BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3869, 8 May 1928, Page 74

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

LOVE EXPLAINED. “ On Love.” By Stendhal. Translated from the French by Vyoyan Holland. (Cloth, 7s 6d net.) London : Chatto and Windus. Henri Beyle, otherwise and more generally known by the pseudonym of Stendhal, was born at Grenoble in 1783 and died in Paris in 1842. “ In the whole of French literature,” savs Air Lytton Strachey, “it would be difficult to point to a figure at once so important, so remarkable, and so little known to English readers as Henri Beyle.” Goethe recommended Winckelmann to buy all his books; Nietzsche discerned in him one of the greatest psychologists and most significant influences of the nineteenth century; Tolstoy . declared that it was Stendhal who, by his description of Waterloo in “ The Charterhouse of Parma,” first taught him to understand war. Now his principal works are being published by Messrs Chatto and Windus, in the form of translations executed, with exceptions, by C. K. Seott Moncrieff, whose version of Proust have given him such a splendid reputation. Vyoyan Holland, one of the exceptions, is responsible for the volume on hand—- “ On Love.” Stendhal always looked upon “ De I’Amour ” (“On Love”) as his masterpiece, and he continued working on it wiTh a peculiar affection, almost to the day of his death, according to Romain Colomb. his cousin and literary executor. The present volume contains no less than three prefaces, each striving more fervently than the last to endear the book to a too unappreciative public. “ Although it deals with love,” says the first of these, penned in 1826, “this little book is not a novel, and above all it contains none of the distractions of a novel. It is simply an accurate and scientific treatise of a type of madness which is very rare in France. The power of conventionality which is growing daily has, more because of the effects of the fear of ridicule than from any purity in our morals, made the word which serves this book as title one which people avoid using by itself, and which may even seem a little indelicate. I have been forced to use it, but the scientific austerity of my language secures me, I think, from any reproach in that respect. “ The book explains simply, rationally, mathematically, as it were, the different emotions which follow one after, the other, and'which, taken all together, are called the passion of love. What is the good of only knowing about love through novels? What would be the use. after having seen it described in hundreds of well-known books, but never having experienced it oneself, of trying to find an explanation of this madness in this book. I will answer like an echo: ‘lt is madness.’” Dated 1842, his third preface still seeks to explain his darling work to the Philistines. According to report, it was selling very badly. He wonders when he will find a public which will understand and appreciate. Will such a public be procurable to-day? And will his ghost, if it still bothers about such things, at last find satisfaction? Surely the subject is treated from every angle? And with what piquant, delicate, humorous understanding! False modesty is condemned with cynicism, and true worth treated with tender understanding. The book is one to delight sage and dullard alike, for there is stuff in it for everyone. Moreover, written in its unconventional style, now as- a. chapter, now as a collection of disjointed aphorisms, it holds the attention willy-nilly. Love. Stendhal thinks, is of four different kinds—passion love (which carries us away against all our interests) ; sympathy love (in which everything, even the shadows, must be rosecoloured) ; sensual love (such as is felt when one casually meets a pretty girl who retreats into a wood); and vanity love (the desire to possess a charming woman as one would possess a fine horse). To describe the growth of these forms, he makes use of a coined word, “crystallisation,” to express that mass of strange fancies which one imagines to be true and even indisputable facts in, connection with the person one loves. From here the subject goes into greater and greater complexities. Great lovers are told of. The difference of love in different countries is recounted. The history of love, according to dates, is there. And small chapters dealing with such subjects as “ The Differences Between the Birth of Love in the Two Sexes,” “Beauty Betrothed by Love,” “ Intimacy," “The Thing

Called ‘Virtue,’” and “What is Pleasure ? ” are scatered all through the pages. The whole is an education from every point of view. We congratulate Vyoyan Holland on the excellent translation which he (or she) has effected. IN THE HEART OF ASIA. “ Men and Monsters.” By Christian Swanljung in collaboration with Lewis Stanton Palen. With a portrait and a map. (Cloth, 7s 6d net.) London: John Lane (the Bodley Head, Ltd.)

Mr Lewis Stanton Palen can be relied upon to produce a book out of the ordinary. In collaboration with Dr Ferdinand Ossendowski he brought out “ Beasts, Men, and Gods,” and, when it was received with incredulity, retaliated with “ The White Devil of the Black Sea ” and “ The White Devil’s Mate.” Now, determined to astonish his public still more, he has collaborated with Mr Christian Swanljung, “ the seven-league Finn,” and published, as a result, one of the most amazing and almost incredible true stories of adventure and escape in literature. There is probably no region left in the world of to-day that has given us more of the primitive, the barbaric, and the mystical than that great stretch of mountain and plain in Central Asia which has contributed both the barbarity of the Slav in Siberia, and the mysticism of the Buddhists in Thibet. Occasionally a traveller with rare qualities and an apparently chai-med life lives through some wholly anachronistic adventures, and emerges to give us his tale of them. In Mr Christian Swanljung, the world of to-day has one of those voyagers of yesterday, who provides for his narrative a unique background of exotic courage. That the engrossing experiences he recounts are true, is vouched for by Mr Palen with the aid of certain undeniable facts stated in the preface. Ernst Will, assistant criminal judge Halle an der Saale, Triftstrasse 29, who was one of the German prisoners with whom Swanljung spent some time in Barnaul, has supplied Mr Palen with a letter stating his authenticity, and there are other evidences too. The reader feels that the author is no charlatan, but instead a man whose paths have led to more than usually strange places, and who is relating his experiences only for the sake of general interest. Of the chapters of this tale of adventure there are three outstanding ones: Doctored by a Witch,” describes the strange methods by which the hero of the tale had his feet cured when they were nearly rotten with gangrene; “ Interrupted by a Bear,” how a strange battle was fought in an uninhabited part of the mountains; and “The Wireless of Asia,” the supernatural means used to achieve certain ends under most peculiar conditions. This last is the chapter that will arouse most comments from readers, for to many occidentals the mysticism of the East is regarded as a fairy tale to be neither conceived nor understood. Nevertheless the tale of the wireless ” and the way it was employed by one of the members of the monastery of the Holy Ones, in Thibet, within the walls of which men of incredible age influence the destinies of their fellows is well worth investigating. Ihe whole book makes fascinatirtg jading and is a worthy addition to Air Palen s growing output of “fact which is stranger than fiction.” SWEETLY PRETTY! Ihe Love Letters of a Husband.” (Cloth, 6s net.) London: Cassell and Co., Ltd. She leaves her husband because she thinks he is tired of her. She forbids him to follow her. but gives him permission to write. He does so. That is the story. He imagines he is revealing'himself as a strong man hurt, yet kind, lonely, vet tolerant, and he calls her small pet names, and gives her chatty little scraps of gossip to keep her amused in her exile. In reality he is self-conscious to the last degree, smug, conceited, and effeminate. Pi ivately we are not so much surprised at her leaving him, as at her final decision to return to him. We hope that when they are together again she will bo able, to make him more sane and masculine. But we fear that by such we are hoping for too much. “Aly dear, your letter, with its commands, lies before my eyes, and indeed, has got into them, blinding them, scalding them. For, apparently, we have parted,” begins the first of the husband’s letters. The last is short and pithy. Carola, the wife, has just written: Ronie: They say that all roads lead to Rome.—Carola. She receives as reply: Vienna: Am taking the shortest one. Flying to-day to Rome—to you.—Hubbv. A Ml D-VICTORIAN LION. “ Trollope.” By Alichael Sadleir. (Cloth, 7s 6d net.) London: Constable and Co., Ltd. When it first appeared last y'ear this work was hailed with pleasure by critic and layman alike. Its breadth and vision furnish a perfect portrait of the man who represents more than anyone else the spirit of mid-Victorian England, and it stands on the first shelf of biographies. Now, in its new and cheaper edition, it will make headway again. No scholar will wish to do anything else but possess it. “ Trollope,” says Mr Sadleir, “ belongs wholly and to a peculiar degree to the mid-Victorian period. He is the articulate perfection

of its normal quality, and in his books lives the spirit of its dominant class—a spirit kindly but ardent; a spirit at once gay and thoughtful; a spirit as sympathetic to individual distress as it was. indifferent to class suffering; a spirit that combined a species of national self-satisfaction with eager personal striving, a ready personal generosity with the vaguest of general charity, a contented personal simplicity with a conventional spaciousness of life; a spirit, in fact, serious in its aim to better self and. thus to better others, but distrustful of theories and aloof from large idealisms.” In expounding this, theme Air Sadleir gives, with sensitive and distinguished scholarship, what will undoubtedly prove the last word on Trollope as novelist and man, even although it is the first adequate study that has been presented. In its rare qualities of human portraiture and literary analysis it is admirable, just and well informed, and completely satisfies in the sense that it leaves no question to. ask. The author proves himself a critic of marked genius, and presents an unforgettable picture of the Trollope whom he loves so well. MODERN AMERICAN YOUTH. “ Glitter.” By Katharine Brush. (Cloth, 6s net.) London: Cassell and Co., Ltd. Jock Hamill is the hero of this tale of modern American society. He is tall, jaunty, and good-looking, with a mouth that shuts up at one corner lopsidedly when he smiles. “ Everything about him fitted everything else, except that mouth. It was a sensitive, dreamy, artistic sort of a mouth. It belonged to the boy Jock Hamill was really, but it did not in the least belong to the boy he requested the world to believe that he was.” Jock, home during ’Varsity vacation and bored with the easiness with which he makes his conquests, meets a new girl in the person of Yvonne Alountford, who, besides being all that is beautiful to look upon, is also so fascinating that Jock falls really in love with her. He calls on her when ’Varsity recommences, and, after much persistence, gains her friendship. When she is ready to become engaged to him, however, she confesses the story of her life, and proves to Jock that she is a woman with a past. He loves her enough, however, to disregard this, and very splendidly seeks her out to proclaim her to the world as his financee. Airs Hamill, Jock’s charming mother, is a wise person, who, while secretly horrified at her son’s engagement, takes no steps to thwart him. She has already saved him from one nasty tangle with a married woman, and has no fears about this rescue also. Jock and Yvonne engage themselves' in a song-and-dance act at a cabaret, and receive money from the patrons. Not for a long time does Jock grow disgusted with this life. Then he suddenly meets Cecily Graves, fresh, young, belonging to the “ right ” people, and lovely, and the contrast between the two girls is marked enough to make him discontented. The climax comes when "k vonne tells him she does not love him, and goes away to her former lover, leaving Jock free, after a few months of bitter disillusionment, to pursue Cecily. The story is extremely realistic. The peep it gives into American social life rings true, and one feels that in spite of their modern characteristics, Jock, Yvonne, Cecily, and all the rest of the “bunch” are drawn from real models. Jock, who, while his behaviour is admirable, manages at times to impress the reader as being over-zealous in his part, is to be pardoned on account of his youth. Yvonne’s is the best-drawn character of all, the description of her final sacrifice for the only decent man she has ever had to do with, being very well done. In conclusion there is much shrewd advice as to the correct way to behave in these hilarious present days. For example:— ' Don’t wear harmless-looking; colours. Get red, something that hits ’em in the eye. They ought to fit like a million dollars, but not be too wild. Keep the seams of your stockings straight up the back, and don’t wear low-heeled shoes—imagine drinking champagne out of a low-heeled mannishlooking shoe I Buy some rouge and some powder and a lipstick, and use them a little, but not much—just enough to leave a doubt as to whether it’s natural or artificial. When dancing, never lean, but support your own weight, and dance on your toes, and forget yourself and the man and the floor—just remembering the music. When you meet anyone or any group, make a remark during the first minute after you’re Introduced to let ’em know you’re there. And so on.