THE BOOKSHELF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20722, 15 November 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

THE BOOK GUILD'S CHOICE. "THE SECRET IMAGE." In the "Secret Image," Mr. Laurence Oliver tells simply but with great effect the story of a romantic love, its fulfilment and gradual decline, and the disillusionment, of the woman. The theme is developed in an unusual way. Mr. Oliver starts at the end and works backwards. Charlotte Blair, a middle-aged woman, escape* from her burning home on one of the Seilly Islands by jumping from her bedroom window. Her husband does not escape. She is carried in an unconscious condition to the minister's house, and regains consciousness to a blank memory. She docs not even know her own name The minister and his wife nro of little help; for although slio has lived somo fourteen years on the island, nothing was known concerning her. The belief that she and her husband were unmarried, added to her husband's drunken habits, bad alienated the islanders; no friends had ever visited them nor had they ever received person il letters through the post office. To the minister and his wife and the interested doctor who attended her. she appeared to be a mystery. Then suddenly, by chance, a friend of her youth recognised her and enabled her to recall the memory of her oarly life. As her memory is restored she unfolds her story. The reader is cleverly kept in ignorance until the last tragic chapter. This book has been chosen by tlio Book Guild as the book of the month. " The Secret Image," by Laurence Oliver (llarrap). " FOXHUNTING MAN " SEQUEL. MEMOIRS OF SASSOON. Siegfried Sassoon has two outstanding claims to fame. First, as the author of " The Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man," one of the three best books inspired by the war; secondly, from his action in publicly laying down his arms and retusing to figlii any more, not from cowardice, not because his conscience was against all war, but because after sober reflection he considered that it was against the interests of England to continue to fight. ' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer " takes up the story where Sassoon's previous book paused in 1916. If it is less individual than the fox-hunting book, it is only because these war years were not so important in the formation of his character as the more solitary and thoughtful years of his adolescence. It shows a mind eminently sano and sound, able with his poet's vision to see beauty in bis sordid surroundings, finding music in the rumble of the guns, colour in the sun and rain across No Man's Land. Unlike some other writers, there is nothing violent or hysterical in his pages. 1 lis ridicule becomes all the more devastating. The book is generally, as the title implies, an informal, retrospective and exceedingly modest account of the doings of an infantry subaltern in 1916-17, leading up to his interesting declaration. " Memoirs of nil Infantry Officer," by Siegfried Sassoon (Faber and Faber). A NEGRO CREATION. " THE GREEN PASTURES." The much-discussed negro play " Green Pastures," by Marc Connelly, has now reached the public in book form. The play was banned in England because it introduces the Deity to the stage. The story is that of the creation translated into " Negroese." Both language and sentiment are the essence of modern colloquialism. Yet. perhaps because it is a most wonderful story, it makes a strong appeal even to the colder English mind. The earth and its people are shown as an experiment by God, an experiment which went wrong. God is troubled by the sinful pleasures and cheap ways of His favourite people. He comes down ever and anon to help and guide them. In despair, He sends a flood to destroy them, and lovingly ho fashions them anew, but ere long they have strayed as far from the fold as before. He grows tired of His experiment and withdraws His favour from them, but is persuaded to visit them once more. Then Ho learns that only through suffering, His as well as theirs, can mercy and peace and prosperity coine to His favoured people. Readers of the play are advised to continue past the initial shock caused by the negro familiarity with sacred things, when the play will be found to have a message and a distinct appeal. "Tlio Green Pastures," by Marc Connelly (Gollancz). WANING INSPIRATION. MRS. B. K. SEYMOUR'S DECLINE. Mrs. Seymour's heroine, Vicky Jardino, is brought up in a literary atmosphere. There is a literary tradition iu the Jardine family which Vicky aspires to carry on. Her father is a popular editor and critic as well as a novelist and a very charming in,in Women find him extremely attractive, a fact which continually upsets his jealous and neglected wife, and dismays Vicky, his adoring and only daughter. This is the atmosphere in which Vicky is brought, up. Consequently. she is thoroughly modern, sophisticated and unshockablo. She is also, however, an incurablo romantic. 'I ho reader has a Shiver of apprehension from the. earliest, chapters for any love affair of Vicky's. Sure enough, slio eventually falls ire love and marries an obviously unsuitable man. Tragedy follows quickly upon her disillusionment. The lest scene iri Mrs. Seymour's story, " But not for Love," has already been published in the form of a short story. It, is unquestionably the best, part of the book. It.is impossible for the reader not, to f"el that the earlier part has been tacked on to the original short story for the sole purpose of filling out a book, as 'I, is entirely lacking in inspiration. One is apt to remember those earlier books of Mrs. Seymour's "The Hopeful Journey" and " Three Wives " —but comparisons are as odious as cvei'". " But Nut For Love." by Beatrice Kean Seymour (C'hnpiiiau nnd Hull).