LIVING CHARACTERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23109, 6 August 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

LIVING CHARACTERS

JAMES HANLEY'S TALENT "Hollow Sea," Mr. James Hanloy's new novel, describes a troopship in tho war —a hastily converted merchant ship. The captain, Dunford, is a morose, introspective man. He feels himself* to bo caught up in events over which he has no control. Those soldiers come aboard— Ho could see them climbing. Their fnces looked like many bobbins lights. Their bodies Accrued one with the intense darkness. He lost count of them. . . Fifteen hundred. Last tunc it had only been eight hundred. Ho heard them tram pint; the decks. He thought of cattle loading. The beasts stamping about in the holds, their wild, aimless movements mirroring their bewilderment. . .

lie wonders why lie should carry tlu'in -over the sea to be killed. '1 be other officers and the crew are different. They are earning good money, 'lhey risk their skins, and are thankful, when others are killed, that they remain alive. "There's a, war on," they say again and again, as though that explained everything. lhc point of view of each of them emerges without being stated. It is implicit in their actions and speech. They are men, not puppets, not symbols" of their creator's hopes and fears' and convictions. They exist separately, and then danger, a submarine's ugly snout pushing through the water, * unifies them, like particles of mercury coagulating: Tn silence the.v rushed out, flying: bodies, pyrs toward the boats. Beyond the alley wav, bedlam, and in bedlam, destruction. They rushed on And from (he bridge Dunford saw them—sailors, soldiers, firemen, stewards officers, saw them all. Men, boys, children, cowards, heroes, innocents, lunatics. The ageless aria of the sen was now hushed, (rave way to the fugue and chorale, and the fuguo was the secret rase tracing its message upon (he and the chorale was flesh. It is a pleasure to be able to express unqualified admiration for a book. Hollow Sea" will delight all who earo lor sincere, forceful writing, a dramatic narrative and living characters. ley Sea ' ' bJ JameS Hanl °y- < Th « Bod-