LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 1 March 1921, Page 54

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. “Broken Colour.’’ By Harold Ohlson. London: John Lane. Mr Ohlson is a new writer; his first novel, “The Dancing Hours,” made a most favourable impression, and “Broken Colour” fully sustains the estimate of Mr Ohlson’s powers based on his first success. The action of this story very nearly coincides with the war period, and the lives of the chief actors are affected by the war; but we are shown nothing of the alarms, excitement, and hardships which the war brought to English people. The action runs on partly in London, partlv in the country, and the people are mainly absorbed in interests of ordinary days and seem to meet with no hindrance to the ordinary routine of the pleasant easy life of weil-to-do middle-class people. James Dodd, the Egyptologist and artist, does indeed do work in a shell factory, on a farm, and then serves as special constable, and one or two of the women are working at intervals for the soldiers. But the Streatfields, mother and daughter, lead the inane lives of society women just as if there was no war, and on the whole \ye are given a picture of an England very little disturbed by the war, which may be the truer one. The book is not a war story, nor a social study, but a novel of ordinary English life and character by a writer gifted with unusual powers of lifelike presentment of character. The story centres round Hubert Aveling, a young artist, who volunteered in the early days of the war and lost a leg in one of the early encounters at Gallipoli. On his recovery he seeks to devote himself to painting, though this purpose is absolutely counter to the ideas of his only surviving relatives, uncle and grandfather, who could have given him assistance at the outset of his career. But he has two warm friends, James Dodd and hi 3 sister Angela, a most attractively-presented pair. The scenes at the Artists’ Club, of which James is secretary, with the artists who frequent it and the bright, ingenuous young model, Peggy, are very brightly rendered. Hubert is commissioned to paint the portrait of the only daughter of a man of wealth, and to her he loses his heart.. He puts all his powers into the portrait, and hopes that it will establish his reputation as an artist. But the father refuses to have the painting exhibited, and the your» artist, taking this refusal as an adverse judgment on his work, decides to abandon art and follow his grandfather’s wish in entering commercial life, in the hopes of winning an independence such as may justify him in asking Diane to be his wife. There is a second love dderest, that of Angela and Michael O’Neill, naval officer—and here the tragedy of war does come in. Angela has loved and been sought late in life, and as the hospital nurse says to herself, “It is when you are middle-aged that sorrow lasts so long : you lose, and no one comes afterwards to fill your life again.” But on the whole the atmosphere of the story is bright. Mr Ohlson ha s an excellent style, excelling in conversation. The characters depict themselves. He has humour and tenderness, and shows himself an able student _ of human nature. “Broken Colour” is certainly one of the ablest, and at the same time pleasantest, novels of recent production. “The Conquering Hero.” By John Murray Gibbon. London : John Lane. Mr Murray Gibbon has already published two novels of a romantic cast — “Hearts and Faces” and “Drums Afar.” In The Conquering Hero” romance and realism are very happily blended. The story opens in an original way. A party of city men, mostly New Yorkers, are camping very luxuriously in a mountain region of Canada, haviim engaged High-land-Canadian guides and a first-class cook. While at breakfast one lovely September morning they are startled by the apparition of a handsome woman of foreign, aspect in fashionable riding attire—“a cross between a Tragedy Queen and a fashion plate,” thinks Donald, the young guide. She introduces herself as the Princess Stephanie Sobieska, and explains that she is travelling with her maid, her manager, and her press agent. She is, in fact, a moving-picture actress, but Iras a genuine claim to her title, and is playing with the object of raising funds for" the relief of the famine-stricken Poles. She is a woman with a history, and, young as she seems, is well on in the forties, and has lately lost a son, who fell fighting > n .the Polish army raised under the auinority of the French Government. She is heart and soul devoted to the cause of Poland, but her toilets are the latest thing in Paris fashions. “Lucky that the mosquito season is over,” comments Donald, seeing her that, evening in dinner dress. As her manager and guide are not very capable in the commissariat department, the city campers come to her rescue, and the two parties join forces during the period of their stay in the mountains. Donald, in whom she has shown special interest, then finds he has lost his greatlyprized D.r.M. medal, and the story of its loss and recovery is a revelation ‘ of the depths of villainy to which low-class American press agents will descend in search of sensation. The Princess, suspected at first, is shown to be blameless in the matter. Then Donald returns to the little farm in British Columbia he had left four years earlier to join the Canadian contingent of the 'Forty-second Highlanders, the famous Black Watch. He and Pis father has farmed it together, the latter already failing in health', died soon after his son’s departure, hoping that if the son were spared he would be content to settle down to the life of a farmer and sow the seed of life in the new world.” Then, in that first busy spring, comes an English family, the father of which, an English officer, has decided to try his fortunes as farmer in Canada. But it is his daughter Kate who is the real farmer. She is the girl of Donald’s dream—fair, rosy-cheeked, healthy, and natural. Their

love story does not run smooth; the Princess, now married to Mr Hugh Johnson, one of the camping party, is quite innocently a disturbing element; but filially' Kate is assured of Donald’s fidelity. Ihe descriptions of- Canadian scenery are excellent, and there is plenty of adventure, including a narrow escape from a forest fire. The characterisation is skilful and the conversation animated and natural.. Mr Gibbon has produced an excellent story, which will keep the reader’s interest sustained from the first page to the last.