Bohemia Laid Bare

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19136, 3 October 1936, Page 9

Bohemia Laid Bare

THOSE who read “Invitation 10 the Waltz,” by Miss Rosamund Lehmann, some four years ago, which- was hailed by the critics as one of the most notable novels of recent years, will be interested to learn that the “Olivia” and “Rollo” of that novel are the leading characters in Aliss Lehmann’s new novel, “The AVeather in the Streets.”

“Although Aliss Lehmann writes with considerable restraint,” says The Times Literary Supplement, “there is something raw, something too painful in her knowledge of human beings and their reactions lo circumstances, their struggles against their own instincts and their failure to conquer either circumstance or instinct. There are compassion and tolerance in Aliss Lehmann’s view of life, but in her very tolerance is something enervating and cynical; it is as though she were saving: ‘These are human beings, so what better can you expect of them.” She has undoubtedly given a picture of contemporary life; probably the most -disquieting thing about her book is its complete veracity,”

To sum up, it is a ruthless novel of Bohemia.