THE BOOKSHELF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21906, 15 September 1934, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF

PORTRAIT OF A LADY MAURICE BARING'S LATEST Maurice Baring's new novel, " The Lonely Lady of Dulwich," is perfect of its kind. With quiet subtlety he weaves the age-old spell and the modern reader yields as inevitably as a child to a fairy tale. The story is straightforward and unpretentious, a simple statement of facts set down with cool detachment. The author himself does not seem to intrude at all, yet it is easily apparent that only a per-fectly-mastered technique could present such slight material with such distinction. . Zita Mostyn was the youngest of three lovely sisters. Her father died just before she came out, and left her mother and herself—her two sisters were married —in reduced circumstances. She was soon glad to marry Robert Harmer, a banker, successful and well-to-do. Marriage, while preserving her beauty, failed to develop her personality. She lived contentedly and aimlessly in the country for some years. She made no friends, had no interests. There were no children and, although she and her husband had so little in common, they were comparatively happy. He was proud of her beauty, and when they moved to Paris he had her portrait done by one of the coming men. It created a sensation, and for a time Zita received the homage that her loveliness deserved. A famous poet fell in love with her and for a moment she contemplated leaving her husband, but only for a moment. She returned with her husband to England and seclusion, and became an ardent gardener. The truth was that Zita's beauty misled people. Her incoherence was attributed to depth. There was always a breath of mystery about her, for nobody grew to know her better, nobody, with the exception, perhaps, of her husband, who realised that her personality was quite colourless and not very intelligent. In middle age she fell in love, and it is this incident which is the key to her nature. " The Lonely Lady of Dulwich," by Maurice Baring. (Heinemann.) HIGH ADVENTURE IN COACHING DAYS It must be good for everyone, no matter how devoted he may be to the subtleties and tendencies of the clever psychological novel of the day, to dip occasionally into a full-bodied novel of plot and adventure. There he renews acquaintance with a dimension which, for better or worse, is being neglected of late. In this older type of novel characterisation is true to convention, instead of to life, and ia only roughly sketched in; indeed, it is only envisaged when at some crisis or high light. Compensatingly greater attention is paid to tho sequence of events and the drama of action. Mr. John Buchan, a master hand at novels of this kind, has recently published "The Free Fishers," a book which, opening in Scotland, shifts dramatically into East Anglia and deals with plots and foilers of plots, until it reaches a triumphant conclusion. The story, stripped of all trimmings, seems thin enough. A minister of the kirk and professor of logic in a Scottish college, gathering in his train the son of the Chief Justice of Scotland, an English lord, the head of the brotherhood of the Free Fishers of the lorth, a Scottish solicitor, and a very fine gentleman, sets himself to rescue a wronged lady from the clutches of her darkly evil husband, and thereby foils a plot to murder the Prime Minister of England. In the cold light of day, all very unlikely, and accomplished by most unlikely means, but under the spell of Mr. Buchan's weaving, one is foolish to question it. In fact, one would scarcely do so, except in retrospect, if he had not made his fine gentleman, with his lordly impatience and blind folly, such an unbelievable ass. In spite of its titlo there is little about the sea, but a great deal about coaching in the highroads and inns of Merrie England. A very enjoyable book, which makes one realise why the novel is seeking new forms. " The Free Fieheri," by John Buchan. (Hodder and Stoughton.) "DOGS OF WAR! " REPLY TO BEVERLEY NICHOLS The old question of War and Pacificism is never likely to be settled by argument, because when the crisis arrives all resolutions and conclusions go into ijie melting pot and are forgotten, and all but a stubborn or, it may be, conscientious minority rush to take up arms. Nevertheless, the case for disarmament having • been stated arrestingly by Mr. Beverley in "Cry Havoc!" it was inevitable that someone would take up the other side. The mantle has fallen on the shoulders of Major Yeats-Brown in the aptly named "Dogs of War!" which concludes Mr. Nichols' quotation. Perhaps a soldier is not the best person to defend his own trade, as in all honesty there ia only one side he can be expected to espouse, and his opinion.«i may be claimed to be ex parte. Nevertheless, Major Yeats-Brown, after dealing rather severely with his adversary, states his own case temperately enough, deploring the necessity for war, but submitting that in a world governed by man's self-seeking and ingrained pugnacity, it would be folly not to keep step with potential enemies. His without doubt the practical side, yet* he mixes it up strangely with the mysticism of Yogiism, wandering off to a religious rising in far-off India, and contemplating in leisurely fashion various psychological and physiological phenomena which lead him by devious routes back to the main issue. It is true that many of the arguments in "Dogs of War!" cannot be gainsaid. It is eqofttty true- that many of the contrary statements in "Cry Havoc!" sound utterly convincing. This is in times of peace. But when war descends upon the land, there is only one side to the question. The only way to conquer that, it may be urged, is not by argument, but by the even greater action of making war bo awful, that nobody will be willing to start it. "Dog* of W«rl" by F. Teats-Brown. (Dariea.)