BOOKS And BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 24007, 4 October 1941, Page 4

BOOKS And BOOKMEN

VERSE ELEGY FOR A BOY Ho went the usual way, Faintly surprised at life and its demands, Seeing a humour in Ins well-drilled self, Proud and so wordless in that ipride of his; Nothing of politics could ho debate, Essaying no guesses on tho war of nations, But sure, it seemed, of one cool fact—that ho Would bo among tho lads who do return; “ Fellows liko me don’t die,” he laughed, and went . . . Leaving us in tho hush of any folk Who helplessly and dutifully give Tho beloved fledgling. But strangely enough he is not to return . • . And having given, we must not speak of anguish; Only we cry within our hearts continually The words that now our lonely comfort are: “ Fear was a thing he never had to know.” —Paula Hanger (Wellington). HEW BOOKS JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE We have received a copy of ‘ A Short History of Japanese by A. L. Sadler, M.A.. professor of Oriental studies. University of Sydney, Tho author, having previously lived in Japan for 10 years, has had first-hand opportunities for the extensive research that has obviously been necessary in dealing with such a subject as this. To some readers the architectural history of an Eastern civilisation might not appear to offer much, attraction, but interwoven as it is with the, life and customs of tho people, it has given Professor Sadler the opportunity to hold the reader’s interest throughout. The author frankly admits his indebtedness to various Japanese authorities, and includes comprehensive appendices of historical buildings, glossary of architectural terms in Japanese and English, and comparative table of dates. The numerous illustrations which are grouped together in the back of the book are bold and clear reproductions of line drawings. Photographic illustrations are omitted altogether; and in view of the obvious admiration which the author has for the Japanese garden and its dose relationship with the architecture. particularly domestic architecture, this omission is rather surprising. It is a subject which we hope Professor Sadler will deal with in a more extensive manner at some future date. The publishers of this book, which is beautifully printed and set out, are Angus and Robertson, Sydney and London. ROMANCE OH AN ISLAND In ‘ Man Peter ’ George Goodchild has written a pleasing variation of an old theme and given it a fascinating sotting on a Pacific island. The hero, who is more important than he seems at first, accepts employment as a steward on an American Clipper and clashes tenfperamentally with the idiosyncrasies of a passenger belonging to the ‘‘ poor little rich girl ” type. When the aircraft is forced down at sea and the survivors, including these two, find themselves washed up on a lonely island a situation arises which gives the author a good chance to develop his penchant for telling an interesting story. The villain of the piece is rather too melodramatic, but on the whole the action is well sustained and the dialogue crisp and) to the point. Messrs Ward, Lock and Co., are tho publishers. •

plotted on a map, and eventually, and inevitably, two lines will cross, this point marking the general location of the sending set under surveillance. The final task is performed by monitoring officers who are skilled radio engineers assigned to units located throughout America and its possessions. While the location of primary monitor stations is known, the locations of the auxiliary ears are not made public. These monitoring officers have cars which, to all appearances, are ordinary vehicles, but which are fitted with the best and latest types of detection equipment, including direction finders, all wave receivers, and recorders. All this apparatus can he operated from the car’s battery while travelling, or upon being removed from the car from a fixed power supply. Operation of the mobile equipment follows much the same procedure employed by the monitoring stations in the first instance. Directional beams finally fix at the exact location of the transmitter in question. Even if the hunt narrows down to a hoarding house, hotel, or large building, an officer can, bv using a device in his hand or in his pocket, proceed from floor to floor, and from door to door, and so determine the exact room in which the illegal equipment is being used. Truly, the ether is being policed as methodically and efficiently as a policeman patrols his beat. SHORT WAVE STATION HONOURED A short wave station has appeared in the annual awards made by. the University of Georgia in the George Foster Peabody Awards for Meritorious Public Service. The station cited for its services was General Electric’s WGEO, which at one time conducted a fortnightly programme for the United States Antarctic service. The programme, which was sponsored by newspapers, was followed by the reading of 150 to 200 letters from relatives and friends, and was known as the ‘ Byrd Mail Bag.’ Occasionally a relative wont to Schnectady to have a personal two-way chat over WGEO with her husband or son at Antarctica. The importance of the radio contact was described by Rear-Admiral Byrd as follows: —“In Antarctica during the long nights there were few diversions except those you made for yourself. Homesickness became nostalgia, hut to hear the voice of a friend or relative brought sunshine into the long winter months.” The ‘ Byrd Mail Bag ’ was inaugurated during the first Antarctic expedition of 1928-30. when the G.E. station’s call was W2XAF. The programme was taken up again in 1933 when the second expedition got under way.

A Literary Corner,

1 WHY GATHER MOSS ’

‘ Why Gather Moss,’ iby George Clune, is a tale of travel and adventure in five continents. The spirit of adventure must run in the author’s family, for ho is a brother of Frank Clune, who wrote * Try Anything Once.’ As a boy in Sydney, George was irresistibly drawn to the Sydney wharves, for ships and sailors had a fascination for him. His first experience away from his native Australia was in German New Guinea in the last war, when he was a member of tho Commonwealth’s expeditionary force. When that business was cleaned up tho author set sail again. In Canada audl the United States he turned his hand to many things, and, though he did not gather much moss, he managed to earn a good living. He was a capable salesman, and it was in that capacity that he was most successful. With the war still on, he went to Paris, where he married an Australian girl. Each drove an ambulance, and she was killed while performing her duties. Later the author returned to his native land, and thou joined in an unusual enterprise in Malaya, He is a cheery soul, full of grit and resource, and he has written an entertaining book. The publishers are,Angus and Robertson, Sydney, A DELAFIELD NOVEL Although perhaps better known for her 1 Provincial Lady ’ series, Miss E. M. Delafield has shown on several occasions that she can write a straightout novel with the same brilliance as her diarjes. Just published by Macmillan ind Co. is her ‘ No One Now Will Know,’ a story of unusual construction, in that the whole theme is the building up of the past to show its connection with the present. The tale opens in 1939, moves back to 1910-14, and back later to 1890. which constU tutes the major part of tho book. In the quick glimpses we are given of the 1939 characters —the whole action takes place in a railway carriage in the space of a few minutes—we see traces of the ancestors we read about later in the book. Miss Delafield has always had a very human touch in her writings, besides making _ her characters alive and real, and inis novel is one of the best that has come from her able pen. OLD WORLD BACKGROUND While Gennie Diane, a wealthy American girl, is staying in Paris she meets some old friends of her mother, members of the Continental nobility, Ernesto, son of the Princess Rocalta, falls in love with her, and, though she still has fond ■ memories of a former romance in America she consents to marry him—to please her mother. After the marriage Ernesto learns that his wife is convinced) that he has married her solely for her money and the stage seems set for the conventional unpleasantness associated with a situation of this kind. But the story, written in attractive style by Alice Duer Miller under the- inadequate title ‘ Not For Love,’ does net work out this way. To be sure, there are early vicissitudes, for Ernesto takes Gennie to Castle Rocalta, where she becomes practically a prisoner. More than ever certain that she has made a mistake, she makes up her mind to escape. Before she can get away, however, a mysterious development, grim and menacing, steps in, and it is when she and Ernesto are thrown more closely together under its shadow that she realises her husband, to bo something better than a foreign nobleman full of superficialities. The charming old-world atmosphere of ‘ Not For Love ’ gives this well-written story a charm all its own. Our copy comes from the publishing house of Methuen. NEW TREND IN LETTERS ” During the past year three wellknown novelists have died, and I want to refer to them, because their passing is in a sense symbolic, and marks the end of an epoch,” said Mr E. M. the novelist, in a survey of books in 1941. “ They are James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Hugh Walpole. They are very different, these three. James Joyce was a writer with a vision of tho universe which he expressed through recollections of his early life in Dublin; Virginia Woolf was a poetic writer, whose novels are best understood if they are read as poems; Hugh Walpole was .a story-teller, who carried on the tradition of Scott and Trollope. Yet though they are so different, they have one quality in common; they are all professionals. Their main job was to sit down and write, and in this sense they mark the end of an epoch, because the professional writer is coming to an end. I think myself that this is a pity and that civilisation will be the poorer if it happens. But the detached artist who lived, and sometimes starved, in independence, is a vanishing type. The writer to-day is increasingly drawn into the fabric of society, ami his writing is a by-product of his ordinary work. It is not his main job to sit down and write. The two best novels I have come across this year are novels of action, written by men of action, and I think this is significant of the future. The professionals—whether of the type of Joyce, Mrs Woolf, or Walpole—are, partly for economic reasons, passing away.” THE BEST SINGLE LINES Taking part in the discussion on the best single lines, a correspondent wrote to ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly ’ : I do not know of a phrase which touches the acme of human joy so poignantly as the line from Murrays ‘ Hypolita ’ The apple tree, the singing and the gold. Then there is a line from Fletcher’s < Poem on Turner’s Polyphemus ’: — The splendour of things lost and things grown old, which I never tire of repeating and always associate with Wordsworth’s “ old unhappy far-off things.” , . , i Rupert Brooke touched the heights in the opening lines of his ‘ Sonnet’:— Oh death shall come and find me Long before I tire of watching you. And where is there a finer expression of human perfection than in the lines from ‘ Julius Caesar ’?— His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him that nature might stand up And say to all the world “ This was a nian!”

CLASSICS IN THE FRONT LINE OF BOOKS

“ Don’t read too much about the war,” said Sir Walter Langdon-Brown, of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in tho Chadwick Lecture of 1941, as a proviso to tho commendation, “ What a solace books are these dark nights!” He recommended in particular Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope, “aso restful and calming.” If you read Jane Austen, he said, you will “ see how little people at homo worried about the Napoleonic wars when we were previously threatened by invasion.” Sir Walter will be interested to know that the popularity of the books of gentle Jane is on the up and up again, in particular 1 Pride and Prejudice,’ the figures for which for the past year are nearly three times those for the previous year, writes “ A.J.H.,” in the new ‘ Everyman ’ pamphlet. ‘ Northanger Abbey ’ and ‘ Mansfield Park ’ are the next of Jane’s in order of increased sale; all her books are in demand, but none like ‘ Pride and Prejudice,’ which may be due to the film. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights,’ another perennial “ seller,” reached phenomenal figures last .year—again a recently _ filmed book. The 8.8.C.’s serialisation of ‘ The Count of Monte Cristo,’ ‘ Les Miserables,’ and ‘ The Cloister and the Hearth ’ caused a run on these books some time ago, so that their present lower rate of sale makes them look like wartime failures, comparataively; but they are well up on their normal pre-war figures. Trollope, cited by Sir Walter Lang-don-Brown, is healthy, particularly ‘ Barchester Towers,’ though not much more so than usually. Translations of some of the great French fiction are going well; I note these four particularly, Balzac’s ‘ Old Goriot,’ Flaubert’s ‘ Madame Bovary,’ Maupassant’s ‘ Short Stories,’ and Zola’s “ first novel of the class-war,” ‘ Germinal.’ When Sir Walter adjures us not to read too' much about the war he means the present war; some books about other wars are paramount in wartime, Tolstoy’s great book—“ the greatest novel ever written ” —‘ War and Peace,’ being the leading example. It seems to have been wanted everywhere, from the day E. M. Forster spoke about it on the wireless shortly after this war broke out. Barbusse’s novel-narrative of the ’l4-18 war, ‘ Under Fire,’ first of the “ war books ” of the period, has increased in sale recently; and so have Caesar’s ‘ Commentaries ’ on the War, in Gaul and his Civil War with Pompey, Thucydides’s ‘ History of the Peloponnesian War,’ and Herodotus’s History covering the Persian invasion of ancient Greece. It is not surprising, this being a war of ideologies, that the great books of politico-philosophy are more and more wanted. Foremost in demand among these is the masterpiece of dialectics, Plato’s * Republic,’ which ‘ Everyman’s ’ is fortunate to have in Dr A. D. Lindsay’s well-known translation; and this is followed, though at some distance, by Aristotle’s ‘ Politics,’ tho ‘ Everyman ’ edition of which has an introduction by Dr Lindsay. Others broadly in this class and on the increase include Rousseau’s ‘ Social Contract ’; Nietzsche’s * Thus Spake Zarathustra ’; Hobbes’s extraordinarily pathetic survey of the power of the State, ‘Leviathan’; Mussolini’s illstudied yade mecum: Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’; and- (modest though the sale may be) Tom Paine’s ■ ‘ Rights of Man,’ ■ - - - To. these may be added Voltaire’s ‘ Candide and Other Tales,’ classified as fictiqn, and. Sir Thomas More’s tract for all times, ‘ Utopia,’ with which, in ‘ Everyman,’- is bound- up his ‘ Dialogue of Comfort.’ Metaphysics, old and modern, keep their place, too, notably in Pascal’s ‘ Pensees ’ and Sir Arthur Eddington’s ‘Nature of the Physical World ’ —and, again, Marcus Aurelius’s ‘Meditations’ and Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘ Religio Medici.’ EMINENT VICTORIANS Tho recent publication of Alice Meynell’s ‘ Collected Poems ’ caused an American writer to recall to memory the brilliant varied group of eminent Victorians that held the attention of literary London during the late ’eighties and early ’nineties. Oscar Wilde and Whistler were carrying on their witty duel of words, eventually ending in a celebrated litigation, which has since become one of the curiosities of literature. Elizabeth Robins, American actress and author, was creating boldly realistic interpretations of consternation in polite society by her Ibsen’s heroines, the poet Henley was busy with his “ young men ” and his altruistic project for assisting aspiring young authors, Barrie was basking in the enjoyment of his well-deserved laurels, earned by the unanticipated success of ‘ The Little- Minister ’ and ‘ Sentimental Tommy.’ Joseph Pennell was doing his charming etchings of the old French and English cathedrals, going here and there to illustrate the books of F. Marion Crawford and other noted writers of tho time, while Mrs Pennell was reporting the Paris art news for the papers and writing entertaining books for which her indefatigable husband furnished tho delightful _ illustrations. Everybody of note was doing something important and their rauch-talked-of names were multitudinous. Clever Violet Hunt was responsible for an amusing paraphrase which went the rounds of London. She wrote “ There was Mrs Meynell and Mrs Pennell and Marie Corelli and me.” NOTES Fifty thousand copies of ‘ The Sky’s the Limit,’ by J. M. Spaight, were sold in the first six months following publication. In the new and revised edition the important developments in British air power during this period have been included and illustrated to bring the edition up to date. Tho Rev. James Aitken, who served for more than 40 years in the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, South America, and New Zealand, and who is now retired and living at Aberdeen, is the editor of a very agreeable selection, ‘ English Diaries of the XVI., XVII., and XVIII. Centuries,’ with an introduction, etc., just published iu the “ Pelican Books.” Warwick Deeping knows full well the ways of life of a country doctor in England, his troubles and anxieties, his contests with disease, his defeats, and his triumphs. Mr Deeping’s latest novel. ‘The Dark House,’ is the story of such a doctor and his wife. One of the most important of tho new novels is Dr A. J. Cronin’s ‘ The Keys of the Kingdom.’ The New York ‘ Times ’ says that it is a magnificent story of the great adventure of individual goodness, and a better book than ‘ The Citadel.’