BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 14637, 5 August 1911, Page 10

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

'The Claw.' By Cynthia Stocklcy. Melbourne : Melville and Mullen Propria? tary. The publishers, in their " puff preliminary," start badly. They make, an assertion in which, they declare That '*'no one who has had tho pleasure of reading 'The Claw' will challenge the appropriateness of the title. 'The Claw' is th« grip which South Africa takes of tho hearts of those who set, foot upon her shores. And the metaphor is not strained." We challenge the appropriateness of tho title straight away. A title should indicate in snmo way what the book is about. ' The Claw' docs not. It may mean anything or anywhere, though most novel readers probably will associate it—especially in view of the highly-colored portrait of tho fashionablo young woman on the cover—with those "fast society darncs who are popularly supposed to lure young men to ruin. 'The Claw' as a title for a book is mcanin less and unsatisfactory, and it has absolutely no innate, and certainly no obvious, reference to South Africa. The authoress blunders, too, in her "foreword." She says : " The charge of using friends and enemies as models is ono that is levelled at almost every novelist who writes of life, as he (or she) finds it; and though 'life 'as he finds it' is the novelist's rightful asset, and tho only ono of which a hard world cannot rob him, every true lover of his art writhes under the accusation and finds it unbearable." The answer to this quite unnecessary protest is that the charge is true. All great novelists and caricaturist* use their

'• frknds and enemies " t as models. They always have done, and rhey_ will continue to do so. Their " art" consists in so presenting them that they appeal to or revolt hosts "of readers who are never likely to meet thorn in the flesh. It is only tho hack writer—whoso name- is legion—who docs his or her work so badly that the model growls in pretest. A friend or an enemy can be impaled as Isaak Walton handled his worm, m gently and lovingly that he (or she) will scarcely feel tho hook. In any event it is only from living models known to the novelist that his or her characters can come. Wo suggest, too, that there is a good deal of cant about the novelist's "art," and a definition in ibis relation would not bo out of place. When -Miss (or Mrs) Stoekley talk? of "art." sho posibly means that she is not merely tolling a story, after tho manner of Le Queux or Oppcnheim or flocking, hut that sho is adding thereto certain yraees of style and consistencies of narrative, or taking therefrom thoso common crudities of speech and plot with which we are familiar. Yet her work has few purely literary charms. Thera is a palpable* straining after effect, an introduction of banal phrase*'., and a failure to handlo her material to tha best advantage. We have such affectations of speech as these : " Of course, lx;th as a Catholic and as a famine du monde, I -was agaeee at these thing?." "Dear Miss fiaurin, have you brought any potidre. de riz with you?" • '" Quant-a-moi. I was not at, this time at a!l smart. It. is true that my Panama hat had come from Scott's, my grey vel-vet-corduroy coat and skirt had 'Lucille, Rue di Rivoli,' in gold letters on its waist belt, and my shoes and stockings bore the stamp of the good Peter Yap." "A dish of terribly declasse potatoes." We are afraid that the charge will lie made that Miss Stoekley has written two stories* and tried to make them look like

om<. The second part, has little or no riirtvt, bearing upon the first. She distributes all her most, interest in;; "felines" -•surely there never wers such women outride of' Vanity Fair—to the four corners of South Africa', sends hey men away to be killed or taken prisoners, slnys the hero, and then, to eke out ber m:iicri.-.1, makes tho heroine marry another man, regales ns with many pages oi most unsavory domestic differences, and winds everything up with one of those unconvincing nets of self-sacrifice that are uncalled foe in the woman, improbable in the man. and irritatirg to the reader. The story of the Matabrlo rising and " the last stand " has been fold before, and wilt boar telling again. Miss Stocklev has not done he;s?lf htstico. She knows Africa and knows tho people, and her women are painfully and detestably realistic, hut she has not manipulated her stuff to the best advantage. There is no supreme rlimax towards which all things and all persons move. On the ronfre.rr', we have snapshots, so to speak, and an'anti-climax or two. Still, some of tin. chapter.-, in the earlier part are worth reading.

NOYFL BLACK-LISTED. Apropos of the disctvr.ion at the New Zealand Librarians' Conference, at Auckland at Eamoitide as to the way in which novels dealing with sex problems, etc., should be dealt with, there has just conic to hand the account of the authorities oi York i Frig.) Public Library banning Thomas Uardv's novel, 'Jade the Obscure.' In a recent. k\suo of the ' Yorkjhira Tost' appeared the following: You may he interested to know, sir, that acting on your advice, T applied for the hook "at the Free Library. The answer of ihn attendant wais: ''Wo, have a copy of this book in thn library, but it is on'the black list; therefore. M'C cannot issue it to you. I must get a copy of it somewhere, and .see why it was banned by the York Committee. Alderman Purnell (chairman of tho Library Committer), on being interviewed, raid that per.-.orally he waj; not aware that the bock in question had been removed Iran th;; eheiv.-?. Ho bad not read the beck hini->e!t, and therefore wa; unable to tpcak at; to its merits. But when tho incident on '.ludc tho Obscure.' to which exception was read to him, Mr Puviedl agreed with tiic removal of a book which tontain-;d any vulgar incidonf. Any vulgarity which was mere vulgarity and nothing else was not proper literature for genera! dissemination. He did nrA. object U> the discussion o'f eexual problems, provided that it was conducted decorously. Mr Ftuttirli (the librarian, who was an experienced oiliciii! uf sound judgment) thought hj iiixiosir-ablo that a particular book'should bo placed in general circulation. 'The committee were largely guided by ins advice, but it frequently happened that the volume was given to tlic chairman cr sore." other experienced member of the tomniittee to read, in order that the librarian's handfi should ho strengthened. It was subsequently explained that occasionally a I wok wat, referred to thorn by seme acitiil leader who was of opinion tha't it- wa* not fit residing for the young. Tho volume was then read by one of tie? library staff, whose opinion was convoyed to the Library Committee, with whom'tho ultimate decision Jay. Ho added that a number of bookn had in this way be-on torn oved from circulation, inclnding the work mentioned. CHARLOTTE BRONTE IX BRUSSELS. In the 'Cornhill Magazine.' for Mav Mr Gerald Cumberland describes the Maison d'h'ducatiou of Madame Heger in thy Hue d'isabelle at Brussels, where Ciiarlotte and Emily Bronte .spent some months in 1342. The house is still standing, but in a few months it is to be, razed to tho ground. )n this house almost as it now stands the j-lory of 'Viletto' k pitched. Hero enmo Lucy Snowe, friendless and alone ; here is tho salon where, she was received by Madamo Beck: hero, on the ground floor, are tho three schoolrooms; the dormitories upctairs aro much ns they were in Charlotte Bront-o'e time ; and above them is tho " vast solitary garret " where tho nrm made ope of her ghostly visits. Vivid and keen ae the sensations were which Mr Cumberland experienced in tho house, th&y were more vivid stil] when ho walked in the Largo garden, and when he stood boneath thn "DGrceau" and crept quietly down the path which wns once tho "alleo defencluo " ; and when •he left hs felt ho had b«an much nearer ths spirits of the wonderful sisters than when he visited Haworth.