RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23221, 19 June 1937, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

" Intimate Strangers.” By Katharine Susannah Prichard. (Cape.) “Fade-Out.” By Naomi Jacob. (Hutchinson.) “ Three Cedars.” By Ursula Bloom. (Collins.) “ Lord Emsworth and Others." By P. G. Wodehouse. (Jenkins.) “I, Saravan.” By Douglas Newton. (Cassell.) “ Keep on Dancing.” By F. E. Baily. (Collins.) “Adventure Beautiful.” By Simon Dare. (Hutchinson.) “ The Magpie Rides.” By Tevis Miller. (World's Work.) (Each 7s Gd.) A Domestic Novel Katharine Susannah Prichard is recognised as one of the foremost of Australian women writers, and her latest novel can only aid her considerably in her climb up the literary ladder. It is a sincere and moving work, consistently fine and finely consistent. Mrs Prichard, who possesses a keen understanding and appreciation of domestic life, with its inevitable drudgeries and trials, allies herself with her characters in a stroriglysympathetic manner, making them very real people. Greg and Elodie Blackwood are just an ordinary couple, once very much ■•in love, but, when the story opens, married long enough to have reached the stage where it is easy to become indifferent to each other. Husband and wife have always remained strangers, in so far as neither has had the courage to reveal to the other the deeper qualities and finer thoughts each has, a situation common enough in every-day life. Greg, taunted by his wife’s growing coolness, seeks solace in the company of other women, particularly that of Dirk Hartog, a young woman with an unusually strong will. Elodie, in turn, permits herself to be swept off her feet by the glamorous, domineering Captain Jerome Hartog, Dirk’s cousin. Greg’s attitude towards Dirk forces her into aia unsatisfactory marriage, and Jerome Hartog becomes involved in a particularly tragic happening. These events bring to Elodie a realisation of the acute danger attached to the whole situation. Eventually the tangled skein of these lives is woven into a garment of happiness and greater understanding. The Australian scene 'is quietly insistent as an interesting % background, proving that a novel of ordinary people may be true to type, yet indicative of the life of one country in particular.

The Author: Katharine Susannah Prichard is considered by many Australians to have written in “ Working Bullocks ” the nearest approximation to the “great ’ Australian novel.” Certainly she is one of the most distinguished of contemporary writers in the Commonwealth. With her first novel she won a £IOOO prize for a pioneering story; another won £ 500 in a serial competition. Her novels include “ Coonardoo,” which deals largely with aboriginal life, “ Haxby's Circus,” “ Kiss on the Lips.". She was married in 1919 to the late H. V. H. Throssell, V.C., who died in 1933, and has one child, a son . Her home is at Greenmount, Western Australia.

The “Star” and the Writer Naomi Jacob’s intent in “ Fade-Out ” is to please, and this is just as it ' should be in so fitful a romance as the love- story of a successful motion picture actress, and a rather shy and retiring playwright. There is nothing outstanding in the varied flirtations of her principals and the sometimes lurid philanderings of a group of occasional characters, but as far as the people in .the’story whom she likes .are concerned, she has taken the trouble to make them likeable. Miss Jacob can be sentimental, and she can draw a: nubile heroine as enthusiastically as if she herself were the anxious, bridegroom who is waiting for her to make up her mind. The book Is a love story which has its beginnings in a sea voyage from the Mediterranean to England, dallies in Albion for a time, switches suddenly to America, then to the West Riding of Yorkshire, and finally back to London. With such an immense amount of territory to play about in, the novelist has no difficulty in introducing a really heterogeneous collection of characters, and it is in the manner in which the life and morals and habits of each impinge on those of the other that Miss Jacob displays the deft style which is one of the features of the book. For sophisticated women, artistic or doV mestic, whose philosophy is steeped in wise experience, Miss Jacob , seems to have an infectious toleration, and most of those who read “ Fade-Out ” will probably be more interested in ' . the women of the story than in the men.

Through the Years The charm and quiet humour of Ursula Bloom’s stories appeal not only to women readers, but to all who appreciate a well-told romance. “Three Cedars ” traces the history of the Boyce family from the day when Elizabeth Boyce planted the first cedar, in 1830, through the intervening years until the old house was sold and a garden city rose over its ruins. The charactqys who move across this panorama are real people; whose emotions are portrayed w;'Hra sympathetic yet candid understanding. “ Three Cedars ” is one of Miss Bloom’s best novels, and can be recommended to all readers of the light type of romantic fiction.

More Wodehousing P. G. Wodehouse’s latest contribution to the gaiety of nations is a collection of short stories entitled “ Lord Emsworth and Others.” It would be ims possible for this author to be dull, for he has a ‘ happy knack of using just " the correct word always. The first and longest story, “The Crime Wave at " Blandings,” concerns “ the day on which lawlessness reared its ugly head at '“■Blandings Castle.” Lord Emsworth (a pig enthusiast), Beach, Lady Con- ,, stance, the airgun, Baxter, and, human nature all play imnortant parts. The V golf stories are, perhaps, the best. Golf ,1 is an unfailing source of anecdote which can be turned to excellent puri pose in the hands of a humorist of Mr Wodehouse’s calibre Only one fault mars these stories. The author takes it for granted that his readers V are fully conversant with his previous £ novels, and he keeps referring to inci- ;> dents and characters in them. These references may reduce Wodehouse students, to a state of helpless mirth, I; but the average reader is left comd pletely in the dark and rather •i annoyed.

& The Amazing: Savaran L “ I. Savaran! ” is an episodic novel. ; Inevitably, it contains some of the dis ■ advantages of such a novel, but, on the other hand, it contains more than k ' the usual advantages. Savaran, a reck- ' less, fearless, bombastic adventurer, « descends on Africa, where, with disarming nonchalance, he makes and unv makes kings, rules tribes, and attempts * to found an empire of his own, Scorning to turn his hand at nothing, 1 whether against the law or not. he finds himself sought after by the powers-that-be in French, Portuguese, !l and English territories, yet is he a man 1 whose word can be trusted, and a thoroughly likeable scoundrel, In a „■ tight corner his wits, and the rapidity * with which he takes advantage of an :> opportunity, always enable him to « escape. He is often deprived of the personal benefit to be gained from his best-laid schemes, because he cannot f- refrain from doin« a chivalrous, somc- , times a mildly quixotic, action. He is, I in fact, an impossible man, really, yet <t the author, who possesses a vigorous p style, makes him live; and his many ... adventures assume the cloak of crediv bility and are thrilling to the last de- •• cree There is a hint at the finish 0,. the book that this “African Robin v Hood with an Alexander the Great

complex” will be heard of again. It is safe to predict that his return will be eagerly awaited. Murder in New Zealand When Alfred Meyer brought the Carolyn Dacres Comedy Company on tour through New Zealand he bore along with him a Jeroboam of champagne, to crack on the birthday of his wife, who was also the leading lady. But it so happened that, at a party onstage in a New Zealand town, after the curtain had fallen, it was poor Meyer’s head that was cracked—by this same jeroboam, which came hurtling from the “ flies.” The assumption was that Meyer’s death was an accident, due to the failure of the mechanical device which was to lower the bottle majestically on to the table when a cord was cut. But Alleyn of Scotland Yard, on holiday in New Zealand, and a guest at the party, decided otherwise when he fotaid the device had been tampered with. So Alleyn, with the assistance of some New Zealand policemen whose vocabularies prove to be most limited, and whose intelligence is of a restricted order, proceeds to interrogate the members of the company. With what he knew previously, as their travelling companion, and what he discovers in examination, he is soon on a line of inquiry. This he keeps rather much to himself , while he goes driving with the beautiful Carolyn, and learns something of Maori lore from Dr Rangi Te Pokiha. Yet at the appointed time, he makes all clear, with a simpleseeming experiment, which brings release to all but one of the characters from the reader’s suspicions, and romance to two of them. Miss Marsh has set her new story in New Zealand without inducing that feeling of self-consciousness we are apt to experience on seeing ourselves in print. “ Vintage Murder ” is not her best tale, but it is capably done.

By F. E, Daily F, E. Baily’s latest novel, "Keep on Dancing,” is another of the light, witty tales of modern life in which the author specialises. It concerns two sisters, the first a quiet; intelligent girl, and the second a frivolous little “gold-digger,” whose earning capacity is a long way lower than her yearning capacity. These two sisters present young Denis Wright with the problem of his life, and Mr Baily’s studies of them show considerable understanding. In his amusing novel he tells a story that should interest most women readers.

“Adventure Beautiful " “ Once I was discontented and used to grouse, then I found that work and friendship and self-discipline were all that mattered, and life turned into a beautiful adventure.” So says one of the characters in Simon Dare’s novel, and that remark contains the theme to which her many characters. react. Miss Dare writes for a public that prefers light reading, and has kept her theme within the confined limits that this public would demand. Consequently the story does not go as keenly, in to her thesis as it might, and readers who seek depth in a novel are likely to experience a sense of frustration. Again, certain side-issues are introduced that have little to do with the story proper, and these slow up the action, temporarily leading the reader to forget the major theme. , For those, however, who read for the moment “Adventure Beautiful” may be found moderately satisfying.

In the West In a small cabin in the forests of the West an old man sought to repair the damage done in his youth for which he had recently been released after 40 years in prison. He wrote to three people, and the three—a man, an elderly woman, and a beautiful girl —came to his cabin in response to his summons. They did not know that he intended to return to them, the kin of people he had robbed, jewels of fabulous value, but “ The Magpie ” knew. “The Magpie” was a villain, not at all picturesque, and he intended to have the jewels. Had not Keith Allen come to the assistance of the girl and the others, “ The Magpie ” might well have succeeded in his schemes. In “The Magpie Rides,” Tevis Miller has given his readers a dashing story of courage and romance in the “ great outdoors.” V. V. L.

Popular Favourites Few greater or more grotesque contrasts are found anywhere than in the* saleroom (says an American correspondent). The original manuscript of a poem with which a thousand crooners have tortured our ears, the late Joyce Kilmer’s “ Trees,” Poems are made by fools like me But only God can make a tree! sold at a recent sale for 620 dollars, while a first edition of the volume in which it was first printed fetched 45 dollars. Hollywood is partly, but more justifiably, responsible for the price of an uncut copy of Bligh’s “Narrative of the Mutiny.” 1790. 340 dollars.

A Carlyle Anecdote In his newly-published autobiography the late Augustine Birrell has an anecdote of Carlyle and a cattle drover who on a Highland boat coolly asked him for the loan of a pencil; Carlyle surveyed the drover, through his light blue eyes, with a look of wonder and profound melancholy, and then, overcome by that deep-rooted sympathy he always had for the poor men who do the rough work of the world, and do not write about it, the old man stopped, proceeded to untie his wrappers, to unbutton his long duffle coat, to undo his cardigan jacket, to fumble in a waistcoat pocket, and to produce a worn stump of pencil, which he handed to the drover, who had stood composedly by while this unrobing was going on. Carlyle had no thanks, and buttoned himself up again without expecting any.

Ambrose Philips The first complete edition of the Poetical Works of Ambrose Philips, edited by M. G. T. Scgar, will bo published by Basil Blackwell. The edition of 1748. arranged by Philips himself, is incomplete, among its omissions being the early version of the pastorals which established the poet’s contemporary fame and was criticised by Addison, Steele. Swift, and Pope.