplus wealth makes such matters clear even to those who know little of political economy. As ; an ingenious forecast of the future, and as throwing light upon one of the burning questions of the day, ‘The Iron I Heel’ is well worth reading.'-