THE BOOKSHELF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21758, 24 March 1934, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF

AN AMUSING MINX MARY MITCHELL'S HEROINE / Mary Mitchell's " Warning to Wan- ! tons," netting forth the not undeserved j but awful fate which befell a Minx, is 1 deliciously amusing, and will assuredly i be shallowed whole by an ever incrcas- j ing public in spite of the fact that j m matters of stylo, construction and \ psychology it will not bear close | scrutiny. But the printed word has an , odd power over readers, who accept j blindly everything that is set before I them. It was Charlotte Bronte who successfully introduced a plain heroine into fiction; previously there had been a procession of ravishing beauties. Her plain little Jane Eyre had brains and personality, and this combination gave her a power which beauty could never wield. Such has been the order in fiction to this day and the fact that in real life beauty and brains are often in close alliance does not complicate fiction at all. Mary Mitchell, with lengthy explanation, presents an insignificant girl as heroine. She is French, which is a help, for she is portrayed as the uersonification of sophistication, and when roused possesses an alarming power of attraction for men. A great admirer, the hyper-aesthetic Count Anton Kardak invites this minx (Renee de la Valliere is her name) to be his guest during wedding celebrations at his home. His dull son is to marry the beautiful daughter of a neighbouring house. Renee arrives looking her most insignificant self and the bride-to-be treats her as a child and is faintly patronising. Renee cannot sit down under this, so she throws her spell over the poor simple son of her host and nearly succeeds in upsetting the wedding. ' She reckons without her adversary—women appear impervious to her charm—and retribution follows swiftly. The consequences of her naughtiness are hairraising. Miss Mitchell has allowed her imagination to run riot. But the whole boob is extravagant and unreal; such people as Renee and the Count do not exist outside the pages of the book, although they give the author an excause for some shrewd comments on human relationships. " A Warning to "Wantons" by Mary Mitchell. (Heinemann.) A COMPETENT POET W. J. TURNER'S PHILOSOPHY Slim, in a dust cover of blackboard severity which might lead buyers to believe that it is a book for children, " Jack and Jill" is a poem by Mr. W. J. Turner, a competent poet, but better known as a musical critic. It is a poem which, modern in form and outlook, yet belongs to no school or group. It tells of love and life and a criticism of life as lived to-<lay. It is infinitely refreshing to find a modern poem conforming to the essentials of all good poetry—rhythm and traditional form — and attempting a constructive purpose. It tells of a Jack who " lit the heart and then the heart dismayed," a Jack imperfect, in whom Every woman in her son Hoped to find Jack, the unknown peerless one. Tien comes Jill, seeking her mate, But find the opposite of maid in man Is just what neither maid nor woman can. There follows the bitter sweet of love — Not so much pain put Dante in Purgatory As thou in me when mine eyes on thee linger. Then attempting to climb " the hill," they have their fall. They found all that was rotten and futile in hell; all that was attractive there too —for "hell like heaveil, is perfect in its way." Here does satire run loose, the lovely ironies of''hell, so fair, so governed by rule and the usage of man, and there Jack and Jill so nearly conformed and lost their love. But " 'twas not their destiny to stay in hell."-'' They won through to a land of hope and solid earth. Naked their children gambol on the grass In form, in mind, their parents they surpass. Destined like them to rise, also to fall To miss and yet to further life's ideal. " Jack and Jill," by "W. J. Turner. (Dent.) MR. HEMINGWAY'S ENIGMAS NEW /SERIES OF SKETCHES " Winner Take Nothing," by Ernest Hemingway, is a series of sketches, incidents or conversations which are supposed to crvstalise facets of life. This is merely a presumption. If they do not do this it is not easy to see what they do. Most of them take place in bars and similar places, the inference being that the really significant pivots of human conduct reveal- themselves there. What Mr. Hemingway seems to be doing is demanding that his readers shall use their imagination. If you are shown a c ( lod of earth from a New Zealand forest, it really comes from the same world and is a direct link with Tibetan mountains, and South American rivers and Greek temples and Welsh coalmines, so that to an imaginative reader it/can be a book of travel and conjure up the whole world. Just so these conversations of Mr. Hemingway, wholly unintelligible and sedentary by themselves, take place between people who conceivably love and murder and brawl and become dictators or paupers or far both ways, they might reveal the whole gamut of human conduct. In moments of action they might do this ■—here they are seen in repose, doing nothing. There is a considerable class of modern intelligence which delights to delve into the meaning of hidden things. Here is fertile ground for such. They will delve earnestly and argumentatively, a.nd undoubtedly find a meaning, none 'the less surely because there is none to find. " Winner Tnke Nothing," by Ernest Heminjrway. (Cape.)

DANISH PRIZE NOVEL I'I!ES'ENT-DAY DENMAI)K " Susaime," by Johannes Uucholtz, 'the Danish prize novel, does not satisfy the expectations aroused by its selection as the winner in the Inter-Scandinavian novel contest. It is, of course, proverbially easy to find fault, but seldom is there anything else to be found with si prize-winner. One ventures to affirm that this novel would not have had a.

ehnnce in any English competition. "W hat presumably is daring and enthralling to Danish readers, will ap-* pear very middle-class to the English public. The writing of the book is redundant and uneven. Much good writing is shadowed by incidents that hold the story back without enhancing it in the least. Its chief failure, however, lies in the character drawing. The ' chnracters are unusual, and often cleverly conceived, hut wholly lack conviction; naturally, this depletes the ' 'strength of the book and leaves the reader restless. Susannc, the heroine, for whose,beauty and charm one must take the' author's word, matures ■weakly. The whole hook lacks meaning j and unity. Its jacket promises a penetrating picture of present-day Denmark, whereas the -book deals with a cosmopolitan tourist group in a small •Danish seaport village. " by Johannes Bucholts. IHutrhinson.)