The Gay and the Grim

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24603, 10 May 1941, Page 4

The Gay and the Grim

"Once a year, perhaps," the publishers exclaim. suggesting that Foundation Stone is this year's contribution from the United States to the English-reading world, and the worthy successor to "Anthony Adverse" "Gone With the Wind," "North-West Pas.age," "Dynasty of Death," and those other wrist-strain-ing, eye-fatiguing family mammoths which America produces so untiringly. Comparisons are, in such divers chronicles as those suggested, tenuous if not odious, and.one might prefer to say that this 640-page novel

j in shape, size, and sentiment the equal of those which have preceded it and from the point of view of art just as diffuse. The American marathon novelists are not skimpy with words, incidents, or characters. They are obsessed with the growth or decline of families, and take as much time almost to trace the process as it occupies in life. Of Leila Warren's book little ill could be said. It is a thorough-going investigation of the building of a great house in Alabama —the house of Whetstone—and traces, in a new setting, what is become a very old story indeed. This concerns an impulsive, dominating man, who respects and loves his stalwart wife but disperses much of his ardent affection elsewhere; and of their daughter ("the Scarlett O'Hara of this tale," the publishers tell us), whose imperious beauty and Whetstone blood lead her by difficult paths to an orderly, well-planned life. All is told with the greatest of confidence and of conscientiousness, the history carefully studied and tidily placed in the background, character developed with a methodical skill. Indeed, the skill of these younger American chroniclers is amazing. It is not a paucity of gifts and application, but a lack of the original spark, that leaves such stories unfired by life. But they remain very readable, this one along with the rest. Our copy is from Whitcombe and Tombs. »..■;' * * E. R. Punshon's output is concentrated and apparently inexhaustible. Ten Star Clues is the fifteenth of his books introducing that agreeable detective. Bobby Owen, and it was written in two months in London, between blasts of the Siren—to whom it is dedicated. All things considered, one is pleasantly surprised to find the tale

Foundation Stone. By Leila Warren. (Collins) Ten Star Clues By E. R. Punshon. (Gollancz.) The Birdseed Pool. By Bechhofer Roberts. (Hale.) None Better Loved. By Leila S: Mackinlay. (Ward, Lock.) Each v ßs 9d, unles. otherwise stated.

lucid and exciting enough. It is not first-class detective fiction, but so industrious a writer must owe something to mechanical proficiency. The theme is the attempt of an enterprising fellow to establish his puppet as the heir to Lord Wych, the custodian of large estates and a great tradition. That he chooses for his purpose a singularly ineffectual and not even unpleasant young man does not make for success. However, Lord and Lady Wych both recognise the claimant, and when his lordship thereafter is done to death Owen has much to do in discovering a reason for murder and a suitable murderer, while simultaneously discrediting the feeble Bertram's pretensions to the peerage. One character m the book stands out, and indeed, redeems it from mediocrity. Little Sophy, the parson's daughter, and Lady Wych's " companion," is a well-studied and appealing piece of femininity. * * *

The picture of bureaucracy in wartime which Mr Bechhofer Roberts presents in the second of his topical satires is perhaps amusing, but if it contains an element of truth, distressing as well. As evidence that the epic of The Birdseed Pool is not wholly airy fancy, the author gives chapter and verse for two exhibits introduced into his tale. They are specific examples of the type of jargon against which Mr Churchill has warned the Civil Service, but they do not necessarily support Mr Bechhofer Roberts s thesis that in a period of extreme national emergency some of the Government departments are earnestly engaged in complicating and obfuscating every question and.everybody, including themselves. His theory is developed about the adventure of Tony Clayton as chairman of a board which is charged with, conserving the birdseed resources of the United Kingdom, it is a lively and amusing enough tale that he contrives. One feels merely, while recognising the validity of the law that prevents the libelling of people in high places, that it is too fanciful to accept as being related to the truth, unless the author could produce some further evidence. * * *

Leila S. Mackinlay was qualified, as a second-generation student of the theatre, to write the story None Better Loved, and she makes of this history of a matinee idol of the nineties reasonably good entertainment. It starts in a warden's post in a bombracked London, where "Charm Avalon, now in his sixties, talks to a fellow warden, a modern girl, of his all-but-forgotten career on the English stage. His narrative is faithful enough. He obtained a start through a wealthy patroness, he became a celebrity and married the beautiful leading lady. When she took drink and lovers he remained by her, faithful to the idea of marriage. When their waned, Avalon was uncomplaining. He had kept in touch with Mary, the girl from his own village who remained his ideal, but Miss Mackinlay is wise enough not to arrange for these two an elderly romance after Avalon's wife dies at last. There is not sufficient of the " feel" of the London stage of the past to make this book a really good gift for those with nostalgic memories of the theatre previous to 1914. It is a matter-of-fact recital of a life not badly spent in the service of the public, and as such pleasant reading, though inferior in charm to autobiographies of the period, whose slightly faded illustrations possess the touch of tinsel reality.