TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22546, 13 April 1935, Page 4

TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS

MISS MANNIN'S PROGRESS " Forever Wandering." By Ethel Mannln. London: Jarrolds. 16s 6d. By her first novels Miss Ethel Marinin gave tlie impression of being an unusual young woman, but just how unusual was not appreciated until the. publication in 1920 of her autobiography, " Confessions and Impressions." Uncompromising frankness was its chief characteristic, but, unlike some of the writers of biographies, autobiographies and-' memoirs, she was more frank a.bout herself than anyone else. She followed up her success with a second volume entitled "All Experience," which was fairly aptly titled. Now, in response "to those who asked for more," slie has written a third autobiographical volume, " Forever Wandering," in which she details her travels throughout Europe. The motto of the book is taken from Tennyson's "Ulysses":— I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees; all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me and alone ... These lines give a true indication of Miss Mannin's attitude to herself in the boo';, which is a personal record of travel in Germany, France, Central Europe, Russia and Western Ireland. She tells of her enjoyments and of her sufferings—and they are not always major sufferings. For instance, she refers to a rash she suffered in Vienna, and describes the persistence of the endeavours of a chance acquaintance in London to further that acquaintance—incidents which can only be of interest to a small circle of personal friends. This constitutes the fault of the book. Miss Mannin has apparently not realised that there is a limit to the capacity of the general public to be interested in herself. There are not many whose lives are so full and so interesting as to justify the publication of three volumes of autobiographical information —and Miss Mannin has by no means yet attained the age at which one usually sits down to write one's history. There is in the book, however, several chapters which are really worth while. These probably gave Miss Mannin the I idea of this third volume, but it is unfor-

tunate that she should have allowed her manuscript to reach such proportions. Mannin is a woman of ideas and she has the courage to express them. She is also a clear observer, and her comments, on matters worthy of attention, are deserving of thought. She writes of Paris during the Stavisky riots, and gives the reader a more comprehensive idea of that affair than could be obtained _ from the _ disjointed cables at the time. Her impressions of Berlin under Hitler and of Vienna a few weeks before the assassination of Dr Dollfuss also succeed in conveying the atmospheres of the two cities. To many the most interesting portion of the book will be that which is concerned with her visit to Moscow. Miss Mannin is an avowed Socialist, but she is not a blind follower of the faith. In Vienna, for example, she fell into bad grace with the Socialist authorities for writing of the poverty which existed under that regime.' Consequently her jmpressions cannot be wholly rejected as those of a biased witness. She comments impartially on what she saw of good and bad in the Soviet capital. One of her major disappointments was the fact that in the schools propaganda was being used to exaggerate the evils of anti-proletarian ideas. "Why should German Nazi children be represented to young Communists as hideous and hateful?" she asks. "How much more effective as propaganda it would have been to have shown them just like Russian children, but growing up without the advantages of Russian children." Her second disappointment was the inefficiency and lack of hygienic comforts in one of the creches she visited. This system has received considerable publicity, but to judge by this example, it is far from inspiring. Despite this, however, when concluding her observations, she echoes Julian Huxley's statement that " Communist Russia is a going concern, thoroughly alive, which has survived grave hardships in the past, and is prepared to endure more for the realisation of its plan." Even as Miss Mannin found in Rusbia things good and evil, so the reviewer finds her latest book a mixed one, but it is undeniably candid and is, in places, entertaining and provocative. D. G. B.