FLOOD OF WAR BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20519, 21 March 1930, Page 16

FLOOD OF WAR BOOKS.

!THE SOLDIER'S CHARACTER.

'CRITICISM OF PORTRAYAL.

UNFAITHFUL TO TRUE TYPE.

[from: ora op correspondent.] . " LONDON, Feb. 13

Speaking at the annual dinner of the Metropolitan Area of the British Legion on Saturday, Sir lan Hamilton issued a warning against the present deluge of war books. "Wo are living through ticklish times, 1 ' he said. "For eleven years the nation has been out for peace, not at any price, but at almost any price. No'w there a,re signs of a reaction. Reaction is the natural child of exaggeration out of excess. On several sides we are tempting reaction by overdoing peace propaganda." It was rather odd that at the very moment when there were so many people in s the world who had fought in war, been shelled almost out of their skins, been shot at like Aunt Sallies, been wounded and gone over the top, that these elaborate attempts to exclude virtue, nobility, and even valour from war should chdose this time to begin to flourish like toadstools on the tombs of our dead heroes. The blazing and largely-deserved success of "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Journey's End," had shown publishers how, by employing finer writers, and by cutting out more thoroughly any touches of self-sacrifice, devotion, or love of adventure, they could go .one better with the pacifist public.

Dirty End of the Stick. iJ What is going to be the result of these defeatist books; of these attempts to lay the foundations of the temple of peace upon fear of danger rather than upon fearlessness of danger 1" asks Sir lan. "You and I should be able to answer that question. You are each the centre of a circle, of friends who draw their views on war from you. I meet exsoldiers by the thousand every week, and as,,colonel of a regiment interview young gentlemen from Oxford, Cambridge, or Sandhurst who wish, to become officers. "I can tell you that the result of trying to present war to the public as you might push the dirty end only of a stick trider a man's n6se and pretend that was the stick,'the whole stick, and nothing but the stick—the result of this ii=. ethically speaking, so great a failure already that our younger generation are in danger of becoming jingoes."

Colonel Freybefrg's Views. . Lieut.-Colonel B. C. Freyberg, V.G., tpeaking at a dinner of the Folkestone Chamber of Commerce, also referred to waf books. "The flood of war books at present is interesting for you and me," he said. "We know what went on during the war. W T e know what is true and #hat is untrue. But there is another generation growing up, and for their sake I deprecate most strongly any such suggestion as that the people who fought in the war were drunkards or cowards. In my four years of War service I saw only five drunken men. Ido not know of a tingle ma a shot for cowardice. "The language, I know, wis rough, but, on the other side of the ledger, I can tell yotr there were great-hearted men, and I saw them in thousands riisk their lives daily. That is what I fuel about trie present' war books. They are written j from the wrong angle entirely." -.ln the course of his presidential address to the Eton, Slough and Windsor branch the Workers' Educational Association, -Dr.. C. A. Alington, headmaster of Eton, •referred to war books. He cautioned his audience' against accepting the view of: human nature,' and of the British soldier, which most of them* gave. He said he Was bound to say they seemed entirely unfair, and he would have , thought ifc hard to think of the war as anything except the most terrible affair that had. happened. If anyone really leljfc that anybody enjoyed the war, or that they were there for fun, then they hstd better read these bookn to learn the . truth that war was a horrible -thing.

/ Necessity for Balance. . -It isnrprised him that it should be -necessary for them to be fold, in so much detail, how horrible war was. Only if they had any doubt of that did he recommend them to read these books. He did not mean to say that;- any of the books were exaggerated in detail. The most horrible things did occur, no doubt, . but in reading ana in writing good literature . they had to keep their heads and their balance.

" I cannot help saying," he added, " that I think it very unfortunate that When we are sitting here in such comfort aild in such peace we should have nothing better to do than to write and read about - the indecencies of the soldiers' life and £ -. the horrors of their physical sufferings, and should not find a word to say of. the splendour of the courage, the unselfishness, the generosity and tne self-sacrifice which carried them through." Other people give their views in the correspondence columns of tho Daily Telegraph. One writer says:—-"I can bear testimony to the fact that the average offioer and man was not as he is de{licted in many books, but 'a very gala6t gentleman,' and that many a padre was not as the author of a recent novel would have us believe, but a ' white' tnan through and through. / Origin of Some Evils.

'' We need to get rid of that muddled thinking which assumes that because war Is evil, therefore every evil, thing which occurs ill war has its sole cause in war: whereas some things are due to the habits and mentality formed in pre-war . times, which showed themselves in such incidents as are depicted with nauseating detail in certain war books. " This problem of tho war book is one of the many which bef.et those who, / like myself, try to earn their daily bread by providing good and healthy and clenn literature to those who frequent our bookshops. We, too, must surely pause and think awhile, lest we become ' war booksellers without honour.' " Another Writer says:—"lt is surely fa!r- better to read the books of such authors as Bartimaeus, Taffrail, lan Hay. * '"Sapper, Conan Doyle and others—all Clean, wholesome reading, portraying the ' high ideals of their subjects."