NEW NOVELS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEW NOVELS.

" Relations," by Sir Harry Johnston (Chatto and Windus). As long as Sir Harry kept to his excellent, u impertinent, idea of continuing the life-histories of the creations of Dickens' genius his characters lived and the stories had a definite value as depicting the social fifo of the later Victorian era. In " Relations," however, a chronicle novel of English and Australian life, he has discarded the crutch and the result is a tedious limping narrative that will not enhance its author's reputation. It has often been pointed out that plays which are admired for their naturalness would be hissed off the stage if they did truly reproduce the actual banality of real life. The business of the dramatist—and the novelist—is selection rather than collection, a fact which the author of " Relations " seems to have overlooked.

" Tho Ur.gardeners," by Ethel Turner (Ward, Lock and 06'."). This is iho story of Prter Purcell, American, and his Australian wife, their cosmopolitan family of four (born in Franco, Italy, Germany, and America), of Peter's breakdown and their return to Nan's old home in Australia with a garden of six acres, so overgrown that at first most of their gardening had to be " ungardening." In it Ethel Turner shows; that her lovo or children and understanding of their moods have not diminished, while her lovo of gardens and garden-loro has grown with the years. "Tho Passionate Flight"—by Martha Ostenso (Hoddcr and Stonghton)—is a prizo novel. It gained tho verdict out of 1500 manuscripts submitted. It would have needed something of very unusual merit to heat this tale of the Canadian North West, for it will stand comparison with the work of many a matured author of established reputation. It has vigour, action, characterisation, and, something rarer and less palpable, real atmosphere. The story is that of a family tyrant, a farmer whose passion, in life is to wring wealth from tho soil. To this end ho dedicates his family, regardless of their wishes or their feelings. But thero is none of the crude bully about him. His domination is mental and spiritual rather than physical. His whole system is built on his exclusive knowledge of a moral lapse by ■ his wifo beforo he married her. Holding tho threat of exposure continually over her head, he uses the obvious terror with which she regards him as the weapon to subjugate their growing children, to bend them to his will, and to keep them in virtual slavery on his land. He makes them the serfs of the soil. Every sign of revolt is stamped out systematically, and mercilessly, yet with hardly a word spoken. The idea is worked out completely and artistically. The actors in the drama stand out. vividly, each with his own personality well portrayed. The action is developed with real symmetry, and the sense of fear and suppressed revolt brooding over the household of Caleb Gare is conveyed powerfully, yet with artistic restraint. The author is very young; there is little humour in the story, but otherwise it exhibits an astonishing maturity of touch. A notable piece of fiction altogether is " The Pas* sionato Flight." |_

" Tides of Men " by Ronald Oakesholt, 1 (Hutchinson). —Original and even power- ; ful in .its conception this book is far j above the type known as " holiday literature." Secret societies abound in novels nowadays, but these are generally organi- j sations for the destruction of all govern- i xnent and there is something novel in the j idea of a vast network of men and women | drawn from all grades and classes with | the object, not of destroying, but of sav- ! ing civilisation. ' The publisher's notice speaks of the " strong, clean characterdrawing " in the book, and the praise is not excessive. John Herrick is an excellent presentment of the happiness that comes from a complete conquest of fear in all its manifold forms. His wife, Anna (from Latvia), tho Jew Stravinsky, and Leonidas Bassenthwaite, M.A., are all types that repay study. Finally, in spite of the high seriousness that, informs tlio writer's purpose, tho whole book is shot through with gleams of a humour that spares not even its author, for, as Bernard Shaw says somewhere, " The world doss not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious 'wheu people laugh."