BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 74

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

“HERE’S A HEALTH.” “Wine and the Wine Lands of the World.” By Frank Hedges Butler. (Cloth, 15s het.) London: Ernest Benn, Limited. Here is a fine piece of work, fascinating to a degree, and guaranteed to interest and divert all who like books of autobiography, travel, information, and good reading. Frank Hedges Butler has already gained a name in the literary world, having written “Five Thousand

Miles in a Balloon,” “Through Lapland with Skis and Reindeer,” “Fifty Years of Travel by Land,” “Water and Air,” and “Round the World,” and, first lion, treasurer of the Royal Autgfhobile Club, founder of the Royal Aero Club, and founder of the Imperial Institute Orchestral Society, he is in a position to be an authority on his subject, while having at the same time that gift of easy writing which makes some travel books such a joy to read. “Wine and the Wine Lands of the World” is no mere collection of facts and figures, but a moving talc most picturesquely told. It begins with the attitude taken by the Bible towards wine, and shows that, though excess in wine, like all other excesses, is always sternly discountenanced in Scripture, nowhere do we find the slightest trace of that condemnation of wine per se which the diatribes of the fanatics might lead us to expect. On the other hand, “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities,” an admonishment to his “son Timothy” by St. Paul, is surely an indication of the recognition of the value of wine as a food and tonic. There are many more such sayings. It is a known fact that wine, a natural product of the soil, nourishing, comforting, and wholesome, if consumed with the moderation which is natural to civilised men and women, contributes to health and long life, and is the best means of preventing alcoholism with all its disastrous consequences. In wine-growing districts drunkenness is quite exceptional, alcoholism is kept in check, and the use of drugs is unknown; the people know how to drink in moderation, and recognise wine as a source of good humour and a safeguard against epidemics. Wine also lessens the need for nitrogenous food, sucn as meat.

The author, having discussed these points, then goes on to a history of the grape, showing how and where it was used in days of old, and proceeding to the elaborate description of the wines of the world which constitutes the main part of the book. He devotes whole chapters to the life-story of tho wines of Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Sicily, Hungary, Czccho-slovakia, Yugoslavia, Madiera, the Canaries, Cyprus, Palestine, Greece, Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, Rr. ia, South Africa, Australia, Kashmir, Argentine, and Chili, and describes their surroundings, their method of being made, their export, etc., irT charming prose which delights the reader, whil giving him information. Photographic illustrations further bear out this last point. There are then chapters on the national drinks of various countries—the brandy of Cognac, the whisky of Scotland and of Ireland, the rum of the West Indies, the ale, the cider, and gin of England, the saki of Japan, the kava of the South Sea Islands, and so on. It is all interesting, as are the discourses on ceremonial drinking : toasts and sentiments, drinking songs and verses, fashions in wine, the wine lands from the air, and the vintages of the twentieth century. The paragraphs on our own country are, however, misleading. Still it will prove diverting in as far as it shows what sort of an impression we make on the minds-of some of our overseas visitors.

SEX AND PESSIMISM. “ It’s Not Done.” By William C. Bullitt. (Cloth, 6s, local price.) London: Brcntano’s (per Robertson and Mullens, Melbourne). We have been told lately that the public is growing weary of sex novels, and that publishers, realising this, are less ready to produce them. This may well be. The book under notice (apparently a first novel) shows how dreary, ugly, and futile the exploitation in fiction of sex passion, sexual difficulties, and.marriage incompatibilities is likely to be even in the hands of an author of decided ability. For this is not one of the commonest order of sex novels, where eroticism is dressed up to disguise the writer’s lack-of ideas and incapacity to write a good story. Mr Bullitt has ideas, and if he could get rid of the obsession of sex, and, emerging from the fog of pessimism which envelops him, would strive “ to see life steadily and see it whole,” he might produce a really good novel. These are two big “ if’s,” and Mr Bullitf would do well also to be less relentless in his determination to be outspoken about every detail of existence. He has real vigour and power to bring people and situations vividly before the reader, but he is monotonously forcible and violent. “ Silence writhed through the room like a limed worm ” is an example of a forcible—and forced—simile. Mr Bullitt is one of the most thofoughgoing pessimists one has met with lately. It is not only that in sex conduct he makes out me? and women to be lower than beasts of the field; this is usual in ultra realistic fiction. Civilisation is to him a failure, and he appears to take a savage deligl . ii exposing the rottemess of American business, politics, ar legal administration. England, where some of the actions of the story takes place, comes in lor only fewer hard hits than America. The story is of the biographical order, and fairly long, beginning with the boyhood of the leading character, John Corsey. He be’ongs to one of the aristocrathe old families of the States. The Corseys and their set pride themselves on being gentlemen; they hunt, and are connoisseurs in wines. Dr Corsey, John’s father, has a high standard of personal honour, and teaches his son that “a Corsey couldn’t do such a -thing ” is the final answer to any in-

ducement to any act savouring of meanness, dishonesty, or cruelty. John as boy and man is impulsive’,' emotional, and erratic; he does everything violently. As a lad he knocks out his friend’s teeth in sudden a iger, and by way of penance roasts his hand over the hot coals. He revolts against_.the dishonesties of legal practice, for which he had been designed, and takes to journalism, becoming editor of an important paper. His first love affair is with the daughter of an eccentric and struggling rtist, who herself practises sculpture. But he cannot bring himself to marry a girl so far removed from his own class, a id later Nina, when he does offer marriage, will not accept it. So John marries a beautiful girl of his own set, and the remainder of the book is mainly occupied with the history of their married life, told in its most intimate details. They have the usual one child, a son, and later by degrees drift further and further apart. John’s idealism wars with his fleshly inclinations, and makes him view irregular connections with repugnance; he leads an unsatisfied tormented existence. He is revolted by the fraudulent business enterprises of his elder brother, who piles up a fortune, settles in England, and through prudent practices during the war period is on -the way to a peerage. The war, of course, gives Mr Bullitt opportunity to show up the hollowness of patriotism. John is at first uninterested; later, when his schoolboy son volunteers, he is as enthusiastic on behalf of the Allies as anyone. It is an ironic stroke to make the bereaved father discover that his son, in whose patriotism and fine war record, he had taken such pride, had, with a companion, joined up in a freakish impulse owing to missing the Mauretania after “a. night out.” In the end John is left outwardly a successful man, but feeling that life holds nothing for him. He is going as Ambassador to Italy, and his wife, with whom he has patched up a reconciliation after both have planned divorce, goes with him. The book is an unsavoury and depressing one. Its central character is altogether too unbalanced and neurotic for his experiences to be enlightening. Mr Bullitt certainly succeeds in showing how ugly and mean human life becomes in the absence of definite beliefs and principles of conduct.

ENGLISH YEOMEN FARMERS. “Cloudburst.” By Neville Brand. (Cloth, 7s 6d net.) London: John Lane, The Bodley Head. Though this may be wad as an independent novel, it is a continuation of the author’s “Narrow Seas,” published about two years ago. The scene is the same coastal farming country about the market town of Carsash, and the chief actors are the two sisters Susan and Ruth, whose story was begun in the former novel, ifiid the family of the 'Howes, which likewise figured in it. Susan and Ruth were daughters of a sea captain who, as told in the earlier book, was lost in his last North Seas voyage. The Howes were, a farming family, and the- two elder Howes were hard and grasping. They had set their hearts on acquiring an adjoining farm after the death .of the solitary old man who owned it. But Ruth, the younger of the Jessel sisters, had befriended the old man, and he willed the farm to her. Arthur Howe, a weak and mean character, married Susan, who went to live with him in his parents’ home. The present story shows Ruth strenuously engaged in the task of bringing her long neglected farm into working order, while her older sister is unhappy in her marriage, and overpowered bv her parents-in-law. The birth of a grandson satisfies the great ambition of the old couple, and Reuben Howe undertakes to build a new house for his son and daughter-in-law, but before it is ready for them the Howe family is involved in misfortune and disgrace. The author cannot be congratulated on the sordid episode of Arthur Howe’s quarrel with a girl with whom he has been carrying on a liaison, daughter of an old ‘Gipsy woman. In a fit of jealous and drunken fury he nearly strangles her, and strikes the told woman fatally. It is a needlessly ugly bit of plot machinery, though there is a touch of fineness in Bess’s shielding her lover by representing that her mother’s death was accidental, owing to which Arthur is acquitted. He is treated better than he deserves by both parents and wife, and given a chance of living down bad records. Ruth meanwhile has made the acquaintance of Martin Telford, who has lived an out-door life in the Argentine, and a quietly happy engagement results, Ruth gladly resigning her farm enterprise, and the scenes associated with much unhappiness. The local atmosphere is well conveyed, and the characters,' though for the part unattractive, are well drawn.

A NEW ZEALAND HISTORIAN. “The Story of the Pacific.” (For ages 12 to 16 years.) By Mona Tracy. • (Paper boards, Is 6d" net.) Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, Limited. Mona Tracy, who is deservedly acquiring fame as a reliable authority on subjects dealing with the infant days of New Zealand, and who has a remarkably fine power of clothing the dry bones of history with a glow-ing semblance of life, has added another link to her chain of published pieces in the volume to hand, “The Story of the Pacific,” grouped by

Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs among their historical story books. It is intended for children between the ages of 12 and 16, and fortunate are they whose teachers use it in their school work; for, so well and spiritedly is it written that pupils will revel in its thrills and romance, and, remembering the colourful facts with which it abounds, will not. realise that they are also remembering real history. With more books like tins the terrors of class learning would be dissipated never to return. Ihe Pacific is a large field to be covered interestingly with 125 pages, but Mrs Tracy has no difficulty in the matter. Indeed, she seems to rejoice in the magnitude of her task and exploits her heroes and their doings with obvious enthusiasm. Magical names she deals with: Balboa, Cortez, Pizarro; Magellan, Mendana, Quiros; Tasman, da Gama, Columbus; Drake, Dampier, Cartaret; de Bougainville, la Perouse, Marion; Captain Cook, Marsden, and Williams and each she treats with a fiery intensity which quickens the mind of the reader to an involuntary response. These tales of explorers, adventurers, and buccaneers stir the blood, and what is more, they are all true. Y’oungsters will follow them with glee and excitement. Mona Tracy, with her particular stvlc of treating facts and figures as shown in this book, has done a big thine for history. Of this and her earlier work of Maori legend—“Piriki’s Princess” she may well be proud, even as the country whose early times she is revivino- is proud of her. °’

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. Can a man love two women?” is the startling question asked and answered bv Judge Ben Lindsay, in his article, “The Mora! Revolt,” in the March issue of Life. The facts disclosed are of an Interesting nature, and follow naturally those spoken of in last month’s contribution. Other articles are “Cars—Cheaper than Pre-War,” by Henry Ford; “On Chess and Literature,” by Sir John Simon; “Is Modern Business Rotten?” which expresses a clergyman’s views; The Cauldron of China,” a study by an Army man; and “The Unending War,” telling of the battle between science and disease. The stories arc by Booth Tarkington, Captain P. C. Wren, L. J. Beesten, Dale Collins, “Barnacle,” and Frank L. Packard.

A very fine and praiseworthy production is the February number of the NewZealand Railways Magazine, specially prepared as a souvenir of the visit of their Royal Highnesses the Du' e and Duchess of York to New Zealand. Bearing in mind the advantage from an educational aspect of keeping before the people of the Dominion the essential facts of British history, the editor has compacted within the space available brief biographical sketches in classified and chronological order of certain leading figures in the Empire’s drama, which should help to refresh the reader’s mental picture of Empire development and achievements. The occasion of such special features is parr ticularly appropriate in view- of the importance of the Ducal tour, and the part which the railways of this country are to play in connection with the New Zealand portion of the itinerary. The illustrations in the issue arc splendid—each of the historical figures being supplemented with a portrait, and all of the places to be visited by the Duke and Duchess being shown, in addition to the list of photographs which the magazine usually displays. The contents deal with “Our Empire,” “The Prime Minister’s Return,” “British History in Brief,” “Sovereigns,” “Statesmen,” “Empire Builders,” “Authors, etc.,” “Premium Bonus System,” “The Romance of Coal,” “A Tour of Australia,” “Modern Shunting’Methods,” and so on.