EXCELLENT ACHIEVEMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21520, 17 June 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

EXCELLENT ACHIEVEMENT

NEW CANADIAN NOVEL I Canadian authors of recent years have been carving a very definite niche for themselves in the literary world and have shown far more enterprise and vigour in the literary treatment of colonial life than has been tho case with Now Zealanders or Australians. They had the old days of the romantic North-West as a very sound, foundation, but Canada's wealth is in the fertile soil of her prairie lands. " Ifruits of the Earth," a new novel by Frederick Philip Grove, suggests that these prairie lands may becomo a sourco of literary wealth as well. Mr. Grove's novel, published by Dent in pursuance of the declared policy of that houso in encouraging tho work of colonial writers, is worthy of wide attention. Ho tells of an Eastern farmer who sells out and travels West to take up a section of unbroken prairie land. Possessed of great strength of character, vision and a consuming ambition, he gladly courts hardships" in order to attain tiio goal of wealth and security for liis family. Jll doing so he loses tho sympathy and understanding of a citybred wife and, when he rests from toil, sees his children as tho products of a new and vicious age. Although it has a wider scope, tho book is rnoro than faintly reminiscent of Mr. H. W. Freeman's perfect stories of English farming life. It has tho principle of the patriarch as its foundation, and in Abe Spalding, the farmer who dominates a whole district simply through his ability to see the goal ahead and to march unswervingly toward it, Mr. Grove has provided a magnificent character. He typifies tho real producer, the man who, more than any other, helps to win greatness for a young country. There is one chapter in which Abe Spalding, by trusting to intuition, saves the whole of a hugo wheat crop, while others, less courageous, lose theirs. This is a magnificent piece of vividly dramatic writing. The entire book is pervaded by a real understanding of farm settlement life. Drought and flood are made to acknowledge defeat in a struggle against inflexible purpose which assumes almost epic proportions at times. Human relationships aro well conceived and sympathetically portrayed and the book constitutes a really lino achievement. " Fruits of the Earth," by Frederick Philip Grove. (Dent.) •