"THE MAN OF IRON."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16354, 10 April 1915, Page 2

"THE MAN OF IRON."

The publication of Richard Dehan's Ion"--promised novel, "The Man of Iron," has been doubly delayed; first, owing to the serious illness of the author: and, secondly, because the paper on which it was to be printed was held up- by the transport of troops. The book has not yet reached New Zealand, but reviews have already appeared in the English and American papers. The limes, in its Literary Supplement, says:— The Man of Iron is Bismarck. We see him building the German Empire on the ruins of France, and associating -with P C. Breagh and the French girl P. C. Breagh is to marry and to the last page we are "J doubt which is his primary function. Much spaoe is devoted to the public history of 1870; and since recent events may well have modified the author's views of German methods and aspirations, we guess tnat the book had to be recast after the present war began as far as its length would permit, with the result that a conception which was once clear became blurred. Perhaps the author meant to adopt the German standpoint and to show the triumph of a cool, calculating, selfrespecting people, typified by Bismarck, . over a decadent and corrupt- one represented! by Napoleon 111, and then realising that no such picture would meet with . acceptance to-day he may have thought it expedient to emphasise German ruthlessness rather than German discipline, although this meant the sacrifice of his moral conflict. Thus wo find put in the mouth of Moltke:—"You .have told this stinkijig rogue that decent German men make not war upon women or children. When the time comes that we are guilty of such things Germany will be near her fall." While, at the same time we are shown German soldiers committing every kind of outrage and Bismarck as wantonly_ cruel as any of them. This may well be a true account of the war of 1870, andi it would be in. place in an historical survey; but such a theme is too serious to bp treated simultaneously with a slight love story. It swamps it. Again, in proportion" as wo are made to see the real-Powers of Darkness at work, say, at St. Privat, we find the wickedness of a conventional adventuress "with tawny wine-coloured eyes" artificial and tedious. "The story," we aro warned, "is to- be read merely as work of fiction founded upon the rock of indisputable fact." But at this moment there can be no blenching of the fact of a Franco-German war -with fiction of any kind. The elements refuse to combine and the story loses coherence. • But the separate episodes are vividly described ; at the author's suggestion wo conjure -up the great men of Germany eating, drinking, and destroying; troops on the march; and tho horrors of battlefields. And so we find ourselves pardoning him his garrulity and honouring the 1 drafts he presents upon our sympathy. The New York Times in its Review of Books writes: —

Zola' 6 '"Debacle" has hitherto been tho one outstanding work ot fiction dealing with tno .franco-Prussian war ot 18/0. But not unworthy to be classed witn it, although very diit'erent and on a lower piano 01 exoellenee, comes this long novel ot nearly 700 pages by Miss Graves, whose personality is Hidden under the pen-name ot "Richard DeJtiau." Zola's masterlul story, wholly French in matter and in viewpoint, is a swilt, comprehensive portrayal ot France rushing to destruction, tno picture drawn witn simple, deeply graven, terrible lines. Miss Graves writes lrom tho standpoint of tile onlooker, 6hitting her gaze irom one to the other of tho combatants, altnough it is chiefly concerned w.th the Prussian spectacle. And the picture that she draws is a panorama —an immense canvas

crowded with people, many of them bearing famo-us names, and there are nmrchiiig armies and great battlefields and whole countrysides devastated and filled with terror.

A. certain i J . (J. Breagh, a young Irishman who wants to be a war correspondent, is tho nominal hero of the story, and .s seldom absent from its pages; but it is Bismarck, ''tho man of iro-n," who dominates the interest and holds the reader's attention above all tho other characters. _ The portrait of him is a remarkable piece ol characterisation, and o! itself would give tlie book unusual interest, tor it is finely done, forceful, graphic, fusing into a living personality tne many descriptions and analyses of the Iron Chancellor that have been made byjus biographers. But tho author mars her work by using B-smarck as a deus ex machma, too olten springing him upon tne stage lor the resolution of some dilliiculty. Much of his domination over characters linn aifair j is managed skilfullv and conv.ncingly. But in the latter part of the book the author's grip upon her people and her plot, admirable through tlic hist two-thirds of the story, seems to have weakened. It is said that part of it was" written under the shadow of severe illness, and the feebler, less sure handling of these later de-velonrnents is ncrhaps the inevitable, and deplorable result. There \no slackening of tho emotional suspense whieh has been slowly and steadily inci easing as the lines of the plot tighten and converge The very structure of the tale has saved this factor. But the developments are less eloeelv knit, there is too much jumping from place to place of scenes and characters—a manner of treatment always productive of a jumbled and blurred effect—and every now and then tho effort of the author to gather up and weave in the straying threads of her plot lays bare its machinery. The strength,

skill, and artistry manifest in tho firsthalf or moro of the book indicate that these later faults were due to the weakening of the hand that held the pen.