ARAB AND JEW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23637, 22 October 1938, Page 4

ARAB AND JEW

CONFLICT IN PALESTINE "A Land Divided.” By Elizabeth Montgomery. London: Hutchinson 16s. “A Land Divided.” by Elizabeth Montgomery, is in many ways a disappointing book. To begin with, from us Hue one might expect to find between its covers a fairly comprehensive survey of the situation in Palestine, out apart from a chapter on the Arab aims and their authors, and one or two isolated comments, the book is little more than a tourist guide to the Holy Land, and there have been many better. Mrs Montgomery is the wife of an English armv olhcer who was posted to Palestine late in 1936, and consequently she was in fairly close touch with events during the following year when the findings of the Royal Commission were published. She has preferred, however, to introduce a horde of matter irrelevant to the question, and sets down a great number of stories, incidents, anecdotes and observations on places of historical interest that could probably be found in the guide books or amongst the considerable amount of travel literature dealing with the Holy Land to which ‘A Land Divided ” cannot be regarded as a very valuable contribution. It is written in a conversational, almost gossiping style, and the reader can easily imagine many of the incidents being retailed over a cup of tea. The reader, too. becomes considerably irked at the chattily described doings of “ L.” and “ R.” the author’s two companions on her travels in Palestine. When the Arab situation is touched on. however Mrs Montgomery has adopted the sound course of being matter-of-fact and forgets to strive for effect. The book is, perhaps worth reading for the concise sketch of the Arab point of view and for the history of Zionism which may be picked up at intervals through the pages while there is a particularly interesting chapter which paints an uninspiring picture of the soulless little communist settlements in which brushes and combs are common property and marriage and divorce merely a matter of signing in a social register. A. L. F. Best Selling Author Margaret Mitchell appeared in town last week for her first Now York press interview (says an American correspondent). She says there will be no sequel to “Gone With the Wind”: in fact, she is not working on any book at all. She hasn't time, she explained. She still gets quantities of fan mail, and answers all the legible letters.