BOOKS OF THE DAY: REVIEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25054, 18 November 1944, Page 10

BOOKS OF THE DAY: REVIEWS IN BRIEF

Mr George Sava is a man of two callings: he is both surgeon and author. With fifteen books to his name he may fairly be said, in his secondary career, to have shed all claim to amateur status. His latest work, "Surgeon's Symphony," tells, primarily, of the author's distressed discovery (Iby way of his other profession) that the "old" Russian mood of mystical nostalgia still lives on in the circles of the White refugees. From this recognition he is led to record his reminiscences of the Tsarist twilight, and to tell of other things he remembers to have seen in pre-war Europe. But not all is written in the past tense. There are impressions of London under the blitz, and there is an amusing account of a domiciliary visit by officials of Scotland Yard (Special Branch). It is all immensely entertaining and not seldom moving. (Faber.)

Doings in a Garden Gardening in an Auckland suburb need not be a humdrum business. Anyone can tell this from a high-spirited collection of anecdotal sketches by Elsie K. Morton, entitled "Gardening's Such Fun-" Miss Morton fills hor pages with the vagaries of nature, including plants, humans and so on, down to insects, blights and bacteria, with some space for the perversities of inanimate things, such as garden tools, lime and cement. It- is a little book that Miss Morton's own particular public, and doubtless others, will thoroughly enjoy. Photo-' graphs from her camera assist the narrative. (Oswald-Sealy, Auckland.) Mr Adrian Alington

In Adrian Alington's skilful hands even the most commonplace story takes on a peculiar charm of its own. Assuredly there is little that is new in the career of "Rosie Todmarsh" and yet from first to last it demands your delighted attention, .Rosie and the lovely

I Edna are the daughters of a "low" comedian who sinks down to the depths. The snobbish beauty fittingly marries a baronet; Rosie, after leaving the provincial stage, serves behind a bar, marries the most engaging publican in recent fiction, and henceforth directs all her energies to the one end of seeing her only son "a gentleman." (Chatto and Windus.) Euripides in English Mrs Rex Warner's rendering of the Medea of Euripides into English verse suggests the hope that the experiment will be continued. In the tradition of Browning rather than of Gilbert Murray, Mr Warner's unrhymed verse reproduces admirably the spirit and meaning of the original. There is much that is very modern in the groat realist of Greek tragedy. Mr Warner should find a ready audience. (Bodley Head.)

Mr Howard Spring "Hard Facts," by Howard Spring, is the first volume of a trilogy from the 'eighties until the present dav, The setting is the author's own Manchester, which he depicts so well that the reader feels he knows the city inside out;, from gaslit main thoroughfare to murky back alley. f.Jomc of the characters give the impression of coming out of the fiction of a half-eenturv ago. but Dan Dunkerley and Alec Dillworth, starting their weekly paper, "Hard Facts," that is to succeed so astonishingly, are real Mancunians. It is good to think we are to meet them again. (Collins, Auckland.) Quarterly of Verse. An excellent quarterly publication of Australian and New Zealand verse is "Poetry," edited by Flexmoro Hudson. In its twelfth issue are poems in varying moods,' from the strangely bitter reflections on "Gum Trees," by Ken Barratt, to the editor's poignant poem, "Pranged." There is a war flavour about most of the pieces and an atmosphere of sorrow and suffering, but the quality of the verse is high. Among the New Zealand poets represented are C. R. Allen and Paula Hanger. Mr L. A. G. Strong "The Director," by L. A. G. Strong, is a tragi-comedy about an attempt to make a film in a small Irish village. The villagers and the local innkeeper are only too willing to co-operate, out the priest puts his foot down firmly on the project. There is some humour in the battle that follows and the suicido of the charming and innocent village girl chosen as the heroine comes as a shock. The chief interest of the novel lies less in the action than in the character of the film director. [ (Methuen.),