HOLIDAY READING,

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20075, 16 April 1927, Page 4

HOLIDAY READING,

SOME RECENT NOVELS. . L—A CZECH GENIUS. ln “Tomek the Sculptor” (Thornton Butterworth), Miss Adelaide Eden Phillpotts has made a careful study of the struggles and wanderings of a Czech, with the artistic temperament, tracing his career from his boyhood in a little village near Prague, on to his student days in Vienna, and thence to the lite of an artist/in London. It is very capably done in the form of a quiet story, very life-like, and the medium of some briliant characterisation. Josef Tomek, to give the sculptor his full name, was a sickly baby, of humble parentage. Although a fourth child, he was the first for whom his mother felt affection. Maria, his mother, felt convinced that Josef was a genius, and when, by his neglect of cvery-day duties, he evinced the sign of genius, she combatted effectually the contempt and scorn heaped upon the lad by his unbelieving uncles. The daughter of an Austrian nobleman, Ronda by name, takes a fancy to the lad—they had woven a boy and girl romance—and she persuades her' father to send him to Vienna, where he attends classes. The patronage, beneath the shadow of which Ronda alternately flatters and scorns Tomek, soon become irksome, and a scene ensues, when he is turned out of Ronda’s house; but Tomek never forgets his boyhood's romance, not even when he sets up as a stonemason in an obscure part of Vienna. Indeed, ‘ the relationship between Ronda. married and in smart society,, and the humble _ stonemason, remains as the chief motive in the story. Thanks to the friendship of Nicolay Polikowsky, a consumptive and an idealist, and an Englishman named Baynes, Tomek’s slumbering ambition has new birth, and urged by Baynes, the two Czechs iourney to London, the one to preach Socialism, the other to follow his art. Nicolay dies and Tomek marries, and the story closes with a charming picture of Tomek with wife and baby visiting his mother at the farm in Bohemia. It is a delightful story, which, read in leisurely fashion, will give liberaj repayment and intense enjoyment to the majority. 2. -COCKTAILS IN CHELSEA. The cocktail period, through which the English-speaking world is now passing, has _ many chroniclers, and Miss Doris Leslie, in a first novel called “The Starling” (Hurst and Blackct), is entitled to a place among them. The story is typical of the time in that the people represented are incapable of any deep emotion, half a tumbler of neat whisky enabling the heroine to stifle the pangs of an all too easily broken heart. Miss Leslie has a gift for dialogue, and she catches cleverly the spirit and atmosphere of the cocktail parties in the Bohemia of Chelsea. Marcia Fennell has numerous love affairs, both in London and in Florence, and in particular with a young playwright minus manners or morals. Whether this sort of thing is worth doing at all is open to question, but at least. Miss Leslie does it smartly, and she deal? with living types. 3. RUM SMUGGLING STORY. The efforts of the bootleggers and the run smugglers to defeat the Prohibition enactment in the United States provide much material for the novel of the melodramatic order, and in “The Reign of Brass” (Duckworth), Mr Charles Christopher Jenkins pursues a path now becoming well worn. A man named Brass founded a big business corporation in which the hero of the story, represented as a dreamer and an idealist, becomes one of the most successful agents, but in the process ho becomes embittered and disillusioned. After fighting for his country in the Great War he develops into “Diabolo,” a mysterious smuggler who directs a fleet of motor boats engaged in shipping liquor from Canada into the United, via the Great Lakes. He is also in love with the beautiful daughter of the man Brass. This makes material for a vivacious story marred, however, by toy much sentimentalism, and haying; moreover the disadvtange of that meticulous detail and those attempts at fine writing ' in which American novelists are too apt to indulge. 4. —A VICTORIAN ROMANCE. In “Sunset Bride" (Hutchinson), Tickner Edwards provides a sentimental romance which will carry the reader right back to early Victorian days. The story is put into the mouth of the rector of a ’ittle village. in the South of England, who, late in life, was united in the bpnds of matrimony to an elderly lady with an angelic temperament. This marriage gets (he rector into hot water with a beautiful parishioner. Valeric Thrapp, who had for long had designs on the rector. A stranger, who proves to be Valerie’s husband, is mysteriouslv murdered in the neighbourhood and Valerie is suspected of the crime. Tho rector, to clear Valeric, admits having had a secret interview with her at the time the murder was committed. This disclosure is too much for the “sunset bride, who exnires from the shock, thus leaving the path clear for Valerio and the rector. 5. LIFE AS A LUMBERJACK. Mr Robert E. Pinkerton can write a good open air story, and the scene of “White Water” (Hurst and BlacketJ is set in North-west Canada, among tho lumberjacks. The title of the book is taken from a dangerous stretch among the rapids which tests the skill of those engaged in a dangerous occupation, but the hero, Larry Vail, finds nothing too .difficult, and he carries all before him, including the winning of his ladylove. He is an ideal hero, handsome, brave, and courteous, and the story will make girl readers wish tnat there were more like him in New Zicaland‘ (6).—A MONTHLY MYSTERY. “The Black Wings,” by Moray Dalton (Jarrolds), is heralded as No. 24 of tno monthly mystery novels, and it suggests having been written to order. Dir Uogor Wing inherits a pock of troubles. Charles the Second is credited with a-love a |ja’ r with the wife of a former baronet, which changes the colour of the descendants from fair to dark. Not only so, but one of Sir Roger’s disreputable forbears shared in the robbery of a tomb in Tuscany and as a result there is a mysterious murder, .to detail the story would spoil the mystery which abounds in striking situations, for a book of this class it is quite well done, but of course absurdly improbable. 7.—ANOTHER MONTHLY MYSTERY. Two monthly mysteries in one month aio rather bad for tho nerves, seeming to suggest that “The Man in the Sandhills, by Antony Marsden (Jarrolds), has got out of its turn. At the same time it is an ingenious story based on an incident in which tho hero is wrongly accused by tho villain of cheating at cards, whereupon tho hero administers to tho villain a good drubbing, which is, apparently, the cause of his death. The hero, pursued by the police, flees to France, where he engages as a circus nerfonmer, and incidentally falls love with the daughter of the man he is supposed to have killed. Hunted by bloodhounds, he takes refuge in a secret cottage among the sandhills, and is eventually saved from the clutches of the law by a most ingenious device. The story has some exciting situations and is well worth reading. B.—MIXED MORALS. In “Mary’s Son (George Allen and Unwin) Mbs Ada Barnett has written one of those stories which, while professing to picture the highest morality, creates a situation of a dubious nature and is calculated to have a mischievous influence urxm voting readers. Mary, a young and" beautiful girl, is married to Lord Ashinghurst. an old and evil-minded rogue, the marriage having been forced upon her by her mother’s incessant reiteration of the word “Duty.” Travelling with her husband in Spain, Mary recoils from his suggestion of the possibility of a eon and heir, upon the realisation of which his heart is set, in order to keep a hated cousin from the inheritance. Mary meets a handsome Spaniard, Ramon Guevara by name, and it is a case of love at first sight. An idea strike? her; she hints to her husband as to her condition, and suggests taking a trio into the hill country. Only too willing to humour her whims, he consents, and she goes, hut is accompanied bv Ramon, In due time the child is born, and is acknowledged as tho heir, and sundry complications ensue. The contention of the author is that for Mary to have had a child bv her profligate husband would have been immorality of the worst kind; and Mary is represented as justifying her liaison with Ramon by constant contemplation of a statue of the Madonna. Tho book is well written and tho situations arc delicately handled, but the mixed moralitv inculcated is open to serious ques(ion. Tho descriptions of Spanish scencand scenery reveal the talent of tho writer. 9.—POSTHUMOUS STORIES. Tho two short stories published under tho title of "Basil Nethcrhy” (Hutchinson) reveal the late A. C. Benson in a new guise as an adent in the supernatural. 'T'V.e, gift run? in the family, since both R. fi. Benson ami E. F. Benson have dealt

with akill and subtlety in the ghost story. In both these hitherto unpublished stories, "Basil Notherby” and “The Uttermost Farthing,” there is an uncanny element which rivals the atmosphere created by Mr Algernon Blackwood. But in addition there is the advantage of Mr Benson’s limpid literary style. The description of a haunted house, and the weird feelings thereby engendered, is equal to Poe at his best. Lovers of supernatural stories will welcome these posthumous tales.