THE BOOKSHELF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21467, 15 April 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF

THE ENGLISH MUSE A BRILLIANT SURVEY It is difficult to praiso too highly for its scope and pattern, and for tho Diet hod of attack, a book well-named " The English Muse," by Professor Oliver Elton. Professor Elton's purpose is to show the continuity of tho urge which has functioned from earliest times until the present day and has resulted in tho broad stream of English poetry, its changing forms and values, tho ebb and flow of its voice, its ever widening course. To do this ho has gone straight to poetry itself and listened to its song, leaving to others to traco sources and influences, and exploit schools of thought, i The author has taken every considerable English poet, and many minor ones, examined thoir metres, their strengths, what they havo brought to the great stream, discussed their beauties and excellences, and put his finger on their limitations and handicaps. He has treated each poet individually, yet bo skilled is his craftsmanship that they blend into one continuous whole. His estimate gains immensely from being a personal one. He never hides or disguises tho accepted judgment of authority, but is never afraid to state his personal preferences and partialities. The result is a breadth of sincerity and personal value seldom met with in Biich a judicial and authoritative book. Here is no dry professor's dictum, but the judgment of a man of warm blood, not too old to have enthusiasms, , but one who knows tho value of tradi- ' tion. Tho book starts with Widsith, " Beowolf," and odd nnattributcd old English lyrics and moral verse, and ends with Brooke, Ledwidge, Lawrence, and Munro, having covered very ably the great field between. " The 'English Muse," by Oliver Elton. (Bell) THE TONGUE OF SCANDAL GERALD BULLETT'S THEME Even with the advertisement of recent collaboration with Mr. Priestley, the name of Mr. Gerald Bullett is not nearly so well known to readers as it deserves to be. If he were appreciated at his true worth he would be very nearly a best seller. For he can write of the simple lives of common men and women with a sympathy and understanding of their foibles which gives a new belief in humanity. When people are selfish or forgetful or stupid or vile, not for him is disillusionment and contempt; he seeks for the compensating qualities which leave a belief in the essential warmth of human nature. Mr. Bullett has made the friendship between father and son —a somewhat neglected expression in fiction —j:>eculiarly his own. This relationship is in part the theine of his new book, " The Quick and tho Dead," a very poignant idyl of English village life. The story is told by tho son in after years as he looks back on the events of his boyhood, recalling scene afteur scene which builds up his early history. There is the father, Robert Calamy, a fine character, between whom and his son there is a delightful companionship. There is his mother, much younger than his father, a laughing high-spirited grown-up girl of great beauty. All three are happy in an atmosphere of playful friendship. Then the son learns that Calamy is not his father, and the intrusion of the Tillage preacher with his slogan, " Repent or be Damned," influencing behind him the weight of village opinion, brings distress and tragedy to a home hitherto secure. The demands of the tale require the villain to be doubledyed, a man almost frenzied by pent-up passions, religious mania, and thwarted desires, but Mr. Bullett shows his awareness of his too dark picture by contrasting with him another preacher rich in the grace of human understanding. " The Quick and the Dead," by Gerald Bullett. (Heinemann.) THE GOLD FALCON A BAFFLING BOOK ) ' A disturbing book is " The Gold Falcon, or The Haggard of Love!" The reader has the publisher's word for the fact that its anonymous author is a very weJI-known novelist, and the author's that ho is " an airman and poet of the world war, and later husband and father, in search of freedom and personal sunrise in the city of New York, and of tho consummation of his life.!' At the age of twenty-two the war iended, and Manfred, one of the minor romantic figures of the war, found himself adrift in a world half-dead. Ten years later he had " all that a man could desire, so his friends believed genius, a beautiful and tender wife; two fine children; an Elizabethan house standing in a valley with a garden of old-world flowers and fruit trees; a trout stream; a fast car for visits to London; a sailing boat in the estuary; and the friends themselves, whose affection and sympathy were assured even if they thought nim difficult." ButManfrerl was sick. Ho longed for inner harmony, so suddenly he decided to try America,yand set off "a modern Columlus of the mind." His New York distractions seem futile, and the reader s interest flags. Manfred is often pathetic and moving, his sincerity arresting, but how thankful one is to bo dono with him. "The Oolf! Falcon, or The ITagcnrd of Love." Anonymous. (Fnhrr and Fabcr.) SHORT STORIES (ttK. J. C. SQUIRE'S BOOK 74 Outside Eden" is the titlo given to a volume of short stories by Mr. J. €. Squire. Very competent, if light and frivoltnig', stories they are, with something of a literary flavour. Had they been written by Alec. Waugh, one would have said that ho grows more like 0. Henry every day. lint Mr. ire has a certain position to uphold. These stories aro by the editor of the London Mercury, one of tho soundest jof literary journals. They aro by the leader of a school of poets of the last decade, and oven if timo has not substantiated their claim to importance it has not quito discredited their leader. 'But it may be that Mr. Squiro lias had dignity thrust upon him. His journal has never assumed a very pontifical (tone, and he led his squirearchy of poets , ibecauso ho was in a position to get their efforts published rather than by anj f jpoetry he wrote himself. Ho has always reserved the right to he frivolous whon ihe chose, but hitherto his frivolity has been stamped with an individuality of fits own. In " Outside Eden" ho conforms to a frivolity shared by dozens of his fellows. The stories aro coippetent'to relieve tho tedium of a railway journey, but are unlikely to add to the reputation of Mr. J. C. Squire. " Outeide Eden," by J. C. Sauire. (Heine6>»nn).