NORTH AFRICAN IMPRESSIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 4

NORTH AFRICAN IMPRESSIONS

," In Lightest Africa.” By H. T. Kenney. Illustrated. London: Murray; 17s. The author of this vivacious collection of impressions was one who sought in Northern Africa for relief from boredom in London (or did he proceed to that part of the world with the avowed intention of adding to the literature concerning it?). Whatever the circumstances, here are his experiences presented in book form with a completeness calculated to stir the migration instinct in those who sample the reminiscent fare thus provided. Mr Kenny gives a clear picture of life in and about the great Sahara Desert, and from the moment of his arrival at Algiers, a town so un-African that “ a stranger might well be excused for imagining himself in some prosperous seaport in the south of France.” there is always plenty of interest for himself and such of his readers as those for whom the thought of Northern Africa holds fascination. This part of the great continent seems to be the sort of place where the people are of as much interest as their surroundings, and consequently the author has many piquant and a few vastly amusing incidents to relate concerning his reception by certain native dignitaries. J. G. Reticent G. B. S. Arnold Bennett kept a journal. G. K. Chesterton completed his autobiography a few weeks before his death. Mr H. G. Wells has been, directly and indirectly, the copious English autobiographer of his time, puring the past 10 years the question has continually been asked. Whv ho full selfrecord of Mr Bernard Shaw, says the London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian.’ And now he is .80 the question is asked again, since it is abundantly evident that, despite the fullness of the semi-authorised life by Dr Archibald Henderson, of North Carolina, no one but “G. B. S.” could tell the story of Bernard Shaw. According to his friends, we may take it as certain that he will not do it. Fragments of autobiography are scattered among the prefaces to the plays, and when editing the authoritative edition of his writings Mr Shaw wrote one long autobiographical chapter. This was in the form of an introduction to “Immaturity,” one of the “novels of his nonage." which until that time had remained ■ unpublished. More than this he has probably no intention of doing. I believe that he has not kept a great many papers, and. although his talk is now. and always has been, largely anecdotic. I doubt whether he has ever had much of an impulse to write down the past as he has known and lived it. Lawrence Miscellany For several years D. H. Lawrence's publishers have had in hand much material which had never been published in book form —essays on men and women, on love and life, on books and plays and far places. There had also come to light much important work which had gone no further than the original MS. Indeed it was found that approximately one-third of the collection had never before been published.- Under the title “Phoenix.” the material is now to be issued in one volume uniform with “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence.” Assembly of the collection has been entrusted to Lawrence's bibliographer.