THE BOOKSHELF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20264, 25 May 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

WILDS OF AUSTRALIA.

STUDY OF ABORIGINALS. The recent doings of' Kingsford Smith nnd his rescuers have directed attention to the more remote parts of Australia. The publication of Sir Baldwin Spencer's two volumes, " Wanderings in Wild Austra lia," is therefore most timely. There can be few people bqtter equipped to deal with the subject, for his observation and studies cover a period of 18 years. Trained as a naturalist, he is more concerned with (ho aboriginals and the fauna and flora than with the face of the country, and his writings have exact scientific value. The Australian aboriginal is so often used to symbolise the lowest form of human degradation that it is pleasing to find Sir Baldwin's estimate rather tending to raise his status. Ilis standards are obviously not those of Western civilisation. His sense of property, his valuation of human life, his ideas on morals, appear shocking when so judged. But Sir Baldwin, studying him with sympathy and impartiality, finds that ho has standards of his own* lie is even an artist, who will spend days fashioning his implements arid ornaments to his satisfaction, and cannot Lie persuaded to part with any object which will not do him credit. There are accounts of tho religious ceremonies and barbaric customs of the various tribes. The books do not confine themselves to the aboriginals; there are pictures of the flotsam and jetsam which infested Port Darwin from 1894 to 1912. There is an amusing story of a servant of the Chief Justice, a young Chinaman, who was suspected of smuggling opium. Ilis quarters were searched in vain, until :t was discovered at length that his hoarding place was tho mattress on the bed of the Chief Justice. " Wanderings in Wild Australia," by Sir Baldwn Spencer. (Macmillan.) AN M. P. SHIEL'S REPRINT. THE CAPACITY FOR "THRILL." For many years Mr. M. P. Shiel would seem to have suffered a partial eclipse. Now Messrs. Victor Gollancz announce in glowing terms the reprint o f four titles, which herald a collected edition. Mr. Shiel has always been known to the discriminating few, and this generation having a special weakness for thrillers, it is no doubt estimated that the time is ripe to make him known to the general public. There is little doubt as to Mr. Shiel's capacity for thrill—if anything, he is inclined to overdo it. Ono needs superlatives to discuss his work. 'Io read, for instance, his " Purple Cloud" is a breathtaking experience. It is not sufficient for his hero to discover the North Pole; he returns to find the earth has been swept by a poisonous cloud. All land-dwell-ing creatures have been destroyed. He is the last man. Nor is that the end—he goes on to something more hair-raising still. Always there is a further climax. One tears for the general public it is all on too grand a scale —even a book can become overwhelming. The breadth of Mr. Shiel's conceptions and his gift of expression carry him triumphantly through his books. His powers of descrip tion are phenomenal, his vocabulary unlimited.

The four works republished arc " The Purple Cloud," " The Yellow Peril," " Lord of the Sea" and " Cold Steel." Of these the most successful is " The Purple Cloud." They are all in a sense historical novels, expressions of the fantasy of power. Their heroes are arch-heroes, to whom nothing is impossible. The books have orange jackets, on which are quoted all manner of golden opinions from the most important writers of the day. When Hugh Walpolc hails Mr. Shiel as a flaming genius it is certainly more apt to make one. more readily buy the book. One cannot but recognise Mr. Shiel's imaginative genius; regarded as sensationalist, the importance of his position is unassailable. He appears, however, to lack a sense of humour and a knowledge 01 human nature. He is philosopher, scientist, poet and seer, and yet of the common stuff of life he would appear to know liltle or nothing. " The Purple Cloud," " The Yellow Peril," " Lord oE the Sea" and " Cold Steel," by M P. Shiel. (Gollancz.) PRIZE DETECTIVE STORY. '' TJIE IN CON SISTEN T VILLAINS." Theio are few forms of literature which make such constant demands on the intellect as " clue" or detective stories Unless all obvious clues are firmly discarded, and all casual hints pounced on and treasured iri the memory, it is impossible to follow Ihe thread. In the modern psychological novel fho reader can skip 50 pages at any time and be sure that the action will only have advanced 10 minutes, and that nothing of any importance will lia v « been done or said In a detective story tho slightest flagging of tho attention may bo fatal. In " Tho Inconsistent Villains" a number of ex-officers, disbanded from the army, feeling tho urge to do something more foi England, form a kind of Secret Defence League, and find themselves running up against something bigger than they had looked for—nothing les- than a plot to supply England's enemies with arms. A murder, an abduction and a kidnapping in widely-sundered localities aro linked up by a modern Sherlock Holmes and his Watsonian friend, who take the lield single-handed against both contending [(attics. Working in the dark this one incisive brain sifts the wrong from tho right, and his lielp, thrown in at the critical moment, decides tho issue. There is immense ingenuity and skill in laying and working out the clues, ciphers, traps and coincidences. The plot, slabs of plot, lashings of plot,' simply staggers the intellect. Mr, Templq-Ellis received a prize of £250 for writing this book. It was sweated labour! " The Inconsistent Villains," by N. A. Temple-Ellis. (Methuen.) PLAYS BY STRINDBERG. A SWEDISH PUBLICATION. When Bernard Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature he used the money to endow an Anglo-Swedish Literary association. An English version of Easter and Other Flays by August Stnriclberg is the first publication of the association. " Strindberg," says Professor J. G. Robertson in his introduction, " was, indeed a strange complex personality; no other modern writer fills us with such irritation, resentment, repugnance; yet holds us so irresistibly in his grip He was an egocentric in the highest degree, a man of barbaric self-assertion, a moral anarchist." " Tho Dance of Death," is perhaps the most interesting play in the volume. The writing is full of power, while tho caricatures of tho weakness of human nature are extraordinarily effective. " Enater and Other Plays," by August Strindberg (Cape).