RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22730, 16 November 1935, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

" Enter Charles." By Florence Hody (Helnemann). "Mottke the Thief." By Sholem Asch (Gollancz). " The Days Dividing." By Nell Bell (Collins). *'Marjolalne." By Hilda S. Primrose (Moray "Life and Love." By Denlse Boblns (Ivor Nicholson). „ " And Then Came Spring." By Anne Hopple (Hutchinson). "Dying to Live." By Sydney Horler (Hutchinson). _ "The Eunuch of Stamboul." By Dennis Wheatley (Hutchinson). "Dead Man Inside." By Vincent Starrett (World's Work). . x „ _ "Dead Men Leave No Fingerprints." By Whitman Chambers (Cassell).. (Each 75.)

" Enter Charles " The title is important to Florence Hody's first novel, since Charlea is eraphatically the most important person m it, not excepting that not inconsiderable student of feminine psychology, greataunt Alida. Yet Charles in person, in the inimitable tweeds, so to speak, is not on Miss Hody's stage at all. His entry and his exit are hietory by the time Helen comes to tell us the story of her matrimonial problems and their satisfactory conclusion. He has provided an audience, he has acted as prompt, he has even produced the scenes which make possible a happy ending—and without making an effective entry, he has succeeded in managing a timer" and nicelycalculated exit. Helen's matrimonial problem has been caused through the subtle, leech-like tactics of her greataunt. She married without that lady s permission, but that is the solitary act she seems to have achieved independently. When she meets Charles in the Dinard boat she is, with great-aunt Alida's influence finally removed by death, still escaping from reality in flight. But Helen, as readers of this amusing novel will discover as they proceed with it, is at heart a sensible young woman. What she lacks is perception, the faculty of analysis, and that quality Charles possesses. With a fog-bound steamer as setting, itself offering opportunities for incidental entertainment, with Helen as narrator and Charles as confidant and interpreter, this light but soundly-con-structed book moves blithely.

Pariah Child "Mottke the Thief" is one of Asch's earlier works, preceding ".Three Cities and "Salvation," but only now translated into English by Edwin and Willa Muir. It is not, like the now famous later works, planned on a broad scale, but a personal, lively narrative of the picaresque, with an interesting and unfamiliar background. Mottke's mother supports herself and her eVer-increasing brood _ by acting as wet-nurse to the rich families who form the makeshift feudal society of a Polish town in the last century. Mottke soon learns that to survive he must steal, and' proceeds accordingly. At seven years of age he assaults his master, the cobbler, and escapes from a slaveapprenticeship to a free, outcast life as a street Arab. The hand pf every man "against him, he steals for his living until he is fourteen, when he goes to work unwillingly as a glass-blower. Then follow several years of nomadic life, and Mottke grows to manhood and to love. He murders a rival and escapes with, the lady to Warsaw, where poverty continues to menace him. At this stage one may begin really to dislike Mottke, as he enters into ever more degrading ways of life, but one will continue to follow his story with unflagging interest. This is the sufficient tribute to Asch's skill as a writer. ' The Author Sholem Asch, Yiddish novelist and playwright, was born near Warsaw in 1880, the son of poor Jewish parents. He commenced earning his own living while still a boy, but at twenty determined to be an author and engaged in free lance work in Warsaw..,ln 1901 his "The Village" was published, and placed him among the foremost Jewish writers, and in subsequent years his plays gained a wide audience. Max Reinhardt in 1910 produced "The God of Vengeance" in Berlin, consolidating his European reputation. He went to the United- States for the second time in 1914, and remained^there until 1925, when he took up residence near Paris. Much of his work has not been published in English, but the trilogy named "Three Cities," when it appeared two years ago. received a most laudatory reception. " The .Days Dividing " Again a title is apposite. Mr Bell's comes from Swinburne's lines about "the days dividing lover and lover," and it .is given an unusual twist in that not _ circumstances of which they are conscious, but the u,nheeding progress of .human affairs, in which they make their separate little patterns, keeps the lovers apart. We follow alternately the careers of a man and a girl; see them cross each other's paths several times without meeting, and at last, after they have lived their separate lives awhile, come together. Mr. Bell's theme suits well his taste for giving point and space to, the casually"ncountered persons and scenes with which his books abound. '"The Days Dividing" is a pleasant, full and robust work, which, as one may say, gives the reader value for his money and though the central theme inevitably wanes in importance at times, most people will not worry about that so long as Mr Bell provides so many other incidental themes for their entertainment. In Lanarkshire

Similarly in "Marjolaine" the central fact of the novel is of less importance than the themes around it. This central fact is a missing will, which must be discovered in order that the ownership of a country house in Lanarkshire may be determined. The attempts at a solution of the mystery of the will's disappearance are, however, of less moment than the characters who engage in them, and particularly Eleanor, whom we watch growing from childhood to womanhood in the old house, and follow to Edinburgh and Paris and elsewhere on her travels. The greater part of the action occurs in the placid years before the war, and gives one a sense of regret at the virtual departure from life of such quiet conditions of ease and comfort as Miss Primrose depicts. " Life and Love "

Francesca was known as " the girl with the crooning voice," and with the handsome Fane as her partner, scored the big type in every vaudeville bill in the country. She was in love with Fane,

too, though he seems to have had fewer likeable qualities than most men. When her voice was lost to her and an operation failed to restore it, Fane acquired a new partner for the act and declared his intention of marrying this young woman. Francesca was heartbroken, but found some solace in the understanding and companionship of Mrs Grey, a wise, elderly woman. She promised Mrs Grey, before the old lady died, that she would try to console Julian Grey, who was embittered by an unhappy marriage, and undertook the mission as a duty. _ It required a dramatic development to bring Julian and Francesca to a realisation that they meant more to each other than

companions. Denise Kobins, in " Life and Love" (from Whitcombe and Tombs), reminds us of her skill as a writer of romantic fiction. By Anne Hepple Anne Hepple has a like felicity in telling a story in which neither the characters nor the situations are of much substance, but both are very pleasantly limned. The heroine of "And Then Came Spring" (from Whitcombe and Tombs) is Elspeth, who escapes from semi-cap-tivity as an assistant in the school conducted by her grim aunts to a country cottage, in which she may develop her gift for writing. As it happens, a young man is already in possession of the cottage when Elspeth reaches it. This fact and others which Miss Hepple produces as the story pursues its romantic course, give "And Then Came Spring" sufficient of suspense to add to the author's homely, whimsical descriptions of quiet people and places. Horler Stories Tales of love and adventure are told by Sydney Horler in "Dying to Live' (from Whitcombe and Tombs), which comprises a selection of short stories by this experienced writer, and includes some of his earliest efforts. Mr Horler is best known as a writer of thrillers, and it is refreshing to meet him in lighter vein. . For the most part the stories Seal with the troubles of those fortunate young men of means who are popularly supposed to have no troubles. Among them is a story of the young curate who was forced into the scandalising situation of becoming a boxer, and the tale of Gerry Hopkins, who became very, ill in order to have the prettiest girl he- had ever seen as his nurse. Ground the Bosphorous Mr Wheatley's latest contribution to the robust list of adventure stories that best suit his pen has rather an impossible title, and rather an improbable plot. The title is "The Eunuch of Stamboul" (Whitcombe and Tombs), and the plot concerns the secret service work of a young Englishman deputed to discover for a financier just what the politicians of Turkey are up to. He has an exciting, dangerous, and glamorous time around the shores of the Bosphorous before this kinematic tale concludes with the appropriate romantic " fade-out."

" Dead Man Inside " This is an American mystery story, and a good one. There are several murders, in each\case the corpse being discovered in curious situations —one, like Mr Charles' Chaplin, is posed on a - statue when it is unveiled —with a notice indicating its presence. A quite inconspicuous scholar with the conspicuous name of Ghost is the man who does most to explain the deaths, but he is ably supported by several agreeable people, including a college professor and his daughter and an ebullient sports writer. The most unsatisfactory feature of a satisfying story is the lack of real motive —or the author's failure to give reality to the motive—of the accomplished murderer.

Procession of Victim* Also from the land of the New Deal comes " Dead Men Leave No Fingerprints," which is written- with that ironclad assurance peculiar to many American authors, but is ingenious and mystifying. Again, the murderer is not content with a single victim. The residents in Mr Raybourne's palatial country cottage pear San Francisco drop off one by one in a manner extremely discouraging to anybody but an undertaker, and not even the astute private detective Stan Lake is able to stay this procession. It must be admitted, however, that Lake's actual assignment is not the prevention of murders, but the preservation of the name of a beautiful kinema celebrity from scandalous discussion. In this he is successful. V. V. Jj.