THE BOOKSHELF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20626, 26 July 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

LIKE IX SOVIET RUSSIA

A MASTER JOURNALIST.

.THE BEAUTY OF WORDS. The work of a journalist to the uninitiated, may seem simple enough—just a matter of telling the events and happenings of the day in palatable form. But how well-equipped the good journalist must be to carry out that simple task may be seen by reading the last book of Mr. C. E. Montague, a journalist first and foremost, even if a notable writer in his spare time. Here is an abundant store of literary knowledge garnered from all markets, quotations which grow native in the text, nflver obtruding, but tickling the mind of the reader into the right state for the author to work his purpose, suggesting by their context the memory of earlier adventures in the world of literature. Perhaps the most striking feature in " A Writer's Notes on his Trade," apart from Mr. Montague's art in subordinating literary knowledgo to his aim, is his divine discontent with his practice of his art. He is always feeling after the beauty of words, trying to make the beauty which words and thoughts conceal within themselves live alone, apart from the baser matter which they demand for a vehicle. Ho cries out for the tragic beauty of the death scene between Othello and Desdemona without the material encumbrance of a bedroom, pillows, a woman and a man's rough gestures. He strives after the " pure" beauty of words, in the educational sense of the epithet. Mr. Montague combines the art of the writer with the skill of the journalist. In a chapter which bliows his wide reading in every line, he enlists the reader s sympathy at the outset by giving a list of famous books which he has never read, nor ever will read, and cries out against the oinniverous reader who knows his classics through and through. Better a man who has his little knowledge marshalled ready to command, than a fellow muddled with over-soaking. A comfortable feeling is at once established between human author and busy reader, which is heightened when he champions the common colloquialisms of every-day speeech as being far preferable to the pretentious stilts of blue-stockings. Justifiable and true enough., but the stock-in-trade of the skilled journalist nevertheless. A book of graceful English prose, downright, incisive, broad of vision, and preeminently just and sane. " A Writer's Notes on his Trade." by C. E. Montague. (Cliatto and Wiucius.). SUBURBIA IN ENGLAND. CHANGES OF THE YEARS. Many novels have traced the changes which * succeeding generations have witnessed in England. Latterly the tendency has been to view these changes through the eyes of exceptional or neurotic people who group themselves into artistic cliques. A book is of greater value and appeal when it recounts the growth and experiences of normal ordinary people, as H. G. Wells, has done for London suburbia, Arnold Bennett for the Five Towns, and as Mr. Gordon Stowell now does for the Provinces in " The History of Button llill." Button Hill is a Yorkshire suburb, selfconscious and select, and it sets out patriotically to havo a future. It is in (he dear old Victorian days of Bands of Hope, bombadine dresses which trailed the ground, Ladies' Cycling Clubs, Mutual Improvement Societies, "mashers" who sang humanitarian tenor in the church choir, and Liberal Prime Ministers so wicked as to win the Derby. But whereas almost every other writer who holds up this period to our derision does so with a " thank God we know better now," Mr. Stowell manages to make it seem beneath one's smiles as a rather enjoyable time even if wo all did some quaint hypocritical things. And becauso! it was the time of so many emancipated peoples' glorious youth, his is surely the better, truer retrospect. A hero who went round turning Holman Hunt's pictures face to the wall because their painter had spoken in favour of opening the picture galleries on Sundays, is surely a figure of fun. not of revilement. But the first half of " Button Hill" is about a suburb and its growth, only incidentally about people—Button Hill, which unseated a Government and took so prominent a share in resisting the Education Bill, Button Hill which seemed assured of a glorious future. But the electric tram, which annihilated distance, was its first enemy; it ran through it and treated it as an incidental rather than a destination. Then the younger generation grew discontented with it; finally the war well-nigh decimated it, and (ho profiteer destroyed its individuality and appearance. This is a book which can bo recommended with confidence to those who know England anrl like to go back over the changes wrought by the years. " The History of Button Rill," by Gordon Stowell. (Gollanc!!.).

"THE WHITE COAT."

" Tim While Coat " is one of a great cycle of novels }>y P. N. Krassnof, depicting life in Soviet Russia. .Hitherto tho cycle has been a tale of despair, " From Double Eagle to Red King." " The White f 'rial, " marks the turning of the tide, the promise of a return to the Double Kngle, to orderly government and sc.no authority. In a preface rhe author claims that the first three parts are historically correct, that tiiev portray happenings bused on fact. They present a state of affairs little higher than savagery nt its worst. Anarchy is rife in all its dark noisomeness. The celebration of tho horrible Black Mass leads more like the devil worship of some naked African tribe, than a rite with a European setting. Gradually there comes through the mists, like a star of hope, fho mysterious stranger, '-'The White Coat," a romantic figure at the head of the counter-revolutionaries, who goes about neutralising the acts of tho Red agents, revenging their crimes, and welding together the foes of anarchy into a brotherhood which is to restore Russia to her rightful place among nations. Those who find tho generality of Russian literature too si ill and gloomy for their taste, may well find pleasure in this book, which breathes life, energy, and constructive hope. " The Wliito Coat," by P. N. Krassnof (Allen and Uuwin).