Books to Read and Books to Keep

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12643, 31 December 1926, Page 12

Books to Read and Books to Keep

(Reviews by

R.A.L.)

SOUTH AMERICAN WILDS . To discourse of jungles and the wild / men and animals that dwell therein J is a thing to which G. M. Dyott, | F.R.G.S., established a claim with his j ■‘Silent Highways of the Jungle.” I That right ho has exorcised to good purpose in “On the Trail of the Unknown” (Thornton Butterworth, Loudon), a book of travel in the wild parts of Ecuador. A fearful country to travel through, hut he ambles over it with ease, making us realise, nevertheless, the hardships and dangers and terrible discomforts. He shows-us also the possibilities of the fwure in some of those unknown lands. A scientific man. he talks interestingly of the creatures and comes across, and of the old races of men he has much that is good to hear. He sliows ns the great chain of the Andes, points, out Cotopaxi, Chimborazo and Sangai, the great volcanoes, taking, us Vrp with him nearly to the summit.

of the latter in. a thrilling experience with snow, ice erupting rocks, lava und ashes. He takes us with .him through his remarkable journey, oyer 20U0 miles, sketching the variona peoples 'he meets. and depends upon tor help, from the start at Guayaquil to the final escape by raft down the river Iquitos to the' Atlantic coast. And we ehjoy with him the run home in the palatial liner after the miseries of his mountain travel. A very entertaining book of travel. A NOBLE TRAMP The Monsieur of “Monsieur of tho Rainbow’’ , (Cassell; ’ London; copy from Whitcombe and Tombs) is a charming figure. A great French nobleman fallen from his high estate, he tours California as a tramp. Such a tramp 1 Courteous to a fault, shabby beyond frords. proud as Lucifer, tender hs a woman', independent, lonely in his camps, ever benefiting someone, and a hopeless victim to alcohol. Fate throws, him into many situations, with “hoboes,” with movie pic-ture-makers, with veterans of . the war in with Mexican ruffians. His grand air saves his. shabby costume—the coat stolen from a scarecrow, and, thongh threadbare, scrupulously clean; his music on a shabby accordebn played with the skill of a great master gets him admiration, and if anyone ventures to allude to his, former days a glance always produces a .warm apology. He becomes in due course the centre of a magnificent. story of love, murder, and friendship faithful to death, which, with the help of some finely-drawn characters, works out in moqt attractive fashion. One of the best books of the yesrl The author is Vingie Roe. GEORGE ELIOT Probably the “Letters of George Eliot” (Bodley Head, London), is a gleaning of .the rich field of a very distinguished writer’s literary effort. We all like to read about “George Eliot.’ ’about her unconventional life with its unsatisfactory sequel of her second marriage, about her genius and about her greater and her lesser novels. Most of us also like to see the best of her correspondence with her friends. Therefore

PARROT-LIKE AND UNPLEASANT When a New Zealand author or authoress publishes a book, we would naturally like to praise it, if only in encouragement of the too-few New Zealand writers we have, but with a book such as “Lenore Divine” (Duckworth and Co.), the utmost toleration cannot make us speak of it as anything but unpleasant and freakish. Early in her bpok, Jean Devauny, the authoress, speaks in terms of admiration of Richard Seddon, but we doubt greatly whether that is sincerity. He was an Empire-builder, whose policy, given effect to in legislation, enables thousands of people to establish themselves in homes and have their children honourably with them. Mrs Devanny’s views on marriage, parentage, and family relations savour very much of those expressed by Kolontay, the Soviet Commissar of Social Welfare, in his various pamphlets. The author has very obviously done, what she Speaks of other people' doing, written

> of the things she has read about, not v what she has seen or thought about i for herself. Lenore Divine, the principal character in the book, is simply j., made a mouthpiece along with Lafe l Osgood, a supposed New Zealand La-’ 1 hour Party leader, to try to teach 3 Marxian and Leninist revolutionary . doctrines through. the medium of a 3 novel. Many are likely to be shocked, i most readers will bo simply disgusted, , particularly with the fair Lenore, who begins the book by refusing to marry, a man she does not apparently care two pins about, but who in the same 1 breath offers to live with him. Lafe Osgood,' quite the best character in 1 the book, wanders in and out of the’ 1 story, first as a journalist, then as’a Labour Party organiser, but most of i the time as a fiery orator of subver- ■ sivo doctrines. Frankly,, the book, as a- novel, affronts; as a’ teaching of economics it! ; is merely a wholesale parroting of Kolontay and Engels, Communists whom we remember preaching almost ■ word for word os Lenore Divine does, • the abolition of the marriage • system and the setting up in its place qf a great universal family with the right to love where, and when, and how' the individual chooses. As a study of New Zealand- life, or, indeed, for that matter, of life anywhere, the thing is ridiculous. * « • • NOVELS FOR THE MILLION The style of “The Lawless Lover” (Methuen, London), by N. W. Byng, makes one conclude that the author's name is" guarantee for his knowledge of the things of the eighteenth century. At all events, if he is not of the family of noblemen famous in that century, it is not too much to say that he writes of the period as though saturated with everything of it —spirit, language, habits, dress, and mode or thought. And he tells a good story. An old ferry in old days with an old house dumped into a sinister wilderness for the ferryman—these are the formidable properties o.f “Lone House Ferry” (Nash and Grayson, London), by Isabel Smith. The araina carries a complicated love story, although not to the advantage of the heroine, and several interesting characters work it out, with much assistance from the great god Chance. • * • • “The Trail of the White Knight” (Harrap, London), by Bruce Graeme.

The AVhite Knight, like the Scarlet Pimpernel, dominates the foul crowds of revolution. *. • “Madame „Judas” (Herbert Jenkins, Londod), hy Margaret Turnbull. Murder and mystery.. • - , • • • “’The Black Buddha” (Herbert Jen- - kins, London), by Lady Chitty. India , . , hidden treasure . '. . mysterv. ' - • • • ' • “The Avenger” (John Long, London), by Edgar Wallace). All the thrills’that Wallace can produce. * • » - • “Dee Dee” (Hutchinson, Loudon, per Wliitcombo and Tombß), by Eliot Robinson. A parson in the role of a, detective. •, * « “The Road Beyond” (Herbert Jenkins, Lgndojn), by Elizabeth Southward. S .* Everybody is either black or white. • •' • * - . We.hayo received conies, from Messrs WJl.itcombo and Tombs of E. W. Hcrriiing’s pleasant novels, “.Raffles” and "Mr Justice Raffles.” They wil) no doubt get liiejr “second spring.”