FROM CHINA TO EUROPE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22214, 14 September 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

FROM CHINA TO EUROPE

ANN BRIDGE'S LATEST Ann Bridge gained immediate recognition with her two first novels, "Peking Picnic" and "The Ginger Griffin," and she is now one of the most widelyread novelists in England and the United States. For the setting of her third book, "Ulyrian Spring," she has turned from China to the Dalmation coast of Europe. The change of scene brings out in a striking manner the writer's gift of description. Countrysides which are strange to the English or colonial mind are vividly depicted. Tho story is of an English woman, a painter, who is not sure of herself owing to her unhappy relations with her husband and children. She goes to Dalmatia, hoping to regain through her painting her happiness and selfconfidence, and meets a young man also troubled by family affairs, who falls in love with her. This part of the story is convincingly and sympathetically" developed. However, the greater portion of the book is devoted to the problem of the almost inevitable misunderstanding between the older and the young idea. The reader is impressed by Miss Bridge's understanding of human relationships, but tho story rather loses movement. At the conclusion, the writer brings tho characters together through a series of coincidences —a somewhat obvious method. But readers, whatever their view of tho story itself, will appreciate keenly tho remarkable descriptions in the book and the skilful presentation of the personal problems which occur. This aspect of tho writer's work shows n more intimate touch probably than in her earlier bocks. " Illyrian Spring," by Ann Bridge. (Chatto and Windua.)