NEW BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20668, 13 September 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

NEW BOOKS.

ENGLISH VILLAGE LIFE.

" Tho Village Book," by Henry Williamson. (Capo.)

" Starvencrcß." by Nora Kent. (Hoddor and Stoußhton.) " Frolic Lady," by S. P. B. Mais. (Cassoll.)

" The Village Book " is not a novel, Tho author seeks to interpret to tho world tho lifo of an English village, both the human and the wild lifo. So ho divides his book into " The Spirit of the Village," sketches that deal in an unsentimental, realistic way with the personalities of tho placo, like John Kift, who shoots tho " ackymals " (torn-tits), for eating his " pays," though tho author tries to convince him that they are only after insects; and " Air and Light of tho Fields and tho Sea," descriptive passages which tho general reader will find tho more attractive part of tho book. Mr. Williamson is a master of delicately accurate observation and a beautiful prose style. Tho two combined, in such passages as the following: " Ono frosty night I listened to tho lap and gurglo of tho sea, racing at tho gravel ridges, a faint clamour like staghounds laid on to the lino of a deer, sounded far up in the sky. Tho clamour changed to a trumpeting, they were coming down; tho water shook in a net of stars, tho night was filled with a rush of wings. A baying from stretched necks; a sudden uprising of frail cries from bank to bank, going far down into the distance, tho harsh ' krack 'of an uneasy heron. Tho wild geeso had flown down from tho north."

" Starveacres " is a somewhat misleading title. It suggests a grim struggle with the grudging land, whereas " Starveacres " was the scene, for the greater part of tho book, of lavish, almost prodigal expenditure on tho part of Mrs. Moneyponny, the grandmother Lois of the story, whose imperious, wayward charm, affected tho lives, in varying ways, of her four grandchildren. Pleasantly told, with a touch of wistful sadness, the story in itself i 3 full of interest, but the background of tho English countryside, gives tho book a charm comparable to that of Sheila Kaye-Smith. Tho loveliness and the love-worthiness of England, are the author's theme. Rollo Moneypenny, on leave in war-time, " with tho thunder of the war-guns shaking the world, found a magic that even tho war itself could not shatter or defile—tho magic of early dew, pale on the grass of forgotten combes, where tho shadows of coming night crept greyly; of a little spinney, where the ash-buds were just comiDg into leaf, and wild hyacinths carpeted the ground, blue as the world's rim, or the colour of lost dreams; of tho scent of wild thyme, and sheepbells heard at twilight and little white cottages, huddled together in the dusky valley, where the river, faintly silver and rose, ran down between the hills to the sea." England cannot die while such love for her still animates her sons and daughters. * * » * »

No story written by S. P. B. Mais, could fail to contain a young couple, passionately in love and passionately quarrelling on the slightest pretext. In " Frolic Lady " the couple are Hugh Bellingham, son of an old, but impoverished family, who to keep the ancestral estate, are forced to take paying guests and provide teas for touring cyclists; and Barbara Lynam, the eighteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy landowner, who in order to keep his children with him, cuts them off with the proverbial shilling, if they marry. Barbara defies her father, marries Hugh, and is just beginning to know the stern joys of independence, when a melodramatic incident disposes of Colonel Lynam, who is found to have left Barbara, with the worst intentions, his huge fortune, hoping that as poverty has not estranged the pair, wealth may bo more effective. The plot is not free from the naivete of a " homo chat " serial, but the book is lifted above this level by its vignettes of the English and Scottish countryside, to the description of which the author of " See England First," brings the charm of enthusiasm and sincerity.