LITERARY NOTES

Hokitika Guardian, 8 December 1934, Page 6

LITERARY NOTES

The junior department of' the Public Library will be opened in a very short while now. It contains an uncommonly good collection of books which are'to he made available to the young people of the town free of charge. The following are additional reviews : “Tom Tiddler’s Ground” (Edward Shanks): Edward Shanks has taken the title for his new book from an old English game. Hero we are on Tom Tiddler’s Ground, picking up gold and silver, and there is little doubt that Tom Florey, hero of the book, would have been a conspicuous success at “picking up” the good things of life had he not passively yielded to the weakness in his character. His story is that of a young man pursuing his career during the first three decades of this century. The scone is set m a Cornish tin-mining town and in London and Germany, both before and after the war. Despite his weakness, however, Tom manages to see a great deal of the world of his time, and the story of his rise and fall can be described as an historical navel about yesterday. The first half of the novel is admirably compact and allows! us a subjective glimpse of the mind of tho boy, Tom, offering no resistance to the school bully, and sullenly resenting the stupid domination of his parents. We feel the poignancy of his first love and share the anxiety over his delicate health. But after the outbreak, of the war, we lose the inner thread of his nature of experiencing with him. The swift charm and sustained characterisation, however, go far towards alleviating the ponderous advance of the second part ofi the book.

“Evening of a> .Martinet” (Jane Oliver): Jane Oliver’s, new novel is cast in a form that is as much part of the story as the characters themselves; for we first see Olivia Pennant as a woman approaching fifty; vital, humourous and dominant; a martinet of her particular world at the supreme moment of a successful career. Tire next chapters take us hack to the early years that went to the making of her maturity—her own tragic lovestory of a girl of twenty-three, her passion for the son she could not claim, her fight for sanity and her final triumph. In the last.chapters, the ttory goes on again to show the part which Olivia, her career behind her, plays in the affairs of the modern world and in the love-story of young Nicholas and Jinty—the book swinging from laughter to tragedy and back again tqmifds. happiness. “Charming''(Manners” (J. Michaclhouse): This is the story of Peter' Manners, a yoking Oxford man of today, who reads .for (Holy Orders and whose religious;, ide’alism does not subdue his boyish charm. At Oxford lie meets the Daunt family—Margaret •' Daunt, a young widow and her three children.‘4.Hc .ifalls in love with the , whole family, %d they witfi him and his youthful enthusiasms—the youngest child, Anne, being his special protegee. The ties become closer when he goes as curate to their parish in a wealthy northern suburb. His uncon-'

volitional outlook tells against him as a curate, and his local position is further weakened when he decides to ask Margaret to rnary him. She, however, realises that he is still immature and refuses him in his own interests. His development to manhood is tinted through a religious crisis which ends in his leaving the church and a serious love affair with a girl of his own age, culminating in her tragic death. The story ends with Peter’s idealistic outlook still intact and with the suggestion that Anne, who lias been devoted to him as a child, will grow up and be his wife. “Conscience” (Archibald Chisholm): This book is in inquiry into the philosophical and psychological foundations of the Christian conception of conscience and provides useful guidance on such issues as the place of compromise in social and business life, the Christian attitude to war. and the relation between the individual and the society to

which'lie belongs. Dr Chisholm should he particularly helpful to those interested jn education or in preaching, but it has a wider appeal, in the practical issues raised, to all who are concerned with the application of Christian ethics to present-day problems.