THE BOOKSHELF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

! • A hunting classic. / MEMOIRS' OF A SrORTSMAN. Fox-limiting is one of those mysterious pleasures winch, liko golf and modern dancing, havo to bo experienced to be endured. To tho uninitiated the hounds 6 eeni only to be in the way. You must ; no t ride faster than them, and they are not a bit of help if you cannot ride, fast enough. The fox, too, is only a nuisance. If it gels away, you have failed in your objective; and if you kill it that ends tho hunt, besides being anything but pleaBant for the fox. In reality, tho sight of a hunt stirs gome tingling chord in almost everyone. Horses in full gallop across the green turf, the red coats and tho keen air it is a dullard who is not stirred to some response. " of a Fox-hunting Man." by Siegfried Sassoon, a kind of seeded actualities," is likely to appeal {0 every lover of the out-of-doors, whether he has ever followed the hunt or not. The angle of vision is unusual. It is not written from tho point of view of the hard bitten hunting man, born in stock and leggings, with horses in his blood. Tho writer was a lonely, sensitive boy, dallying round his aunt's apron Strings, who took to hunting to while away the tedium of his long days of leisure, and had to learn its rules and usages by slow and hard experience. 'go there is discourse of things which most hunting books simply take for granted, or dismiss as beneath notice. This hero was genuinely afraid of his fences, lie made bad breaches of etiquette; he sawed his horse's mouth; lie did not alwavs contrive the correct dress. Thus he takes his readers through all the difficulties of tho initial stages of foxhunting. By degrees it enters his blood, and he becomes a devotee. Ho journeys miles to tho surrounding districts to attend the various meets, learns to know •hounds, hikl to care for his horses, »nd actually wins a Hunt tup In between hunts there are some delightful pictures of the life of a country gentleman in pre-war England. There are descriptions of village cricket matches, -week-ends spent with the neighbouring gentry, occasional trips to London, If the book has'Vi fault, it is that the hero is too simple-minded, too withdrawn from worldly pleasures. His worship of the master suggests the immature schoolboy rather than the grown man. We sense, chapters before it happens, that ho is to be drawn into the hurly-burly of the war, and from its bufferings learns the / true meaning of life. . / Siepfried Sassoon's rather raw and ruthless war poetry hardly prepared us tor the charm of this book of rural England, with' its qualities of leisured ease ana simple pleasures. These "Memoirs will bear comparison with any book of limiting vet written. _ But it is much more than a mere sporting oook. It has a delic-acy of perception and a subtlety of irony not usually associated with sporting -literature. It is possible that thtest, of time will accord this book a high place among present-day literatuie. "Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man.'' by Siegfried Sassoon (Faber and Gwiei). AN A. A. MILNE PLAY. "THE IVORY DOOR" LEGEND. The clown wants to plav the villain, the hero wants to play the fool, and so the world wags. A. A. Milne is peevish because the critics will not regard him .is a heavy-weight. What does tho man want? He has written one of the best and most popular modern comedies; he has written one of the l» est ai ]d populaT children's books of all time; he • has written some delightful essays, is he annoyed because he did not write Shakespeare and Johnson s Dictionary . Surely he fannot be jealous of people like Granville Barker, who is praised by the critics for plavs which the public will not look at, . Mr. Milne anticipates trouble bv roasting his critics in his preface. He forbids them to call the play " whimsical" or " tricksy," or " make-believe, and as no other adjectives describe it so well, it seems superfluous to describe it at all. 111 the palace is an ivory door, arid legend has it that no one going through has ever returned. Hie young Prince says, " Of course, if you went through the door you might never come back, but you would know all about just before you never came back." When he becomes King he is still tormented by the mystery of the ivory door, and on his wedding morning he goes through it, and instead of the devils he expected, he finds hut ii l few musty cobwebs. In two hours he is back again, but the people will have none of him. Legend says he should be dead, therefore ho is dead. 'lbis person who has returned is a devil who has assumed his shape. To prove the truth the Princess follows him through the door, and she ajso comes back safe. proves that she is an irnposter, too "Do they want to lose their King?" "No ... .but /rather him than their legend. This story of the ivory door, we have lived with it, it has been part of our lives, for how many hundreds of years? " So the people are left with their legend and the King and Princess find a newborn freedom. A good play, a whimsi , that is, an imaginative play. Mr. Milne says it if the best lie lias written, which onlv goef to show that play-wrights are not always their best critics. " The Ivory Door." b7 A. A. Milne (Chatto aprl Windus). SUCCESSFUL NEW NOVELIST. HUMOUR, WHIM, AND PATHOS. Katharine Haviland Taylor has scored a complete success with her book, " Thf Youngest One." Her name as a novelist is unfamiliar, but there is a style and Sureness in her writing that one seldon: encounters in a first novel. There js, moreover, sufficient material between its covers to supply plots for two or three books. One feels that Katharine layloi has give/i generously of her best. Tho first chapter introduces a ministei and his family of three daughters. II is an interesting and unusual famih group, 'and Valette—" The Youngesl One " —catches tho reader's sympathy from the/earliest page. In an unhurriec manner (lie reader follows the fortunes of the family through tho years. 11k two oldest, girls marry, while Valctle, or whose shoulders the story rests, remains at home with her mother. Tho earl} chapters of (he book arp full of intimate family life. It is in turn humorous whimsical, and pathetic. \alette is ont of the most attractive characters in mod ern fiction. Tragedy shadows the latte half of the book, yet never so heavih that one forgels the delicately happj youthfulness of the earlier chapters. Then is, moreover, an entirely satisfactory end ing. " The Youngest One "is a boot that carries a wide appeal.

, " The Youncest One" by Katharine Havil&nd Taylor (Benu),