BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3861, 13 March 1928, Page 74

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

AN ESSAY ON LITERATURE. “ Beauty and the Beast.” By Joseph Gordon Macleod. (Cloth, 7s (id net.) London: Chatto and Windus. To begin with, one scarcely knows how to take this book. It seems full of technicalities and difficult phrases, so that one wanders on without really seeing the point. But after it has been re-read, underlined, and read again, one can appreciate it for what it ist—one of the most enlightened, broad, and excellent essays on English literature that has been published. The apparent irrelevancies fall into place, and the whole is seen as a delicate pattern which, looked at in right perspective, presents a clear and comprehensive view, of the subject-matter: which is “to suggest to the reader a few of the .effects

by which the more impressive works of prose literature grow beauty—that inner, unexplainable delight called “the aesthetic.’ ” Mr Macleod, as before said, aims at a panoramic effect, to achieve which he has to work all round his subject, gradually drawing his lines together into a point at the centre. He has two main highways—one which says that poetry is language which deals in silences, and another which says that science is language which describes all it sees, and has no silences. The reader loses sight of these highways in the lanes and by-ways into which he is later led, but eventually returns to them, possessed of a new knowledge. And it is along their tracks that he finally readies his goal. The first part of the book shows how the aesthetic was born and grew in three phases of English literature—“ pure poetry,” “ singular form,” and “ the anthropomorph,” which terms are described as one reads. Beauty in “ pure poetry ” gradually extended until it was seen not only in simple but in complex poems, where human interest, not necessarily beautiful, played a part, and where the interaction of persons or incidents or moods was of importance. In “singular form” (as seen in ballads, prose supported by verse, lays, fables, and early novels) it increased also, its next appearance being with the entry of the “ anthropomorph ” (which is the result of an attitude that literature’s function is the depiction of life, not the aesthetic use of it, and which strove to imitate what is clumsily and roughly called “reality”). Drama made its entry; Bunyan wrote his “Pilgrim’s Progress”; then came Samuel Richardson, “ father of the modern novel,” and all those who followed him. The making of the aesthetic was more difficult here. Sometimes it was achieved, but more often not. It was elusive and cov. Ending with a study of “ The Brother’s Karamazov,” which Mr Macleod considers outstanding among modern novels, Part 1 shows that where form is truly accomplished, the aesthetic is attained. Part II treats in a similar wav of drama where a new element, the sublime, is spoken of as growing from the human. “Personal form” seen in. drama; “pure description ” which has no form, neither knowledge nor beauty, and is some way between the two; and “ comoedic form,” where persons and personal effects make important interplay, are described. The conclusion come to is that this longing to present reality in toto, by means of words, words, words—all description—is to lose the sublime. “ The descriptive describes the limited, but cannot describe the absolute; words may give the picturesque, but only silence can reach the sublime.” In other words, we find ourselves at the beginning of this modern era losing that very thing which all poets (in the widest sense) are striving to produce—the aesthetic.

Part 111, entitled “ The Beast,” is of fascinating interest. We are led right into the heait of things, and shown that the arts are out of breath by letting, science go too far ahead of them, and as literature cannot thrive when the two are not neck to neck, confusion has set in. The muddle of present-day art is the result of this. But, further, our age is a complex one. A new factor has appeared. Not only must there be beauty, but also the beast. (The beast, when wedded to beauty, became beautiful, too, of course.) And the beast is ourselves, our subconscious, profound, bottomless selves, the reality which in our present complex age, has to be joined with beauty before the age will be satisfied. Science cannot produce this sublimity or aesthetic, alone; nor can art unless she is able to go on from where science leaves off. The present-day writer must be “ age-con-scious ” to his fingertips if he would succeed in producing right form. “All the greatest artists,” says Mr Macleod, “have lived in, and had an application to, their century.” So the reader is left on a peak in the centre of this country of literature which lies like a man around him. He may gasp at what he sees, and wonder how profitably the moderns will build beyond where he stands. But he will know that he is confronted with a perfect view, and that as never before he has had the beauty and the beast of literature explained to him. AN EXCELLENT NEW LIBRARY. “ Queen Victoria” bv Thm- --a “ Eminent Victorians,” by Lytton Str chey; “Antic Hay,” by Aldous Huxley: “Along the Road,” by Aldous Huxley; “ Tales oi the Five Towns,” by Arnold Bennett: “The Mercy of Allah ? ” by Hilaire Belloc; “ Lady Into Fox ” and “ A Man in the Zoo” (in one volume), by David Garnett. (Each cloth. 3s Gd net; or leather. 5s net.) London: Chatto and Windus: The Phcenßc Library. The above are the first seven volumes in a new series of reprints to be known ns the Phoenix Library, and issued by Messrs Chatto and Windus. The aim in this series has been to design a book which will he suitable alike for the pocket and the shelf, as travelling companion, and as household friend. The books are stoutly bound, are of extremely handy size, and the cloth copies are characterised by this innovation: that the works of particular authors are all bound H one colour. Thus the works of Mr Lytton Strachey appear in a uniform shade of green. It will, therefore, be possible to group together on the

shelf “ Queen Victoria,” “ Eminent Victorians,” and “ Books and Characters ” apart from the other books in the same series, for example. The leather editions, however, are uniformly bound in a smooth rich crimson. Mr Thomas Derrick has designed the emblem of the series, the Phoenix, the symbol of rebirth, which appears on each title page, and also the gold decorations on the binding cases. The dust covers, which havq also been designed by Mr Derrick, are of a stout paper, and are printed in a uniform red of a tawny and pleasing hue. Here, too, is a novelty. The tints of commercial papers are sadly liable to fade, and it is believed that by the device of using printers’ ink instead of stationers’ dye the dust covers will be more likely' to wear well than any others of a similar series now on the market.

Each of the books is a classic among modern works:

(1) “ Queen Victoria,” by Lytton Strachey, is well known as the greatest achievement of modern biography in the English language. It was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1922.

(2) “Eminent Victorians,” by Lytton Strachey, contains studies of Cardinal Manning, Florence. Nightingale, Dr Arnold of Rugby, and General Gordon, and is the book that first made Mr Strachey famous. Since its publication in 1918 it has been reprinted 14 times. (3) “Antic Hay,” by Aldous Huxley, is one of the outstanding novels of the younger school. Mr Huxley has his imitators, but he has yet to be equalled. In course of time all his books will appear in this series. (4) “-‘long the Road,” by Aldous Huxley, further described by' the subtitle, “ Notes and Essays of a Tourist,” is one ~f Mr Huxley’s most delightful collections of essays, subdivided into “ Travel in General,” “ Places,” “ Works of Art,” and “ By the Way.’L* (5) Tales of the Five Towns,” by Arnold Bennett, shows Mr Bennett’s material to be his very own; the principal characters come from the Staffordshire potteries, the part of England which has given Mr Bennett inspiration for his best books.

(6) “The Mercy’ of Allah,” by Hilaire Belloc, a wonderful series of tales about a rascally merchant of Baghdad and the different way’s in which he made his money, is Mr Belloc’s masterpiece in the satirical-picaresque. (7) “Lady Into Fox” and “A Man In the Zoo,” by David Ga nett, are new literary creations. “ Lady Into Fox ” urns awarded the Hawthornden and the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes for 1923. Since its publication it has been lepiintcd seven times. The composite volume is illustrated with all the original wood cuts by R. A. Garnett. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE. Jew Suss.” By' Lion Feuchtwanger. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. (Cloth, 10s net.) London: Martin Seeker. (Per Dymock’s Book Arcade.) The success which this book has enjoyed is seen from the fact that, first published in November, 1926, it reached its fifteenth edition in August, 1927, less than a year after its appe'arauce on the literary market. Placed in the eighteenth century, it paints a picture of Court life in Wurtemberg so exactly that the result is amazing. Such a psychological, physiological, and sociological study has seldom been made before, and one has a complete impression of a complex organism from start to finish. Not only’ is Court life depicted, but the whole of Germany, of the politics of the German States' and of the empire and the papacy, of the aristocracy, and of the life of the common people throughout Central Europe during the reign of Karl Alexander in Swabia. The hero, Joseph Suss Oppenheimer, is a marvellous character, so realisticaliv painted that he is unforgettable, while the story’ of his slow uprooting and spiritual growth is told with insight, sympathy, and justice. Praise cannot be too high for tins work, which “does for the eighteenth century what ‘ The Cloister and the Hearth’ did for the Renaissance. To plunge into its depths is to become immersed in the hot, sensual, eager, coarse, and intense vigour of the times.”