RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22260, 12 May 1934, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

» i4A." By Laura Riding and George Ellldge/ (Barker.) /V "w ■ V nLvJ'- “ Parable for Lovers. By Lewis Gibbs. Wild Maeßaes."' 5 ' By James Barke (C “ Bumphrey’s." By R. H. Mottram (Murray.) "If This Be' Love." ..By Ursula ;Gwynn. ■:WuMS- V Helen Senna Before Midnight.” By Elizabeth. l "°The Nymph." By Arthur :Applin, (^Xen a t n U r By C.;J; Cutellffe Hyne.. Hearts;" By Paul Trent.: (Ward,' L °"Tho Commander Shall ... By,.Hum-, frey Jordan. (Angus and Robertson,; 65,6 d 116 (Each 7s net, unless otherwise stated.)

An-Experiment '■ ;; ; So. far as the form of "14A” .is concerned,, it is not rep - gents quite simply , a modification ,of th . nlay wright’s technique to a story tor reading, B not for visual presentation., The authors give -us the characters through their own words; their behaviour in set circumstances, with only such concessions to narrative as are necessary to place them—the stage directions, as i were.' As to the story, it is a study in the difficulty,of human relations; a difficulty most pointedly emphasised ni a, circle of artistic people, such as is portrayed in this book, but, as everybody knows, mo less an integral partofthehfeofany croups of persons living in terms or s g ome P intimacy. Hugh, an Irish poet, is the centre of the emotional whirl. He leaves his wife, Maureen, and goes to live at'. 14a, a house divided into flats, as the guest of Catherine. She is the spiritual 8 leader of a little, group of artists and some more practical persons, whose affection each f° r each is bound up in adoration for her. When Hugh comes they accept him; but Hugh for his part ;has difficulty in accepting anybody. ’ Maureen arrives to claim him, nnd he croes with her. to s-MigPpe. 'Catherine’s friends bring, him back. Then he decides to leave again, and Catherine attempts suicide. Hugh, for the first time in his life, experiences genuine emotion, that of remorse, but it takes a curious form, and when at last we re encounter him, in N e w York, he. has renounced all artistic, matrimonial, and extra-matrimonial experiments. m quality of this tale is difficult to suggest It must be sufficient to say. that it offers itself admirably to the kinematic form its authors have deyised, and that many of the' subsidiary characters are very shrewdly and amusingly drawn. As tor a moral, this is a modern novel, and it it has any moral it is summed up by Joho: "Somebody’s got to be happyMost people. it implies, are anything but.

A Wood Near Athens The fourth.-work of Lewis Gibbs, who wrote that original and ( attractive study of 24 ordinary hours, A Hay s iaie, is-also unusual. Its title, Parable for Lovers,” explains it. Mr . Gibbs nnd Mr Branch Cabell have this fundamental thesis in common, that a man. who is fortunate in his female .companion will be forever searching for a wiser ; and lovelier—the unattainable ideal. Jurgen bent his amorous -gaze on Helen; Carey, the protagonist of Mr Gibb s tale, ‘eaves his true love ; and accompanies a glamorous adventuress on a yachting cruise. _When she rejects him and -he lands, sick in soul, at Athens. , he’.walks into an adventure which leads him, at .last, into a.forest wherein Diana: and her nymphs are still hunting. Here an .immortal sprite, holds’ him temporarily ,in thrall. But Carey, the infernal masculine, is no longer faithful to Nephele when be meets Diana herself. Diana, the unattainable, is as much-"superior to her attendant nymph in' beauty,_as-is Nephele finer than mortal woman. So Carey goes wooing again, this time with consequences which might have been worse than fatal, but, happily, proved no worse than a sharp return to earth and the reality of his* first love. Mr Gibbs pursues this fantastical theme with much grace and precision, and some parts of Hie book are quite beautifully done. There .is occasionally a tendency to elaborate upon the implications of a tale which should be made up sheerly of suggestion, and never descend io pedestrian discussion. But it ig safe .to predict, that many people should-.'derive -real pleasure from " Parable fomLovers,” and also from Mr Whistler’s decoration, the best which has come our way. ’ ■

“The Wild - Mr Barke’sJ'secohd novel i|-afbptter-ordered work than The Pillow,” and the author, although he has again a case to make, treats .his material with less violence to antipathies, of. his readers. The Macßa.es are a, family of Highland crofters—father, sons, ’ and . mother— arrogant and proud, who come into conflict, with the English laird when he lays claim to four sheep reared- by the mother. This trivial assertion of' his . authority contains tragic promise, for Hie family is capable . of evolving, a bitter feud from one injustice that more shaft-broken dependants would use simply as a peg upon which to hang their windy morahsings against the landlord .system. Mr Barke traces the intensification of the struggle to its tragic conclusion with .vigour, and realism. His book is a sincere;- andiimpressive piece ot work, the more worthy of attention since the reader is made to realise that the decay of the Macßaes personifies to some extent the blight that has fallen on the Highlands to-day.

R. H. Mottram Mr Mottram’s patent sincerity and patient industry have been evidenced in many novels of varying merit, from the ‘ Spanish Farm” trilogy, which is something of a contemporary classic, to the triviality of a recent book about an artist, even the title of which eludes the memory. In "Bumphreys he moves back to the solid, well-documented type of fiction with which he is most at home, and has given us a sterling study ot a family troubled by the cleavage in ideals between its oldqr and younger members The scene is a seaside resort, whither Frank and Jacqueline Medway have taken their rapidly maturing family. Mr Mottram is adept at showing. the conflict, mental rather than Physically-acknow-ledged, between Frank and his son, E rank junior, and in suggesting the wider sympathies and intuitive understanding ot the mother, both of Medway s own problem when a former love makes to enter his life again, and of her sons violent and adolescent infatuation for a woman much his senior. This book, has a story to tell that reaches an exciting climax, and Mr Mottram’s observation is, as usual, penetrating. " If This Be Love ”

Ursula Gwvnn’s new novel justifies the expectations that were formed on her two earlier books. “The Purple Shawl and “ The Four’ Miss Ramsays. In this book she has definitely found her medium, the calm and perceptive handling of a considerable number of normal, human people, in a set of circumstances not remarkably different from that which might exist in any family circle. Colonel Barton, who has been crippled by a war injury, is the figure around which the lives of the several persons, his second wife, Melanie, her step-daughter, and her two children, must focus. Melanie herseli has suffered a great disappointment, ot the tragic nature of which her husband ,is aware, and the children also become involved with personal problems which have a distinct bearing upon the peace of the family. Folly is a partner to an illicit love affair with disturbing consequences, and the bov Bernard, quite undeservedly, is the subject of a scandal. Meanwhile Barton is hoping that an operation maj cure his disability, and the turbulent troubles of his offspring have to be concealed from him as well as may be. The story is many sided, but all. its facets ! are kept in proportion, and Miss Gwynn s ■ humanity will commend the work to women readers.

Helen Zenna Smith Helen Zenna Smith’s books have-not improved since “Not So Quiet . . .’ a first work which had the merit that its crudity was shaped by its circumstances. In “Thev Lived With Me” she has, however, taken a turn slightly away from the

Leftist trend of’ cheap eroticism which had begun to mark her work. . The resultant b00k,,. which, deals .with thtjf. lives of; a>, number-of .residents :in a London apartment .house;; is readable, though not : ahyayb free, • from ihsinceri ty; and ;unconvincing sensationalism.:’' Helen Zenna Steith has;, the ' stuff :.; oflife in--her character studies, and one is; constantly feeling that she might do better with her material.’ "A Man of Pride ”

With. Mr Porter, too, there is f a sense of promise unfulfilled, his previous novel, “ The Love of Irene,” being both exciting and fairly well peopled.' In this book he writes of the struggles of the son of . a War, profiteer, first to convince a girl superior to him in social position that he might squire her ; without shaming her; secondly, when his father’s capital disappears in a financial scandal, to; win his place in the world by. his own efforts. The girl, meanwhile,, has petulantly sacrificed her reputation, but eventually the lovers are brought, together to meet on equal terms, and with the promise that economically they need have no further worries. The book is sufficiently interesting, to hold the attention, but neither the characterisation nor the plot is impressive. French Justice?

Jean Methuen is called to the bedside of her father, in Annency. He has never treated her as a. daughter, nor in any way shown her kindness. That night he dies and Jean is suspected of having murdered him. The author then proceeds to provide an account —a travestied account, it well may be—of French methods of dealing with crime. Jean is charged, but her lawyer is not permitted to see the prosecution’s statement, while the behaviour of the prosecutor at the trial is sufficiently unreasonable'to Justify another murder. The investigation and presentation of the facts of the case leave everything to be desired, and .a miscarriage ,of justice is avoided almost by accident* This is an interesting novel, though one must be in doubt as to how far it truly reflects the conduct of murder trials in France —particularly when a beautiful and wronged woman is in the dock. It is a selection of the “Crime Book Society.” The Author

Elizabeth Nisot is the second daughter of the veteran novelist, Joseph Hocking. Her husband is Dr Joseph Nisot, an international lawyer on the staff of the Secretariat of the -'League of Nations, on which Mrs Nisot herself held an administrative position prior to her marriage. Feminine Opportunism ,

Loveday Leigh, the heroine of “ The Scared Nymph,” is a Devonshire girl who, in the course of her employment as a shop assistant in Exeter, meets Ronald St. Leger, the popular film hero, and promptly joins the immense company of his feminine admirers. Minor misadventures culminating in a sprained ankle bring her renewed contact with him, and being something of an opportunist, she ensures, prolongation of the acquaintance by feigning loss of memory, thereby throwing herself upon his hospitality. Of course, everything comes right in the end, but before that happy consummation is reached Loveday has to do severe penance for her deception. Many Disappearances

“ Absent Friends ” consists of 31 short stories, and relies largely for its success upon the author’s reputation. The stories chiefly concern .disappearances in varying forms and all point a moral, but a serious defect lies in the fact that in many cases the moral is too obvious to be worth the pointing, while in others it js merely trivial. : The style, too, falls considerably short of Mr Hyne’s standard and a general impression of “potboiling ” is hard to deny. “ Clubs and Hearts ” The clubs are the elaborate London gaming houses which Ruth inherits after her father’s death, and determines to manage; the troubled hearts are those ,■ of. Ruth and the man she marries, Michael Harland, an economist who stoutly disapproves 'of gambling and regards the income from this source as tainted. Mr Trent makes good use of the dramatic possibilities of his theme, in this superficial, eminently readable tale. The'Commander Shall . . ." This is a dramatic story of the trials and problems which may be encountered upon a modern liner, written by a man who is obviously very well’ acquainted with, his theme, and has a good sense of character delineation. It was reviewed in this page on publication and has now been issued in an Australian edition. V. V. L.