BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 20196, 8 June 1929, Page 21

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES ! " THE MONTH FOR ME ' April in a leafy vale, Dropping tender tears, Gathering her violets 'Twist hopes and fears; /April in an orchard grove, Where the apple bloom Comes with bridal blush am; Through a green gloom ; April in a. ferny wood, By a primrose patch, Smiled at by that west-wind sk; No shy can match; April by a laughing brook . fn the water meads, Calling, out the cuckoo 'flowers .Where the bee feeds; 'April in a garden plot ... Or by the spring-tide sea—0, April anywhere at all Is the month for me! g. Gertrude Ford, in the ‘Millgate Monthly.’ CARYATIDES. Figures have X beheld, from granite hewn Supporting with uplifted hands the weight Of massive lintels. Yon had thought that soon Beneath that stress they must disintegrate, So vast the burden, yet unbowed they stood. With stony eyes that seemed to challenge Fate. Have X not seen the counterpart of these Immobile images in fleshly guise Unyielding human caryatides, ■ Whose lips are set as though they stifled cries Of anguish for the burden that they hove, The while they challenged hate with stony eyes. —Robert Rutherford, in the ‘ Century.'

DANGER OF THE MODERN HOVEL ' When the-obituary notice oi this contemporary English novel comes to ho written it will be. I fancy, something in these terms: “Here lies the English- Novel, 1.9-0-193 b. Killed by cleverness” (writes Hugh Walpole, m ‘John o’ London’s Weekly’). In this there-is no criticism of We cannot have too much of it. Nor is there criticism of the contemporary novel, although we are perhaps having a little too much of that. Nor can anyone be sure that the contemporary novel is dying. Dir Guedalla and one pp’Two others hope that it is, bub 5 their prophecies are prejudiced. Only—if it dies, it will he too much cleverness that has killed it. NOVELISTS OF THE ’SEVENTIES. For certain purposes 1 have been lately reading the English novelists ol the seventies, nob the major ones, bnt the minor—Charles Reacle, Hemy Kingsley, Janies Payn, Le I aim, Black, and some more Whatever they ivero they were not clever—clever, I mean, in the immediate modern sense of the word. So little clever were they that they had, all of them, the simplest notions of human morality. If yon did certain things yon were bad. wicked, evil and if you persisted in them you were lost for ever. The only difference that their points of view had was that some of them— Henry Kingsley, ior instance—had a sneaking fondness lor The Black Sheep, while others—Black and Blackmore, for instance—damned them out. of hand. . So little clever were thev that they did not mind how stale and worn their situations might he. _ The babies changed at birth, the interruption at the altar, the wronged woman in the snow, these happenings they accepter! cheerfully and then stuffed them with all the vigour and excitement ot which they were capable. , So little clever were thev that they iiover thought of the novel as an ait. Black. Blackmore, Payn, Besant were jolly, cheerful fellows who liked fishing and walking, racing and sailing, and an occasional “jolly evening. I Ties wrote novels first because they enjoyed writing novels, and secondly because they enjoyed making money, and they were entirely sincere and open about it and refused any sort of solemnity. So thev wrote ‘The Cloister and the Hearth",’ ‘Geoffrey Hamlyn, Madcap Violet.’ ‘ By Proxy,’ ‘ Unde Silas, and (he others.' and went to_ their graves laughing courageously, facing their personal odds and quite unaware that they were doing anything remarkable at all.

YOUNG BEGINNERS. • It lias been my job just lately to look at a number of new novels by vounc beginning novelists, and I say, with my hand on my heart, that nine out of ten' of them are too clever by half. ".They are. most of them, astonishingly well written. I could quote you, were there time and space, passages from James Payn and \V byte Melville that are so appallingly written that von would scream with pain and shudder into space. These young writers cun write. Ties, hut the trouble is that now everyone can write. Nob like Virginia Woolf, of course, but still The taste and elegance of these novels is quite astonishing, and—they are, most, of them, about exactly nothing at all. When I say that they are about nothing, 1 mean that they are about a sneeze, an east wind, an unpaid hill, a casual adultery, a cocktail, a smack in the face, a yawn. And they are not even about these things—they are about someone who remotely perceived these things once arid is now attempting some personal reaction to them. Why have these novels been written?. For money, for fame, to astonish one’s friends, “to see whether'one can do it.” And, of course, one can do it; The easiest thing in the world to do to-day is to write a novel. }■ NO BIG REPUTATIONS.

I am not. I here hasten to say, writing. pessimistically about the contemporary English novel. V\e have an Astonishingly large number of good and interesting novelists at tins particular moment. But.—anti this is ajact of which everyone, publishers, critics, agents, are all' thoroughly aware—there is no writer at. Uii.« • :i,<iment .in Eng-land-under thirty who is achieving a solid and durable reputation in the

A LITERARY CORNER

novel. There are some admirable beginners—Henry Williamson, Phyllis Bentley, Hilda Vaughan, Rosamund Lehmann, E. C. Forrester, Bradda Field, and, maybe best of all, Charles Morgan—to mention, haphazard, only a few; but the kind of reputation that E. M. Forster. D. H. Lawrence', Frank Swinnerton, Rose Macaulay, Compton Mackenzie—again to mention only a few—all made while they were still under thirty is not to-day being made by anybody. I believe this to be serious. All the established novelists are growing older and older, poor things. We may love them dearly, but we know exactly what they can do. The general level of accomplishment among the new', young novelists is astonishingly high, and yet the solid enduring reputation that depends on much more than one or even two clever books is not made. BRILLIANT PEOPLE. .It is absurd to say that the English novel is dying of exhaustion. Most certainly it is not. It is ridiculous to say that there are not plenty of brilliant people. Indeed, there are. There are perhaps far too many brilliant people. There are certainly far too many people who are alraid ot not being brilliant. That is, J believe, exactly where the root of the trouble lies. It lies in the general absence of creative zest. Creative zest in the novelist means just this—that Hie artist is so completely caught into the heart of his subject that he forgets himself, his cleverness, what other people are going to think of him, whether he is being clever or not being clever, whether or no he is in danger of sentimentality—forgets everything because he* is caught into a passion of creation that is irresistible. This creative zest is not of itself and by itself enough. Naturally not. It was the only possession of the late Miss Marie Corelli. She had it in abundance, hub had nothing else. It is not enough, but it is vastly important. Nor, having it, need you be precisely a fool. Both ‘Orlando’ and ‘Point Counter Point’ have plenty of it, and they are not exactly foolish books. FAT AND JUICY. But we laugh now when we read Thackeray crying over the death of Colonel Newcorae or Dickens creeping with horror at the thought of Jonas Chuzzlew'it. We ought not to laugh. It is precisely thus that masterpieces in fiction are created. Masterpieces I But I am not talking of masterpieces. I am talking of novel's that have some stuff in them, novels that are fat and juicy, that can be seen in the round, that’move after you when you walk away from them.

B'ere 1 advising a young novelist today 1 would say: “Forget yourself, forget your friends, forget your publisher, forget your critics, forget your starving family, the young lady you adore—forget above all your damnable, devastating cleverness —fling yourself, taking every risk, into the world ot creation. Never mind what follies yon may commit,..never mind your wasted hours, the meals you miss, and _ the bills you don’t pay. and—when it is over come up out of it as you would out of an amesthetie. THE OLD THICKS. “Try the babies changed at birth, the interrupted wedding, the horsewhip, and the marked cards, but sink so deeply into these things that creatively, passionately, you force them into a fresh shape, a new power.” ft comes to this, 1 suppose, that a novelist must write about something if his novel is to be remembered, and that something must he real life, not small conscious personal reactions from life.

Looking at Reade anil Blackmorc and Henry Kingsley again I wonder—we have learnt so much that they never knew. Are we in danger of losing the one thing they had. the one thing that finally matters, the power and energy of creation? TURNBULL LIBRARY INTERESTING ADDITIONS An interesting set of books has recently been presented to_ the Turnbull Library, Wellington, by -Air -L Tumble, of Masterton. These books, which number over ‘2OO, relate to the politics of Europe, principally Italian, during the period from the beginning of the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. The books are in Italian, Latin, German, and English—principally Italian and Latin. Besides being representative of works on the politics of the period named, they also include good specimens of typography, chiefly of Italian printing houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The writers include such well-known ones as the poets Dante and Petrarch, of whoso works there arc fourteen volumes; such statesmen and reformers as Maehiavelli and Savonarola—nearly thirty volumes of these two; Grotius, a writer of European fame, who was supposed to be responsible for Milton’s blindness; and Jeremy Bentham, a wellknown writer on political economy in England. Bentham was a personal friend ol the father of Sir Frederick (Jim; n.an, ol Wellington, and ptesented to Mr Chapman a set of Ids own works. This set, comprising twenty-three volumes, was recently presented by Sir Frederick Chapman to tbo Turnbull Library. Among the above books are three volumes, published in Venice in 1518, by the famous Haldino Press, one of the big printing presses known for the excellent works produced by it.

MRS BUHYAH’S DOWRY There has been found in a Cheshire cottage a IfcJUl copy of the hook, ‘ The Plane Man’s Pathway to Heaven.’ This was the title of one of the two books which John Banyan received from his wife when he, a soldier at the time in the Parliamentary Army, was nineteen years of age. The two hooks wei the only marriage portion which Bun,van’s wife brought him. Only one first edition copy is known to exist; it is in the British Museum. ‘ The Plane Man’s Pathway to Heaven ’ was written by Arthur Dent. The copy just found is in fine condition considering its 328 years, the old leather binding being without a break, and the hook is intact, only a lew of the earlier pages being perished on the fringe without harm to the letterpress.

REMARKABLE WAR BOOK GERMAN SOLDIER'S EXPERIENCES EULOGY BY SIR lAN HAMILTON. Of the numerous books which have been written concerning the Great War of 1914-1.8, histories and novels included, none has given a more truthful picture of what those engaged went through than the remarkable book ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ written by a German soldier. On last Anzae liay, General Sir fan Hamilton, speaking to ex-servicemen, made the assertion that ‘ All Quiet on the YVestern Fcont’ had definitely killed war, and that for this its author deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for ten years in succession. Written by Erich Maria Remarque in 1928, the book was first published in Germany in January of 1929, tv as sold there by the hundreds of thousands, and excited so much interest in England that a translation appeared there within two months after the publication in Germany. A copy has just been received from the publishers, Messrs Putnam’s Sons, and the reviewer has no hesitation in saying that it is easily the best war hook lie o lias yet read. The translation from German* to English was made by Mr A. W. Wheen. The inferno of massacre and mutilation on the western front is pictured in pitiless fashion by Remarque, who displays an extraordinary ability to surround the reader with the facts of war, as they surrounded the common soldier, and make them mean to the reader as they meant to the soldier in a way which books much more voluminous have failed to do. With brutal frankness and with (lashes of poetic grandeur, Remarque describes the life of the soldiers, their philosophy, and their general outlook as they pit their little skill against the inhuman violence searching them out to strike them to the ground. While the tragedy and terrors of war arc here, however, Remarque shows the gross humour and rough good companionship which provide some light relief. “This book is to he neither an accusation nor a confession, and, least of all, an adventure. lor death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face witli if.” savs the author in his prelace. “.It will try simply to tell of a generation of men, who. even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.” The story concerns the adventures of a group of young students, who. “crainmed full ’of vague ideas which wave to the war an ideal and almost romantic character.” enlisted. As the author says; “Once it was different. When we’ went to enlist we were a class of twenty young men. many of whom proudly shaved for the first time before going to barracks. Be had no definite plans for our future. Our thoughts oi a career and occupation were as yet of lon impracticable a character’ to furnish any scheme of life. . . . We were trained in the army for ten weeks, and in this time were more profoundly influenced than by ten vears at school. We learned that a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer. Be were at first astonished, then embittered, and finally indifferent; we recognised that what matters is not the mind hut the boot brush, not intelligence but the system, not freedom but drill, . . . With our young awakened eyes we saw that the classical conception of the Fatherland held by our teachers resolved itself into a renunciation of personality such as one would not ask of the meanest servant —salutes, springing to attention, parade marches, presenting arms, right wheel, clicking the heels, insults, and a thousand pettifogging details. Be learned, in fact, that some part ot these things was necessary, but the rest merely show. .Soldiers have a hue nose for such distinctions.” Many readers will no doubt agree that much of the above did not apply solely to the German at my. There are more preliminary passages denouncing the system. As one old soldier philosophises:— Give ’em all the same grub and all the same pay, And the war would he over and done in a day.

Talking of the behaviour of some ol the officers in authority, someone else says: “The mischief is that cadi one has much too much power. . • ■ Take a simple case. We were marching back from the parade ground dogtired. Then comes the order to sing. We are glad enough to be able to trail arms, but we sing spiritlessly. At once the company is turned about and has to do another hours drill as punishment. On the march back the order is given to sing again, and once more we start. Now, what’s the use of all that? It’s simply that the company commander’s head lias been turned by having too much power. And nobody blamed him. On the contrary he is praised lor being strict. Now, I ask you : Let a man be whatever you like 'in peace time, what occupation is there in which he can behave like without getting a crack on the nose? He can only do that in the Army. It goes to the heads of them all. yon see. And the more insignificant a man has been in civil life the worse it takes him. , Again, many will agree that much of this applied to another military system besides the German. It is in the passages, however, descriptive of real war at the front, that Remarque grips the attention and makes Ids story so telling. VN citing of a bombardment, he says; “We came to the communication trench and then to the open lields. The little wood reappears; we know every loot of ground here. There’s the cemetery with the mounds and the black crosses. That moment it breaks out behind us, swells, roars, and thunders. We duck down—a cloud ol flame shoots up a hundred yards ahead of us. The next minute, under a second explosion, part of the wood rises slowly in the air, three or lour trees sail up. and then crash to pieces. The shells begin to hiss like safety valves—heavy fire. The only cover is the graveyard and the mounds. vve stumble across in the dark, and as though spirited away every man lies glued behind a mound. ■ - ■ '-j l ® flain.es of the explosions light up the gravevard , T open my g\gs my fingers grasp a sleeve, an arm. A wounded man? 1 yell to him. My hand grasps further, splinters of wood—-now f remember again that we are lying in a graveyard. But the shelling is stronger than anything, ft wipes out the sensibilities.” There are a hundred other passages worth quoting in fti 1 i, but the reader should see them for himself. Right

through the bdok Rcniarquo’s soldiers talk and act as soldiers really did. As a reviewer at Home said: “ As an exinfantryman 1 salute Erich Remarque —a comrade who has made his pen a bayonet against ward' Apart from the descriptions about the fighting, there is a passage which is excellently done — it is that in which the soldier on leave from the front lino recognises the division between himself and his own past, and between himself and the civilians he meets, even his own family. The author of this remarkable book is thirty-one years of age, and belonged to a family of French extraction that emigrated into Germany at the time of the French revolution and settled in the Rhineland. At the age or eighteen he went straight from school into the army, and was sent to the western front. During the course of the war his mother died, and all his friends were killed. After the war lie found himself alone in the world. Ins subsequent history being typical of the deep unrest that men of bis generation experienced as a result of tlie war. At first feeling the need of rest and quiet, lie afterwards became a teacher in a small out-of-tbe-way village on the moors. But after some months of this lie found the loneliness depressing, and then in quick succession ho became an organist in an asylum, a music teacher, a manager of a small business, motor car dealer, technical draughtsman, and dramatic critic. Last year he wrote down, without taking previous thought, his own ami his friends’ experiences in the war. His hook sets out to describe three things; the war, the fate of a generation, and true comradeship. All these tilings were the same in all countries.—W.M'L. A BUSHVELD DRAMA With an original plot and extremely ■well written, *Nicholas,’ a novel by Elder Jverach and published by Messrs Herbert Jenkins, Ltd., should make a considerable appeal to lovers of fiction. It is a stirring love drama of the bushveld, brimful of excitement ami incident. The hero is Nicholas Swart, a young Africander, who is falsely accused of a serious _ crime through the plotting of a jealous woman. There is a dramatic trial, an escape from prison, followed by Nicholas’s lonely wanderings in the bush, his meeting with a gang of crooks, ami his infatuation for a beautiful girl who is supposed to have coloured blood. Jn the end Nicholas is completely cleared of the charge brought against him, and to make his path more rosy than ever it is found that she is white, the mistake as to her parentage having arisen through the theft of the wrong girl from a convent in which she spent her early years. These surprising revelations form a fitting climax to a story that grips the reader’s attention from cover to cover. EDGAR WALLACE Short stories by Edgar Wallace are not nearly so absorbing and thrilling as his full novels. He crams so much into his short stories that they leave the reader rather bewildered. Still, they are exciting enough to please the regular devotee of the crimson circle books, and that is the author’s principal aim. Again, ‘The Ringer’ is a series of stories telling of tho exploits of that daring international criminal Henry Arthur Millon; otherwise “The Ringer,” who is an adept in the matter of disguises. “The Ringer,” although a criminal, lives mostly on other criminals, and pits his nits against theirs. Although tho action in eacli story is rapid, tlie interest is always held, and cadi thrill is succeeded by another one. Our copy is .from the publishers, Messrs llodder ami Stoughton (London,). ‘DOGSBODY’S BROTHER’ Donald Sinbury is a comparatively new writer, but already lie lias won considerable popularity among lovers of light fiction with the humorous adventures he lias introduced into the life of one “Dogsbody.” ‘The Vagrant Lover,’ published by Herbert Jenkins, Ltd., is .something of a sequel which deals not only with a much married Dogsbody, but also with a sailor brother, John, who becomes so deeply submerged in a- sea of amorous complications that lie decides to spend a goodly portion of his shore leave m a bachelor pilgrimage to Canterbury. Accompanied by Dogsbody, who is only too pleased to allow this walking tour to supplant a prospective visit to tlie home of his formidable parents-in-law, John sets off along the broad highway. He is not long in finding trouble. The story is told brightly and naturally, but there is a certain colloquial colouring which would be jarring to the purist.

NOTES Herne Hill is one of the most “ literary ” suburbs of London. It possesses streets named after Chancer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Spencer, and there are 'Romola and Doronda roads. Professor Ra flacks Bastianelli, the famous scientist and surgeon who has just been made a senator, pilots his own aeroplane all over Italy. His skill with the knife inspired one of D'Annunzio’s long prose poems. A great deal lias been written about the mutiny of the Bounty and the settlement on Pitcairn Island, but for the first time the ‘ Pitcairn Island Register Hook ’ is to be printed in its entirety by the S.P.C.K., with an introduction by Sir Charles Lucas. Mr Clennell Wilkinson has written a volume on William Dampier for Messrs Lane's ‘Golden Hind’ series. This is the first time that Dampier—buccaneer. adventurer, ami explorer, arid a friend of Pepys and Evelyn—has been made the subject of a full biography. Miss Elizabeth 1 pglis-Jones, whose ‘Starved (fields,’ a first novel, is announced is a cousin of Miss Magdalen King-Hall, Hie author of that clever hoax ‘The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion.’ She is descended from the famous Venetian painter. Francesco Guardi, whose daughter, Magdalena, is the ‘ Young Lady ’ of Miss King Hall’s book. One of the most important biographies of the present, season should be ‘ Field-marshal Karl Haig,’ by Briga-dier-general Sir John Cbartcris, which Messrs Cassell are to publish, and about which there has already been considerable controversy, rfir John Charter;? has not set out to give an “ official ” biography, but to write of Haig as a soldier and as a friend. The book will contain an introduction by that famous novelist and student of war, Mr John Buchan. Rewards amounting to £2oo for names best suited to cuter a list of biographies of New England’s “selfmade.” successful men and women of to-day who struggled up from humble beginnings by their own efforts are announced by the Harry E. Burroughs Newsboys’ Foundation of Boston. A series of swell life storin'- will be compiled in permanent book form as an inspiration to handicapped youths.

After using ‘ Beau ’ in his titles for four novels in succession Major P, C. Wren has made a change. His new novel is announced for issue in August, and it is called ‘ Soldiers of Misfortune : The Story of Otho Bcilleme.’ The title smacks of the French Foreign Legion.

Of all the great literary reputations .of the past half-century none has suffered so little in the whirligig of taste as that ot_ Alexandre Dumas. The reason for this lies probably in the fact that Dumas lias never been the victim of a craze, and in consequence has never suffered a reaction. Messrs Collins are about to issue a pocket edition at half a crown a volume. 'The first volumes will appear shortly, and will contain introductions by, among others. Mr H. Brim ley Johnson, Mr Mark Whyte, ami Mr Alec Waugh.

The Minister for Works (Mr Chandler) was asked by members of the Adam Lindsay Gordon_ Statue Committee to grant permission to erect a statue of the poet in Spring street, Melbourne, on the site formerly occupied by the Eight Hours monument (says the ‘Australasian’). Mr Chandler said that if he had authority to do so he would grant the request immediately, but permission could he obtained only from the House Committee of Parliament. It was stated that between -CldiOO and, £1,400 had been collected towards the cost of erecting the statue.

Mr A. S. M. Hutchinson is writing, for publication, a novel entitled ‘The Uncertain Trumpet.’ Since lie wrote ‘lf Winter Comes,’ which immediately became a “ best seller ” in both England and America, Mr Hutchinson (says a writer in the ‘ Kissing Show.’ London) has avoided places whore men meet and talk. He retains his membership of two London clubs, but visits only one, which is so large that, to escape notice in it is simple. Mr Hutchinson. before writing ‘lf Winter Comes’ (in 1921), bad published throe highly successful books— ‘ Once Aboard the Lugger,’ ‘The Happy Warrior,’ and ‘The Clean Heart..’

Mr A.. A. Milne, ho has told us. is to give us no more books about Winnie-thc-Pooli or Christopher Robin. '.Pins, happily, does not mean that Mr Milne has given up writing for children, for he lias now dramatised one of the most delightful books ever written, Mr Kenneth Grahame’s ‘ The Wind in the Willows.’ This daring experiment will he published by Messrs Methuen under the title of ‘Toad of Toad Hall.’

The first book to be chosen by the newly-formed English Book Society is Miss H4len Beauclerk’s novel, ‘The Love of the Foolish Angel.’ This is an unusual novel, which deals with a darkperiod in history when gods and devils still stalked tiro earth in profusion—or at least men thought they did. The Book Society is lieimr run on lines somewhat similar to the Book of the Month Club of America. Mr Hugh Walpole is the president, and among the committee me Mr Robert Lyml, Mr J. B. Priestley. Professor George Gordon, ami Miss Clemence Dane,