BRILLIANT BOOKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19204, 21 June 1924, Page 4

BRILLIANT BOOKS.

OF DIFFERING DESCRIPTION

Brilliant books appeal to the discerning few; they are scarcely ever popular. The popular book is often the reverse of brilliant, tending to the sentimental, the melodramatic the commonplace. Intermingled wit!) hundreds of popular books published at the present day are two or three brilliant pieces of writing: and, surprising ns it may seem, some of them arc the work of women writers. Indeed, in many respects the women are taking tho lead as witness the work of Shiela Kayo-Smith, Clemenco Dane, Dorothy Canfield, Dorothy Richardson, May Sinclair, Rebecca West, and last, but by no .means least, Rose Macaulay.

I.—LIFE AS IT IS LIVED. To crowd forty-four -years of tho complicated life of the present day into a book of little more than three hundred pages is in itself an achievement, especially since nothing of importance is omitted. When, moreover, what might easily be little more than a record of events is woven into tho semblance of a storv and utilised as (.he background on which live and move anti have their being the numerous members of a modern family, tho achievement becomes all tho more notable. And when in addition the evolution of each member of the family serves to illustrate the movements, political, social, religious, and arbatic. which have distinguished the last quarter of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centurv the_ effort becomes positively brilliant. All this and mere Mias Peso Macaulay has accomplished in her latest novel “Told By An Idiot.” this arresting and unique title borrowed from Shakespeare’s lines put into the mout of Macbeth when word is brought to him of the death of the Queen: — I,ile’s but. a walking shadow, a poor player That struts anil frets hi:- hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a talo

Toltl by an idiot., lull of sound and Inry Signifying nothing. . . . Of tho women novelists who are showm; the way in the field of fiction to-day. Mis Rose Macaulay is in the first rank—and this in addition to her renown as a poet Miss Macau lav began writing stone eighteen years ago, but she definitely cam to tbo fore in 1912 with that nowerful bool “The Leo Shore.” Since that time she has gone on from strength to strong!' with “Tho Dangerous Ages,” “Potterism, ’ and “The Mystery at in which the social life, the journalists life, the political life, of tho present or are successfully satirised. In her laterr effort Miss Macaulay gathers together a 1 the threads, and, in one trenchant recon' presented as a vast panorama, she shewlife as it is lived, and with stinging satir demonstrates that beneath the externa' life, real actual life is tho same yestor day, today, and for ever. None of th< chanters iri the book are long—some barcb envoi a page—but the condensed sty) which Miss Macaulay adopts throughon' enables her to put as much into a chapteas suffices an ordinary novelist for an entir novel. The story opens on an evening DeferChristmas in 1879, when “Mrs Garde” came briskly into the drawing room from Mr Garden's study, and said m her nnsteven voice to her six children ‘Well, no dears, I have to tell vou something. Poopapa has lost his_ faith again. ” Indeed the changes of faith which Papa Garde” underwent from Anglicanism to Unitarianism, thence to Roman Catholicism Atheism, Rationalism. Comptism. thRthicul Society, Theosophy, Christian Science. Spiritualism, Higher Thought Seventh Day Adventism, and Irvingism make the foundation of the book. Besideaffording Miss Macaulay opportunity to lash with kindly satire the fashionable re llgmus fads and fancies of the day, the depiction of Mr Garden’s spiritual pil grimage has its reflection in the lives of the members of the family. Hie book is divided into four parts: 1, Victorian; 11, Fin-do-Sicde; 111, Edwardian; and IV Geosgian. The fourth part is subdivided into “Circus,” “Smash,” and “Debris.” Besides telling _ a stirring story, Mis? Macaulay has painted a vivid picture of the past 45 voars, which, carefully read serves as an historical reminder of nil the things this unhappy olj world has latterly passed through.

lI.—EDUCATION AS IT IS TAUGHT Mr Aldous Huxley, in his own way, is as freat a satirist as Miss Rose Macaulay n his blood ho combines the social and spiritual heritage of the Huxleys and the Arnolds, and as a consequence nothing is sacred from his satire. Already he ha? won fame as a poet, essayist, and short story teller, but “Antic Play” representbis first attempt at a complete novel. He has taken his title from Marlowe’s lines: "Mr men like satyrs grazing on the lawn?. Shall with their Goat-feet dance the Antic Hay.”

The story opens with Theodore Gumhril junior, 8.A., Oxon., sitting in his oaken stall on the north side of tho School Chapel and listening to the boomin'accents of tho Reverend Pelvey. “There ■were thirteen weeks in the summer term there would bo thirteen in the autumn, and eleven or twelve in thp spring; and then another summer of thirteen, and sc it would go on for ever. For ever. It wouldn’t do.” f.

This prospect of everlasting schoolmaster ing frightened Gumbril, and he decider' to go away and make money. On a large scale “ho would bo free and he would live. For the first time he would live.” IT*' decided to make a fortune out of “Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes.” In answer to a question from his fatherGumbril Senior, and an architect with im possible ideals —Gumbril Junior con descended to explain : “Scient ifiallv. then,” said Gumbril' Junior, “my Patent Small-clothes may he described aa trousers with a pneumatic sent, inflateablo by means of a tube fitted ■with ,a valve; the whole constructed of stout seamless red rubber, enclosed between two layers of cloth.”

“I must say,” said Gumbril Senior, in a tone of somewhat grudging approbation, “I have heard of worse inventions. . . . We Gnmbrils are a bony lot.”

“When I have taken out a patent for mv invention,” his son wont on, very business-like and cool. “I shall either sell it to some capitalist, or I shall exploit it commercially myself. In either case 1 shall make money, which is more. I may say, than you or any other Gumbril have over done.” Gumbril, Junior, who has an annuity of £3OO, left him by an “intolerable Aunt Flo.” launches out on his career, with the double idea of making a fortune out of his “Patent Small-Clothes” and of being free and seeing and enjoying life. Mr ITuxlcv uses the adventures of his hero to demonstrate the uselessness of a university education a.s a means of making a living in a commercially minded world. He also satirises severely the several phase® of what is generally known ns “seeing life.” Ins satire including a scene or two which mav shock the over-prudish. _ The brilliancy of the hook lies not only in its characterisation, but also in the conversation. The humbug and hypocrisy of many of ihe artistic, literary, and musical movements of the time come under a stinging lash, and all who enjoy an exceptionallv clever niece of writing should secure a copy of “Antic Hay.” lII.—THE GAME AS IT IS PEA TEH. Mr C. E. Montague is one of the living and moving spirits on the staff of the Manchester Guardian, a newspaper immortalised in “A Hind Let Loose.” He is n capable critic, as witnoss_ his book on “Dramatic Values.” During the war period the iron entered his soul, with the result of that, stern protest called “Disenchantment.” Ho now comes to the front with a series of stories called "Fiery Particles,” the heroes of which hail from Australia, Ireland. Scotland, London, and with nil of whom Mr Montague shows himself perfectly at home. In “A Note” to his hook the,author says: Now that I soo them sot out in a row, these yarns seem to bo all about a set of wild bodies that want to bo up and doing something, as often foolish as not; everywhere somebody much taken up with a lance that he has—shining or shabby, ho wants it put in verse; he rides out on some good or queer quest, in a great state of absorption and hope, pricking a "hobby horse bred and imperfectly broken in, by himself. I blush to find my creatures so forward; they sten up to life, they speak to her first and otter to print their own whims on such talk as may pass between them and her before she consigns them to dust.

I fear these ardent cranks are a little out of fashion. They ought humbly to suffer the business or game of living, not pull it about nor try to give it new twists, each to his ora wayward liking. Ours is the day of the hero who slips through life : voluble, yes, but passive, a drifter, pleading that lie is the fault of everyone else and declining all of life that is declinable. Still, what is a fellow to do? If, of all the men you have known, none will come back to your mind except arrant lovers of living, mighty hunters of lions or shadows, rapt amateurs of shady adventures or profitless deal, how can you steep them in languor enough to bring them* up to the mark? Better let them go and take their chance, ag the fiery particles that they were in the flesh.

Mr Montague is a superb stylist; no slip-shod English ever falls from his pen; He has a pretty trick of satire pointed with humour, and he knows how to tell a story. Possibly much of “Fiery Particles” will be caviare to the general, but, as a description of the game of life as it is being played after tho war, those nine tales take front rank. Of tho nine, “My Friend the Swan” is possibly tho cleverest. It tells how Colin March, an ex-service man, “began to feel his way back into the ranks of civil industry,” and this by means of the trade advertisement branch of the Shakespeare Publicity mist. The way in which “My Friend the Swan” readily adapts himself to advertising purposes is amusingly related, and Mr Montague has a smart fling at tho cryptogram makers, and ho shows a case whereby the “W.H.” of the sonnets is not William Hall, William Herbert, Willie Hughes or even William Himself but indubitably and certainly William ’Toheiizollern. AH the stories are brilliant, and “Fiery Particles” is a book to be re turned to again and again. 'V.—ENGLISH AS IT IS WRITTEN. Mr J. Middleton Murry is one of tin oat distinguished of the younger school o) Titles. Ho is especially jinked to the do -union as husband of tho late Katharine tansfieid. As editor of Adelphi he preache' ) high idealism As biographer of Do?toev ; ky he has plumbed the depths of Rus'an pessimism and melancholia. He ha' entured upon poetry and fiction, but i' < as a critic that he reigns supreme. lis books on “The Problem of Style” am The Evolution of an Intellectual” he se : big!) standard, maintained throughout '■ aas two collection? of essay?- “Countries nf <» Mind” and “Aspects of Literature nder the title of “Pencillings.” Mr Mur-y is issued in book form a collection of litil says on Life and Literature originally cn" ' ributed to The Times two years ago, with n addition of a few papers written fn'he Nation. The opening essay deals wl'' ■o steady movement towards esotericisr ■hich has set a gulf in English literatim '■eween tho comprehensible and the incur 'chensiblo. “The incomprehensible part." says Mr Murry, is naturally not verv opular. It is written on the definite ns ■ imption that the writer’s duty is wholP awards himself, or. as he generally pro 'crs to put it, towards his art. He write' o satisfy a purely personal impulse to self -xpression. Ho writes, just ns he choose-’-e colour of his wall-paper, to please him mlf alone. He does not hope to be under hood, and he says to himself with a resig 'ition in which there is a tinge of com ■lacency and even of pride, that no real!' ■riginal writer over has been understood.’ After pointing out that the general p--h u has managed, rather dubiously to swalloMeredith and has even made some sort o’ ■-i effort to oope with Henry James, Mi "lurry goes on to say Tho difficulty of TTenrv James is anothing to the difficulty of some of thliterature which has followed him. Am’ yet the general public has managed P take to heart tho greatest writer of om time. Thomas Hardy. It has enjoyed Kipling and Wells spontaneously; it ha? succeeded, with perhaps a little mor * effort in acquiring a genuine appetite fo Conrad; it has elected Arnold Benneß’finest novel. “Tho Old Wives’ Tale,” into the highest place in its own affection But wo may prophesy with certainty that it. will never come to terms with tho hootwhich is now being announced hv initial' as tho masterpiece of the age, Mr JameJoyce’s “Ulysses.” Tho quotation is interesting as revealima few of Mr Murry’s literary sympathies 'n an essay entitled “High Places” he says • “Most of those who deal much with books have some secret lirerary dissipation. . . The most reputable of rny own private stimulants forms an oddly assorted trio They are Stendhal’s ‘La Chartreuse de "arme, 1 Mr Wells’s ’The History of Mr "oily,’ and ‘The Note-books of Samue 1 Butler.’ Each of these has proved so far infallible when I am suffering from a surfeit of literature.” Tie denis with Dickens, and Disraeli, Congreve, and Moliore, Manners and Moralitv. and he ask? nid answers the question, “What is Style ” Sometimes, when one is turning tho page nf a volume of essays written originally m ephemeral journalism, the impression made is that the book is scarcely worth while Essays possessing present-dav interest and written to catch tho eve at the moment arr seldom worthy of permanent preservation Mr Murray’s essays however, form tile exception. They gain rather than lose b v ■ollection, and thev road better as a whole Rian separately. Students of the current? of literature, ancient and modern can hardly afford to neglect Mr Murray's criti iams and comments. Y.—A LEGEND AS IT IS TOLD. Mr James Stephens, having graduated a? poet and storyteller and having apparently exhausted both veins, is now taking to fairy tales and legends. He began in this direction with “Re-incarnations,” following jt up with a delightful book of “Irish Fairy Talcs” characteristically illustrated bv Mr Arthur Rackham. He has now given his attention to “Doirdre.”

“Almost every Irish poet.” says Air F.most Boyd, “has been drawn to the classical tragedy of Celtic epic history, the love story of Doirdre and Naisi; A. E. wrote bis prose poem upon the subject for the Fays, when thev came forward to take the place of the Irish Literary Theatre, and four vears later, in ISO 6. Ycat’s version of the theme was given to the public, A like period was to elapse before the third and perhaps the greatest of therv modern dramatisation was made—J. M. Synge’s posthumous ‘Deirdre of the Sorrows ’ ” Mr Stephens takes the ancient legend md turns it into an enthralling storv. giving it a human touch lacking in the dramatic versions and rivalling in intensity anything before attempted. In the case of A. E. his poetic play presupposes a nrior acqi.iaint.nnco with the entire epic of the House of Usnn of which the Diordvc dory forms a part; and oven the plavs of ‘■Wngo and Yeats are difficult to appreciate failing some knowledge of the Irish legend Mr Stephens, however, has contrived a story which, while preserving legendary accuracy, can he rend nnd enjoyed for its own sake, apart altogether from' history or legend. “Eeidrc”' will add to the author’s literary reputation besides increasing the —Upr n c his devoted admirers.