BOOK NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 8, 7 December 1935, Page 10

BOOK NOTES

It is exceptional in any country to find one so young as the authoress or “The Perfume Vendor,” an excellent collection of poems—there are over eighty of them—attaining such heights as have been reached by the Auckland girl, Gloria Rawlinson. About a year ago her first book of verse was published and she has pursued her flights of fancy with unremitting zeal and delicate artistry. Here is a poetess of remarkable talent —she has just turned fifteen years and suffers an illness which, though it has confined her indoors for long, seems to have inspired rather than dimmed her eompreliension of the beauties of life. Lively and sensitive, full of phantasy, the book , contains gems of rare simplicity, revealing an outlook that must captivate adults as well as young readers. Throughout every phase, from elfin delights to quaint, whimsical compositions, there is a charm that is most unusual. Dainty and alluring poems, some of them compelling in their structure and rhyme, are found here. “The Perfume Vendor” is an outstanding contribution to New Zealand literature. Its pure beauty is bound to create a most pleasurable impression in the minds of all who read it. Readers of Rafael Sabatini's stories will appreciate his latest production, “Chivalry,” a “flesh and blood” tale glowing with splendid colour , marked by all the skill of the author in depicting a mixture of love, hate, treachery and loyalty. In “Chivalry” the scene is again laid in Italy:—the Italy of the 15th century, a battleground for the warring armies of Milan, . Venice, and other more or less powerful States. It was the age, pre-eminent-ly, of the condottieri—Sforza, Piccinino, Colleone, Federigo da Montefeltro, and many another —soldiers of fortune whose swords were ever at the service of the highest bidder, and whose destinies led them sometimes to principality and riches, sometimes to death at the hands of headsman or assassin. Mr Sabatini displays all his accustomed skill of narrative in describing his hero’s varied exploits and vicissitudes, and the mingling of splendour and cruelty, treachery and nobility, that form the background of his picture is perfectlv in keeping with the actual conditions of the period. Plot and counter-plot, thrills of the secret service and life among the lawless tribes of the North-West Frontier of India are the ingredients of an engrossing book l>y Victor Barley, C.1.E., C.B.E.—“Carfax of the Khyber.” There is an element of deep mystery in the story based on a strange but persistent legend that a remnant of Alexander the Great’s force js still dwelling in a remote fastness in the Hindu Kush waiting till Alexander comes again to lead them to the conquest of India. Major Carfax, the central figure in the story, is the Political Agent in the Ivhyber. Disorders which arise are led by a mysterious Greek and a sinister Mohammedan, and it is with these plotters that Carfax has to deal. There is much excitement and thrilling adventure, well told by an author who by reason of his long service in the wild territory, in which the scenes are laid has an intimate knowledge of it, as well as the underworld of Peshawar. How the British Secret Service foil the machinations of their enemies and gam a triumph of wits is related in a good yarn—a pleasurable book for men.

One of the strangest cruises ever recorded in the world’s history is the most thrilling feature of the latest contribution from the pen of the author of “The North Sea Mystery, Harry Edmonds, who, in “The Professor s Last Experiment,” writes a dramatic story. It deals with an eccentric professor whose amazing discoveries have been ignored in turn by the League of Nations and all the great Powers. A strangely assorted company is brought together in the course of the tale—two former naval officers, . a goodnatured Australian millionaire, and a courageous girl who risks her life to further the cause of science. Events move rapidly aboard the yacht Ariadne, which, purchased while lying in a Scottish loch, proceeds to the main scene of activities, the Red Sea, where a dramatic chase takes place and the envoys of two Great Powers join the vessel. Amazingly intense situations develop around the professor’s discoveries which in the end cause bewilderment and anxiety throughout the whole world. It is a powerful piece of writing.

In “Spanish Maine,” P. C. AA r ren, the author of the highly popular “Beau Geste” and other stories vividly portraying life in the notorious French Foreign Legion, gives us another well told tale, a powerful narrative which opens aboard a liner bound from South America to England, traverses the land of the Legion and the infamous penal settlement in French Guiana, and finally comes to a gripping and somewhat startling climax in the grounds of an English mansion. The central figure, Spanish Maine, “of three-eighths Spanish grandee descent and the other five English aristocrat” is a character cleverly delineated; his adventures and fate at the hands of an erstwhile fellow convict of the penal settlement are powerful story-telling. The story is related with a peculiar turn —indeed one might term it three stories in one —but the interest is never allowed to flag. Of course, the Legion plays an important part in the book, but it is not overdone. A well-con-ceived if far-fetched description of the life of a woman of Algeria who renounces it to seek a new existence under the care of her American halfbrother, and falls in love with an English nobleman, is an intriguing theme of the book. Incidentally her previous history, and that of some of the other characters was told in the book “Beau Ideal.” “Spanish Maine” is told in AVren’s best style.

An ingeniously knit novel is Maurice Walsh’s “Green Rushes,” in'which the time is the tense days of 1920 in Ireland, and romantic Kerry provides the background. In a series of five chronicles —the whole pattern of the story being made manifest in the last —love and danger are cleverly interwoven. Six men and. four girls spend a night of June., during the Black-and-Tan War, at an hotel above Lough Aonach, in a mountainous district of south-western Ireland, and something of their life stories —a strange intermingling—is related. The “Small Dark Man,” by the same author, is recalled by the character Hugh Forbes, exBritish officer and famous leader of a flying column of the I.R.A. His male companions include his second in -command, a doctor belonging to the column, an ex-prize fighter, a gentleman farmer (now turned intelligence officer), and a Highland Regiment officer (prisoner of the column). The romantic side revolves around the four girls—the prisoner’s sister, a young Irish girl (sweetheart of the intelligence officer), the niece of a British general (but a fervid republican), and a secret service agent. With such material the author builds up an entertaining story of love and adventure well worth reading. Our copies of the above are from Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., through Messrs G. H. Bennett and Coy., Ltd.