LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 4

LITERATURE.

RECENT FICTION. STORIES SHORT AND LONG. “The New Decameron—The Sixth Day." Bolted by Vivienne Dajrell. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (Ta 60 net.) "Ea Garde I " By Samuel Morse. London: Cassell and Co., Ltd. (6s net.) "Venus on Wheels.” -By Maurice Dekobra. London: T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. (6s net.) _ -f w Two." By C. B. Poultney. <?o 0n: Herbert Jenkins, Ltd. <6s net.) Salt Sea Patrols." : By Patrick Vaux. London; Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd. (6s net.) . T ‘‘ The Lonely House.” By Arthur Cask. London: Herbert Jenkins, Ltd. (6s net.) The Book of Fu-Manchu." By Sax Konmer. London: Hurst and Blackett. Ltd.. (ba.net>) This-sixth day of "The New Decameron is inclined to give the reader the UD6&sy feeling that most of the authors herein represented are just a little too clever tor him. Miss Vivienne Dayrell’s interpolations of iqitty conversation among the factitious persons who are passing the time on a yachting trip by exchanging stones are coViched in such immaculate language, that their humour is. likely to co unobserved. Moreover, some of the eleven tales are so brief and so fragmentary that they cannot be rightly called short stories a * Ml—-tbey are sketches. It may be assumed that most people think of a short story as having a separate entity, as 0. Jienrys tales are short stories, and if the eleven contributions to this book are examined by that rule it will be found that not more than five or six of them measure up to it. Mr Gerald Bullett’s “ Fiddler’s Luck is just such a fairy tale as he knows how to write, and tells simply of a fiddler who had ,his fiddle stolen from Him and made the acquaintance of a China th -l ability to talk. Mr •Raymond Crompton Rhodes’s story of the man who married a skeleton is well told y we!rd - has substance to rt which is acceptable after a perusal of Mies Dayrell s subtle little sketch of a j»oii C - l F ch . Womall wh o wrecked on a to Relieve that her favourite dene is a monkey gibbering m ¥ ISS Madeleine Nightingale s Affair of the Fulham Plat” is H«rHl^ ,0 “ B A m £t ter3r tale - and Mr L. P. -A Change of Ownership ” is an interesting, but somewhat morbid story of a man Who died of fright on hia lß lonplv T ll refle « t i,°u ll in a window of fau lonely, house, “ The Pattern ” is a wdth^tofrlir Udy i! in - psyc h ic research, SdMr'“conclusive ending, fa£« 1 \ G - Strong’B "After BreakfedincHd ?W heS ii in £ a ?5 ful En g!ish the “at .all sensitive people have experienced on some occasion when makmg 8> new friend. Mr j* a sW sfflh fn his own skilful style, and Mr Eric White ? realistic ° f li£e w^ich is wS • 4>he best sketch in the SS irttieuiDg ' tat authors are, in' the words

_ .Too much meandering i n the bvnaili. MeS? V'Syi.T** 1 Mr M LSr?I e W l. £b com Pleses, but with and °. ld ' fas hioned. subjects of Wong and story-—rapiers and romance. His , France over which Cardinal Mazann held uncertain Iway Vhf an I d PU W o1 W T J - Befctled with sword-’ p a J.. and Jovely ladies were forced to nobleß who would create the most “ en . ri • d e, Villeron, a wastrel and notorious for his shady adventures fr<wn ffe . nc “g skill, received ona the cardinal a last chance to mend rw» y A went to the chateau of the S to d t;M re TO n T e ? r Poictiew, to W lady Eiane and obtain faer handsome dowry. To the samp j nt R ? ne Saint-Hilaire, wellborn friend of the underworld of Paris wo a vfn B l J 3l ®. d |ath of a friend who killed by de Villeron, and Pablo, his stalwait, man-servant, accompanied him It is not necessary to narrate the nature ? dventures which Saint-Hilaire Had m the chateau, but they were naturally connected with Liane and de Villeron, that shadowy suitor, and an antiKoyahst plat. There is at* exciting manhunt from Indry to Paris, and at the palace of the Queen and in the tap room of the tavern known as the Sign of the Silver Heron, events occur which bring the right people to their deserved happiness and lead the villains to their doom. Since Stanley Weyman’e death no author has dealt with the hey-day of '.France Sv well as does Mr Morse, and his book has a polish which Weymaa’s romances occasionally lacked. The little sketches with which the chapter headings are embellished are an additional source of enjoyment to the reader of “ En Garde.”

Ikance is the scene also of “Venus on Wheels,’ but a very modern France in which disputes are settled by a clash of wits instead of a clash of swords, and a man may value his wife regardless of the amount of her dot. M. Dekobra’s novels have been translated into 23 languages, and three and a-half million copies of them have been sold. ’ Often he will take his readers upon a kaleidoscopic tour of the capitals of Europe, and provide them with almost a surfeit of adventure, but in this novel hd confines himself to Paris, and the only adventures are_ amorous ones. “.Venus on Wheels ” is a delicious little comedy such as could be written only by a Frenchman, and may even -cause some indignation among the more morally-conscioua AngloSaxons. It concerns a lovely lady, Madame Lorande, who has decided to divorce her husband because he has been indiscreet, and to devote her life to philanthropy. Amongst the dogs, lost children, and other lame ducks in her collactjon she places Mademoiselle Pauloche, a .little lady ■ she has rescued from her beat at the Cassis bar, and strange to relate Pauloche decides she will indeed reform. . She cannot, however, bear to see Monsieur Lorande miserable owing to hia wife’s refusal to live in the same house with him, or to think that his friend Loulon Meridien may become too 'close a friend of her mentor, eo she arranges with some skill a meeting at her apartment *"hich provides plenty of light comedy and provokes a reconciliation. A very slight story covering only 186 pages, “ Venus on. Wheels" is nevertheless excellent French farce. M. Dekobra has written better books, but seldom has he penned a more amusing tale than this. An adequate translation is made by Metcalfe Wood.

The situations that arise to distress the five central characters in Mr C. B. Poultney’s “A Wife or Two” are just as mirth-provoking in their own way as those in “Venus on Wheels,” but the humour is of a more ingenuous, uproarious variety, and occasionally one feels that Mr Poultney is carrying the' exaggerated doings of his puppets to ridiculous extremes. The story concerns a young man and woman, Charles Marlowe and Mary, his ex-wife, now both married to different people, who, are forced to conceal the fact of their divorce from Sam Marlowe, the proverbial wealthv uncle. The worthy Sam does not believe in divorces, and, Charles and Mary are reunited in their desire to :keep the news, from him that they are happily married elsewhere/ Mary’s new husband and the new wife of Charles, insist upon being present during Uncle Sara’s visit to England, and, as may be imagined, a very pretty matrimonial tangle is the result. In their efforts to convince Uncle Sam that all is what he thinks it is between George, Mary, Charles, and Margaret, the assorted husbands and wives get into every kind of difficulty, and Mr Poultney has a.difficult task straightening things out again. Poor Uncle Sam also finds the antics of his friends extremely baffling and annoying on occasion, and gets into some queer situations with them. Eventually matters right themselves in a satisfactory manner and the uncle returns to America, leaving behind him four happy people. Charles, who had invested his money in a gold mine and lost it, is especially well pleased with himself, having secured a good position with his uncle’s firm. “A Wife or Two ” is quite good entertainment for an idle, evening, the creator of “ Mrs ’Arris ” having employed his aptitude for broadly humorous writing to good advantage.

Tales of the Royal Na-vy may also conceivably be written in humorous vein, but Mr Patrick Yaux has a very-different style in setting down in “ Salt Sea Patrols” the stories pertaining to life on the high seas which comprise this

volume. In all there are twenty stories in Salt Sea Patrols,” each of which deals in direct fashion some dramatic incident in the life of a member of. the navy or of a gallant ship, Mr Vaux does not allow his sailormen to indulge in long conversations, but sums up for them in a few words and reveals all that the reader requires to know of their past lives, their ambitions._ or their, valour in a really bald fashion. In many of ' the stories battles at sea are described, in which the astuteness of a destroyer commander, saves his ship from menacing enemy craft; in others such a. man as Aylmer Imrie, nourishing a legitimate grudge against the politicians who have been responsible for his downfall, is enaled to obtain his vensaance. In almost every case the actors in Mr. > Vaux’s little melodramas are .placed in circumstances in which they are forced to act quickly and decisively, and the sentimental touch is never absent, whether the tale be that concerning the heroism of Leading Seaman Coverley, who sacrifices his own life in saving that of his commander, or that which relates the manner in which Lieutenant Northrop atones, for his sins. Those who are interested in tales of the sea may find satisfying, entertainment in this volume.

Mr Arthur' Gask has chosen an Australian background again for his latest mystery story. Gilbert Larose, the most famous detective in the Commonwealth, is having„ a badly-needed camping vacation, in South Australia, when he becomes interested in a lonely house on the coast near Cape Jervis lighthouse, ; and, after, a brush with two. assailants, goes to Adelaide to make further inquiries. Fallon, a rogue and murderer, has made his escape from gaol, Larose is informed, and the police are .unable to trace him, although the subsequent death of a warder giyes_ them reason to suspect that the criminal is still in Adelaide. Larose quickly establishes a search for the missing man, but has great difficulty in obtaining any clue that may help him in solving the mystery. In the course of his investigations he finds, that Dr Van Steyne, • the most prominent surgeon in South Australia, appears to be implicated. and that the popular manager of a well-known 'hotel is the leader of a formidable band of ruffians. Larose goes about his .work of tracking the criminals down in a methodical and fearless manner, and does not lose heart when, as happens more than once, he is baffled just when he thinks be is on the point of : making an important discovery. By stowing away on the luggage rack of Van Steyne’s car he finally gets into close touch with Fallon, and a dramatic struggle ensues. Mr Gask has written a good mystery story in which the interest does not flag. A lightly romantic element is introduced to save the reader from becoming surfeited with crime and detectives. *

Mr_ Sax Rohmer would have reason to feel insulted if one ventured to inform people who read mystery stories and thrillers just who Dr Fu-Manchu is, and what he does. The American publishers of Sax Rohmer’s books describe their contents _as “ the sort of stories that exPremier Baldwin, Edison, and other great men read to help them relax—to forget their burdens,” and though it might be suggested that the excitement and adventure lurking on every page of “ The Book of Fu-Manchu ” are calculated to make the muscles taut,-the- nerves aquiver, rather than induce the drowsiness so often an accompaniment of relaxation, if Mr Baldwin ‘ reads Sax Rohmer there is no reason why lesser men should not. The present book concerning the doings of the mysterious Fu-Manchu is an “ omnibus ” volume, and contains three full-length novels telling of the devious ways of the wily Oriental criminal. The hooks included are “The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu/’ “The Devil Doctor,” and “The Si-Fan Mysteries.” Sufficient thrills are surely included in such a book to keep the addict to this type of literature pleasurably on edge for quite a time. ■ V. Y. L. ISLANDS OF ROMANCE. MALAYA AND NEW GUINEA. “A Tropical Tapestry." By Hubert S. Bonner, B.A. (Oxon.), P.R.G.S. "with Illustrations by Dorothy Hope-Falkner. London: Thornton, Butterworth, Ltd. (12s 6d net.) "In the Land of Dohori." By Alice Jeannette Keelan. Sydney: Angus and Bobertson, Ltd. (7s 6d net.) Mr Herbert S. Banner lived for 12 years in the Far East in closer touch with the peoples of the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago whom he describes, and a’though he complains that he was for the greater part of the time “ condemned to swelter in a whitewashed Java office at tasks that were often uncongenial,” he found ; leisure in which to travel far off the beaten track—to penetrate beyond the superficial Dutch and British civilisation of the coast, past the rubber plantations and into the depths of the Malayan jungle. “To the white man’s miracles,” he says, “Malaya can and does render a tribute of wondering admiration,- not unmixed with gratitude But deep in the secret places of Malaya’s heart . . . remains a conviction that only in the traditional law which has travelled - unbroken from Animist forebears oKancient .Indian preceptors, down the corridors of time unchronicled, lies the path of true wisdom.” In a Malayan village, Mr Banner reveals, the customs and the pursuits of the people are those of their forefathers, a curious mixture of savagery and gentleness. The preliminaries to a marriage, for example, are conducted with an ornate politeness quite foreign to the Western world, in which the parents of the prospective bride and groom compete with each other in deprecating their wares, claiming for the youth or maiden of the opposite side all the virtues and referring in apologetic language to the failings of the eon or daughter they wish do see married. Of the girl her parents will declare she has no household skill: let them not be* deceived by specious prettiness, for she is nought but a buffalo that has been suffered to run wild; while the youth’s father will make scandalous statements reflecting upon the manliness and courage of his offspring, A charming structure of insincerities, but the Bataks have customs less charming. Observe a little girl undergoing the ministrations of the local dentist:

She is lying on her back 'in the dust her poor little head wedged between the operator’s knees. At the present stage of the proceedings he is chipping at the teeth with a chisel and mallet. When tnose are no longer effective, he will resort to a saw fashioned from a clockspring, and in the last instance to a file. . . . Why this hideous and dangerous mutilation? The answer is that it is the immemorial tribal customupper jaw for girls, lower jaw for boys. There is no other answer, and the only reply you will ever receive to any questions on the subject you may be moved to put will be a_ humorous allegation that the practice is designed to prevent angry wives from biting their husbands.

The Bataks are indeed no lovely race, as the author remarks, and it is plain at a glance how thin a partition yet separates them from that abysmal savagery whence Dutch endeavours have partially redeemed them. The nomads of the Malayan jungle, however, whom Mr Banner describes in another chapter, have their good points. These Semang are little brown folk, short of stature and slightly built, who, although they exist in a primitive state, living only on such birds and animals as they are able to trap or bring down with the bow or blowpipe, are only a few miles distant from the roads and cultivated country of the Europeans and more civilised Malayans. The Semang are “really and truly a survival of the Neolithic age, representing the stage of culture before men learned to plant crops,” a forest officer explains. “They have literally no knowledge at all either of agriculture or of pastoral pursuits, but live a purely nomad life roaming on *no apparent plan or system over vast jungle areas. . . . They don’t even cook their food properly; a superficial singeing on hot embers seems to satisfy 'em.”

In his chapters on Java Mr Banner writes with sympathy of a people with a load of oppression and sorrow almost too heavy to bear. In East Java will be found small communites which have preserved Indian forms of religious usage practically intact, but in most parts of the country ruins and contradictory customs bear witness to the violent impositions “ which have twisted Java’s longsuffering soul through the centuries”—

the advent of the Malayan and that other great social convulsion, the colonisation of Java by the Hindus. Yet, in spite of mixed creeds and the harsh dictates that have been enforced upon them the Javanese survive with some sense of tranquillity. The Javanese mind is a lazy, sunsplashed garden of lovely day dreams; when his peace is troubled he flies for comfort and support, not to the chill definitions of sanction and inhibition, of reward and punishment, of evil and righteousness, but rather to the sources of that fountain of beauty which for ever plays in the jewelled grotto of a subconscious experience. Into this tropical tapestry Mr Banner weaves many designs, pictures of misery and happiness, of the shadow and sunlight of the islands so cruelly rent apart by differences in race and tradition, yet, he avers, “ all parts of a great and harmonious whole.” The real country of romance is difficult of access, and many to Malaya have doubtless gone away disappointed, their dreams of dense jungles and ancient survivals from the darkest ages dispersed by the picture of a Malayan leaning on a bicycle to light a gasper ” with a petrol lighter, but the author has been privileged to seek, beyond this outer skirting for the material in his book. ■ Mention must be made of his really excellent description of buffalofighting at Flores, a sport that shatters the association of the name of the island with an Oriental fairyland. Surely this slaughter has greater • refinements of cruelty than that of the Spanish ■ bullring? The animals are tethered, one by one, in the centre of the arena and goaded and prodded to their death by tormentors who can jump readily beyond their reach. Then, when this sport palls, two or three buffalo are released in the ring and in a s welter of' blood and dirt fight to the end against a crowd of • barbaric natives, one of whom occasionally is tossed and trampled to death before the animals are slain. “A Roman Holiday ih Flores” is the, least attractive chapter in Mr Banner’s book, but it has a morbid fascination all the same. The picturesque _ aspect of the regions of the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago are not omitted from the consideration of the author, however, who in some descriptive passages, and aided by his own verse and adaptations of the native songs, gives the reader a good picture of an intriguing _ region. Miss.;, Dorothy Hope-Falkner assists the author in portraying the beauties of the islands with symbolic decorations and illustrations admirably suited to the more poetical passages in the test. * The Land of Dohori ” is Papua, Mrs Keelan haying every reason, from her own * experiences in the islands, to designate them with the native word, which means "wait a while.” This book tells of the life from day to day of a resident magistrate in Papua, and is a personal narrative of the trials and joys of an Australian couple who, dependent upon .a meagre salary and the uncertain offices of house boys for their comforts, nevertheless had a great affection for their adopted land and were sorry to leave it when at last there seemed to he no object in remaining, The resident magistrate’s work is hard. He commences at about 5 o’clock every, morning, and continues throughout the day and far into the night, and the work of a, white woman in out-of-the-way villages is no less exacting. Mrs Keelan retained her optimistic outlook throughout the years spent in the islands in spite of the hardships that were encountered. With no companionship but that of her husband and the _ unreliable native servants, and living in houses over-nm with cockroaches, lizards, and other island posts, she still found a fascination in the hie: It_ is probably this very uncertainty, this impossibility of making plans with any definite assurance of being able to carry them out, that much of Papua’s fascination lies,” she says, " and possibly this that keeps its isolation from becoming flat, stale, and unprofitable, by . always giving those who live there soinething unusual to look forward to.” Those who read, this book in the comfort of a New Zealand home may not IS“ cl “ed to agree with the author that life in Papua presents any great attraction for white people,, but they will admire the courage and cheerfulness with which its author faced fevers, hurricanes, and even comparative poverty, without losing her good humour or her interest in the natives and their ways. The Papuans are obviously as great a pro£ c? Australian administrators as the Samoans are to the New Zealand Government. They appear, from Mrs Keelan s account, to be untruthful to a degree, and treacherous. Her experience was that the " missionised ” natives were the most untrustworthy, the benefits of a superficial education having made them adepts in the art of concocting libellous stories of their white masters, some of tlie allegations being supported by such a host of witnesses that on occasion an innocent plantation owner would be convicted of having ill-treated and starved employees who were obviously in the best ot health at the time when complaints were made. This appears to be the problem ot the Administration: ■ '■>, * natives, who, once so amenable and helpful, seemed to be degenerating into a race of foolish, unreliable children, their sole aim in life tlm evasion of any form of work, and their chief desires an over-abundance or eatables, unlimited opportunities to gamble, and never-ending “ Christmases,” with their corollaries of feasting and licence. If Papua is ever to be developed as it deserves, and its natives to assist in its development, there are many things that will need alteration. The present effort—well meant though it be—to convert a stone age man into a twentieth century one merely by treating him as such, without enabling him to bring bis mentality into line with the treatment achim Cd ’ ° an d ° Httle but dissatis fy i Mrs Keelan’s book is by no means confined however to the problems that ™ ll] have to solve in rapua, ahe was .a keen observer of all that came her way in the islands, and dc . s , e . n P tlons pf particular boys and their idiosyncrasies, of native festivals worri^ ddl S ? n a i nd ° f the little household worm* which beset the European resident in the outlying islands, are very J. M. MISCELLANY. literature. FINANCE. ACROSTICS. Verse “ Notes °n English ona T!, l . e ’ ~b y Humbert Wolfe; "Politics dop : J? rld %% r * rd Gamc , s and Word Puzzles." By A Laurit ud" tlsTo?.) L ° ndoll: T ' Berner PoH?;l S ° D IM*?] 1 Ver se Satire” and Pol itics and Literature ” are two scholarly additions to the Hogarth lec° ture senes. Mr Humbert Wolfe makes ‘ rvev P „ r f and ’ in( ? eed ’ ™“erb ? nail Y " b J e !’ se satire through the ‘I?® 5 .- The essential nature of satire h= fl&r heS Ti r T bur!estlue > Parody, and allegory. The lampoon owes all to the circumstances of its emission, save in the cas f? where it is inspired neither by malice nor envy; the parody ie only satire if it be destructive of what b “ r,e «l«e is, the lecturer thinks, at once too loose and too loud for the strict demand of satire; and allegory, cbeen a favourite device sa “ r *st, is not of necessity satirical. Mr Wolfe traces the varying fortunes of satire from Chaucer to the present century. and seems to be rather regretful that so few great poets have used the weapon, preferring rather to "make a world with God than pillage it with featan. Delightful examples of satire in its varying forms arc given, the classics yielding their full quota of scathing verses. Satire’s first business is to destroy, and the couplet:

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why I cannot tell, may have pilloried that poesiblv estimable man, Mr Wolfe thinks, more effectively than all Cicero’s invective could Catiline. The great Dean’s four lines on the flea (“So naturalists observe, a flet,” etc.) were more condemnatory than many pages of prose in which he described sycophants, and it was less ill for Cope to have lost his battle than to be sung in Border satire: Johnny Cope, are you wankin’ yet, And are your drums a’ heatin’ yet.

This interesting survey concludes with a discussion of the place of contemporary writers in regard to satire. Mr Chester-

ton and Mr Belloc have pointed the way “to a new Augustan age of satire,” but Siegfried Sassoon, Osbert Sitwell, and Mr Aldous Huxley do not measure up to his conception of the true satirist. “Are we, then, to assume that poetry, as in the Shakespearean age, has reached, or is reaching, a point of creative fullness that will not abide the lesser impulse of satire? It would be gallant to believe so, and let those who dare, accept that comfort. For the rest, seeing in what a world how misused we live, let them pray heartily for a great satirist in verse in our time.”

Mr Cole’s book is equally engaging, although he deals with a subject less plastic. He reviews his topic with regard to two aspects, form and content, and his complaint is that as most political" literafure is concerned with stating a case, including the answering of possible opposition, it is read for its content or not at all, except by a few technical students of the literary craft. “ Much propagandist literature is very bad writing; but so is much love poetry, and a whole cartload of new novels a week. If a man has something to say—something that has in ,F eatncss of idea or emotion, or of both—and can find expressive language to say it, there are the ingredients of good literature. _ The author discusses the political literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, with a separate chapter on “ The Age of Revolutions —of Paine, Goodwin, Burke, and Mary Wollstonecraft; but, modern political literature, he fears, is far less literatus® than its equivalent of 100 years ago, «?■ t• 18 cann °t be good' for political thinking anymore than it is good for literature. Mr Cole’s lecture forms an inspiring appeal for the clarity o£ the purist when writing on a subject which he terms one of the “ inexacter sciences.” Until well into the nineteenth century academic English was usually competent, now oven the politicians do not write as badly as the professors.”

* * * America has advanced from the period pt adventure to the period of permanent investment in her relation with the nations of Latin America. Mr Leo -S Kowe states in the foreword to Dr Wink- • f book, and this change has brought with it important developments both in the character of the investments and in the personnel of those representing the corporate enterprises of the United estates. An asset of national goodwill is developed, which will contribute Z il the solution of outstanding tw „ \ pr f s f£ ted b >’ rcaam of the fact that most of. the great public utilities in 111 America are foreign' enterprises, ana to an increasing extent enterprises or ?? ni “ d . a] jd financed in America, studv nf ?H er makes ,. a comprehensive, great lUtSt c £™ andln 5 Position which great United States . corporations have assumed in Latin American enterprise, confining his activities to present facts ine to" 1 ?, — evant statistics and expressing no opinion upon the delicate international problems which are likely to tween .future it good relations ht +nft? e n lca aad T jatm America are Hot tactfully maintained.

, * rd Games and Word Puzzles” is described as “the new game for fathers fa n ri y Sfv re V The " ook Stains a it 1 ?! var J c }y ,°f games on words which are bound to interest children and quite Poss.blytheir parents also. Mr Ashmore This One-’^ ° f “F nn You ASw£ led 4 ifnnt ?ry popu,ar general knowS, b 0 . gives examples of word jumbles, missing words, anagrams, acroscollections a " d word of mizzlet’ - Th C i early set lut1 ut in the for m or puzzles. The answers to all the -nroblems are contained in an appendix. A. L. F.