RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23867, 22 July 1939, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

The Real New Zealand Cedarholm Is " a rough, poor station which has wrung nothing but blood, tears, and sacrifice from three generations." In its stubborn refusal to yield to those who have served it well even temporary relief from anxiety that their home will be sold over their heads, Cedarholm differs from most considerable New Zealand country stations, which have known days of boom as well as of gloom. But in all other ways Cedarholm is genuine Dominion territory, ample in area, beautiful but rugged, rearing from its soil a human family as typical of the sheep country as the rough grasses upon its face. Those who know the life of the sheep and cattle station of the north—or of Central Otago for that matter—will have no difficulty in identifying many of the characters In this book with their prototypes In actual fact. Mrs McCarthy has not borrowed from exotic, sources in translating into terms of fiction the story 6t a New Zealand farm and its people. The book is a three-generation chronicle. lis first pages are steeped in the gory history

of that dark chapter when the Hau Haus plundered and pillaged in the north. Mary Cedarholm saw her infant brother slain; her mother die from exhaustion and exposure, her father set off on a journey from which he would not return; The saving of a roughhewn piece of land irom the jealous Natives, from a sister to whom it represented merely unrealised capital, from the banks, became her life. She married, but remained wedded to Cedarholm. She suffered, but cnly Fred among her children could arouse in her the same intensity of feeling that the farm claimed. And in the end her possessive. hold upon these two interests, station and son, became amalgamated in what amounted to an obsession. It is a queer quirk of fate that can form, from human stuff essentially so gentle and kindly as Mary, a woman so resolutely set in shaping the lives of others away from their desire. That Mrs McCarthy makes vivid and sympathetic a character whom an experienced novelist would have difficulty in limning without exaggeration,, is one of her achievements in this book. But " Castles in the Soil" has many elements to evoke the interest and enthusiasm of New Zealand readers. It is a novel that suggests, as well as has been done, the nature of the land and the people on it. Without fine' writing this author has succeeded. in giving reality to a characteristic New Zealand community. Her book deserves the attention of all who hold Dominion literature as worth study and a good, eventful story the better for touching their oWn knowledge and experience «»• The Author: Beryl McCarthy was born at Wanganui,. educated in Wellington and Christchurch, and has lived in Hawke's Bay for 20 years. Before her marriage to Allan McCarthy she was in a Napier office and held a speed record as shorthand writer and typist. A busy life as mother and hotel proprietress, in which writing also found a place, has occupied her, first at Napier, latterly at Mohaka. Dissatisfied v/ith her first novel, . she consigned it to the flames.' The MSS of her second, which was accepted by a London publisher, was lost in the fire and earthquake of February 3, 1931, which destroyed the hotel in 10 minutes, only the cash register being saved! But while her husband set to work to rebuild his property, she faced a literary setback with equal fortitude. " Castles in the Soil," written in moments snatched from the busy life of hotel-keep-ing, is the result. She has shared her husband's interest in yachting, and her hobbies are gardening and china-painting. - The Kiwi Club " Norman Leslie tells, in this story, of an attempt to bring Britain to her knees, in the event of war. bv means of an ingeniously-hidden base on the Yorkshire coast. The original intention was to house a fleet of aeroplanes there, but this proving quite impossible, a store of bombs was arranged, and with these one or two high-speed machines could have performed great destruction. The disappearance of a. specially-designed bomber in a fog led to suspicion, and this drew the Kiwi Club into the investigation with disastrous results for one Locatelli. who was sure that he could do wonders against England if only a war could be declared.

" Castles In ttie Soil." By Beryl McCarthy. " The Demigods." By Alfred Gordon Bennett (Jarrolds). 9s. " Roughanapes." By William McDowell (Hodder and Stoughton). "The Kiwi Club." By Norman Leslie (Jenkins). " The Three Short Men." By Francis Vivian. "Wine of Good Hope." By David. Rame (Collins). "The Vengeanct of Blue Pete." By Luke Allan (Jenkins). Each 7s 6d, unless otherwise stated.

"The Demigods* This is a scientific fantasy. , There are many sorts of scientific thrillers, some good, some definitely not so good. Mr Bennett's book is one of the better sort. In fact, it has a touch of H. G. Wells at his best. The Qemigods are a race of Amazon ants, ruled by a masternnnind of immemorial age, which has used its knowledge of life-forces, and a huge radium deposit deep in the workings of the Queen of Sheba's fabulous gold mines in the depths of Africa, to develop the insects to enormous size. They emerge upon the world and commence to carry out a plan of world-domination which involves the destruction of the human race. Mr Bennett has made a thorough study of ants and their habits, and the way in which he has invoked a typical ant community of .an enormous size, but remaining true to the insects' really extraordinary way of living is fascinating in the extreme. Two biologists come to fight the menace to humanity. The heroine, daughter of the English scientist, is kidnapped by the ants, which grow to 20 feet and more in length, and the younger biologist, Dr Philip Kramer, the American, who has fallen in love with her, follows her into the formicary to rescue her and destroy the master mind at the bottom of its monstrous den. The atmosphere of inhuman horror in which the characters move and make love is magnificently created and sustained, and the reader is kept in suspense throughout. One or two loose ends are left about. The ants used gold and gold alloys for their machines, and one wonders if the happy pair reaped a fortune after the menace was removed. One loses sight, also, of several of the minor characters. The main plot, however, is brought to a most interesting conclusion, and the reader who approaches the book in a proper attitude, willing to accept the necessary first premise of the master mind, will find that he has thoroughly enjoyed himself. "The Three Short Men."

Francis Vivian tells of a dreadful vengeance which follows a piece of treachery committed in the uPP er reaches of the Amazon. When Underwood is found dead,John Hathersage knows the reason for his murder, but he pursues such a devious way in trying to put everyone off the scent that he brings suspicion upon himself, and incidentally makes the reader annoyed that the author ha.s had recourse to such subterfuges in his endeavour to " queer the pitch." Slowly we get the story of the treasure of Sir Jqcelyn Wycherley, and learn the identity of the three " short" men who bring upon a rascal a punishment which is rather greater than his misdeeds warrant. The story is not as well told as one could wish, in that it is needlessly rambling, and Hathersage's movements are too often purposeless. Africa and Abroad " Wine of Good Hope " Is a novel in the somewhat grandiose tradition that might be described as "picaresque modern." A mere recital of the adventures of Tony Lemaire, when gripped by wanderlust he leaves the South. African wine farm he loves, and the girl he also loves, and goes C -.- -'■;■■ ■■' ■ (.•'•• .

in search of his legendary father, would suggest nothing more than the almost interminable gallant peregrinations of Anthony Adverse. But Tony is a 1 more subtle character than Adverse. If his wanderings are often without purpose, they all form part of the pattern of his personality. In Bohemian London, rubber-planting in Malaya, or studying the habits of the American rich. Tony is clearly shaping himself for a return at last to his twu great loves —the South African land, and his boyhood sweetheart. Mr Rame writes'well with an instinctive feeling for the trivial things that make big adventures real when set before the reader. He has a sense for character, a style too disciplined to lapse into sentimentality. " Wine of Good Hope " is an excellent book in its genre, and its author a new South African writer to be welcomed.

" Roughanapes " " Garrow " will be identified as Bar-row-in-Furness, and Mr McDowell's book remembered by its peculiar and rather enigmatical title. There are other things to remember of it. however. The author has a direct and vivid style, and he writes of people who are best dealt with in the block, so to speak, rough edges and all. His background, which is stronger than the characterisation of the central character, is the ship-building industry in its three phases—war. pre-war. and postwar —and the ships which go from the yards into charted but always incal-culably-tempered seas. The 'vagrant interests of Brian Forbes, all of them linked with the business of building and sailing ships, enable the author to cover in both the practical and metaphorical senses a deal of ground and ocean as he follows the fortunes of his hero. This novel should be assured of a public, and quite well deserves it.

Blue Pete's Vengeance Readers of " Blue Pete, Horse Thief," will be glad to meet this character again in "The Vengeance of Blue Pete." " Butch " Dorman is the scoundrel of the piece., and at the great "bronco-busting" gathering in Medicine Hat he shows his powers and Is acclaimed a hero. Next year he comes again, but Pete lays him in the dust, conquered and shamed, then proceeds to deal as effectively with the rustler* who, under Dorman's leadership, have caused the ranchers more than worry V V. L

The prices marked against books reviewed in these columns are those at which Ihey are retailed in New Zealand.