A Literary Log

Southland Times, Issue 21193, 20 September 1930, Page 13

A Literary Log

POLLED BY

lOTA.

McLEAN AT WORK AGAIN. I like Robert McLean, that energetic but perfectly possible detective who rose from the ranks and beoame Chief Inspector in “McLean of Scotland Yard,” and now appears as “Robert McLean, Private Investigator” in George Goodchild’s latest chronicle of his anti-criminal operations, “McLean at the Golden Owl.” Goodchild is an excellent narrator of mystery stories, because he gives one the impression of an unemotional raconteur telling hair-bristling stories founded on unshakeable facts. He is not fond of extravagant situations and his language is uneventful, but the effect is the more exciting because of these negative qualities. McLean is a human character, and though the cases confronting him are involved, he surmounts the obstacles and achieves his goal without superhuman aid. McLean in this latest book is in private practice because Arnand de Wynter, through a frameup, secured his withdrawal from the Force. This departure, however, is the cause of McLean’s assignment to an effort to apprehend a young woman who stole an important official document from a high official of the Admiralty. The official investigators were powerless, because publicity had to be avoided at all hazards. McLean sets out on this chase, and the book deals with the chase and its results. It is an exciting pursuit and done in Goodchild's best style—which is saying a great deal. Don’t miss this one, especially if you wish to make a train journey tolerable by forgetting it. “McLean at the Golden Owl” is published by Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., London, whence came my copy. IN THE SHADOWS.

John W. Vandercook, better than any other writer in these times, particularly of American origin, can reproduce the atmosphere of those shadow tracts where the untamed forest holds the land in dark captivity. In “Black Majesty” he drew an extraordinarily effective portrait of a negro who, living in the shadows, attempted singlehanded, one might say, to drive his people out into the open sunshine, to build in them a sufficing self-confidence. That work was tinged with magnificent irony, and it betrayed' an understanding of peoples and lands submerged in shade. Now he has approached the public again and this time with a collection of short stories under the title “The Fools’ Parade.” Here again he is dealing with the forest and forest people with the same ironical twist and the same power to reproduce scenes that reveal their authenticity in the atmospheric accuracy he achieves. We get this in the story that gives its title to the collection. Five men escape from the penal settlement in French Guiana and plunge into the swamps and forests in an effort to gain Dutch Guiana and freedom. They are a queer crew: a fisherman, a lawyer, a diletante poet, a priest and a thief. Organized by the lawyer, the party succeeded in getting away, and spent eight months in the journey of safety, a journey which was completed only by Le Brun, the thief. Unarmed and without tools these men attacked the unknown, and Vandercook, without wasting words, pictures the reactions of the five men to the trials and dangers they met. It is a terrible story, but one of extraordinary courage and comradeship which makes one thankful that it was written. If “A Man of Africa” had not been so effectively drawn, the stofy would have lost half its strength, but in this' as in “Funk”—the rehashing of the well known theme of the man who thought a ghost had got him in a cemetery—Vandercook achieved distinction in the handling of his landscape and in the picture of the extraordinary influence of these shadow countries on mankind, white and black. “The Djoinbe River,” the central story with a very’ ordinary plot but an extraordinary treatment, is a very effective piece of work, but outside the title story the two best are “A Man of Africa,” the central figure of ■which is a Liberian native, a District Commissioner, and “Black Man Trouble,” which in its few pages dealing with an incident on the deck of a vessel loading in the Niger Delta opens the door to an understanding of the black races of Central Africa and their capacity to live in subjection without giving way to despair. The blustering, block-headed mate causes an accident resulting in the death of a native stevedore. The natives refuse to work, mutiny trembles on the brink of action, and then the iteration and reiteration of the phrase, “Black man trouble—that’s all,” strikes the rhythmic sense of the black men, and the revolt disperses in a chant built on the accidental words, fifty men singing, “Black man —black man—black man trouble—trouble —trouble. That's all. That’s all.” They made a song. The naked, sweatstreaked bodies in the dark caught the rhythm, swayed to it, swayed to it. A hundred feet lifted softly up and down in time. The knouts and sticks fell one by one upon the deck and the dark palms beat together. The heads were all bent back, the mouths soft, yearning. We were forgotten. They had found their way and were no longer lost—a far, queer way of melody down which black men can find a release.

That, as Vandercook says, is the explanation of Africans. They are a gentle people and they can “always make a song.” This is an extraordinary pieeb of work. ‘The Fools’ Parade” is 1 published by Messrs Harper and Brothers, New York. FRANCIS LYNDE DEAD

Francis Lynde, the writer of American western stories, died in Tennessee at his home on Lookout Mountain at the age of 73. Since he turned to literary work in 1893 after many years in railroading, Francis Lynde had written thirty-ilv' hooks and scores of short stories. Lynde was born in New York State and began working for railroads as soon as he had finished his schooling. He had various jobs with railroads until 1893, when his success in writing for magazines permitted him to give his entire time to writing and begin a career in literature when he was forty-three years old. After he had turned out dozens of short stories he began on novels, and in 1898 published three —“A Case in Equity,” “A Question of Courage” and “A Romance in Transit.” Other novels quickly followed, and after 1910 each year saw a new one, under his signature. Two of the best known of his works were ‘‘The Wreckers” and “David Vallory,” both railroad stories. Lynde also was at home in Western tales,

a popular one being “The Girl, a Horse and a Dog.” In the last five years his novels were “The Fight on Standing Stone,” “Mellowing Money,” “The Cruise of the Cuttlefish,” “The Tenderfoots” and “The Flight of the Gray Goose,” the- last published in 1927. A GRANDMOTHER’S INFLUENCE. The four Monypenny’s, orphaned in their youth were brought up by relations, Andrew and Jenny going to Grandmother Lois, Roily and Judith to two maiden aunts; but the last two, although not going at once to their grandmother, did not escape her influence. Tyrannical, spendthrift, theatrical, she ruled the household at Starveacres as forcefully at eighty as when she was its young mistress, and it was in keeping with the sinster influence she exerted that she kept command even after her death, on which three of them had been setting high hopes. Extravagant in life, she left an extravagance of feeling in her wake that threatened the security of them all, and for the family at Starveacres the years brought disillusionment which did not hesitate to take,death into its stride. Calm and practical, Judith escaped the fierce love-hunger of the other three, and out of many mistakes only she found happiness. “Starveacres” is the story of an outspoken heritage left by an imperious old woman, and there is enough material in each of its characters to make each into a separate novel. Here in one novel is a saga of English upper middleclass life, tracing the far-reaching influence of one human-being on a number of people with whom she was never in direct contact. Nora Kent, who second novel this is, has creative fingers. Her people are real against a background etched with not a little skill and understanding. My copy from the publishers, Hodder and Stoughton.

THE REWARD OF FAITH.

“Giving Him Up” displays the ingenuity of an author where her characters are concerned. A young woman is in love with Trevor Bruce, engaged to him, against the advice of her family. Not long after Louise accidentally discovered his infidelity and then received his own admission of his weaknesses. But she would not give him up, and after Trevor had been mixed up in a divorce case, and had decided to go to distant lands, Louise returns to him, only to find him suspected by the police of having murdered the woman with whom he had been involved in the divorce court. Louise’s determination to clear him at the expense of her own reputation, ensures a complete surrender of Bruce, but Ruby M. Ayres, who writes this novel, has him crippled in an accident so that for a year or so the faithful Louise is sure of him. “Giving Him Up” is in the Ruby Ayres style, capably presented, but ingenious rather than convincing. Still, there is no denying her popularity—l think she is one of the steadiest, sellers of all the fiction writers—and there is no denying her ability to entertain. “Giving Him Up” is published by Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, London. A DUNEDIN POET. Ignorant of the identity of the poet hidden by the pen-name “Marsyas,” one approaches his “Eggs and Olives” with some interest, especially as it is one of five volumes being published to give permanence to his verses. “Marsyas” pays a tribute to Sir Thomas Sidey whose generosity made this handsome edition of his work possible, and one would like to add something to the poet’s expression of gratitude. Publishing any work in New Zealand is a risky business because the market, is so small, but the poets usually have to bear all the financial obligations of their editions if they wish to give their work permanence. “Marsyas” has a friend who shoulders that part" of the burden for him—a noble aid. How good it would be if there were a fund (or a generous patron) to ensure the publication every year of a book of verse by a New Zealand writer. A fund of £l5OO or even £lOOO would supply an annual grant large enough to meet the demand. In the meantime “Marsyas’ ’has found his friend, and the public has the opportunity of purchasing his verses in a collected edition. These writings are obviously inspired by the late Victorian school, one catches the influence of Tennyson frequently, but while there is evidence of care, of industry, the poetical inspiration is steady, rather than flashing. The use of archaic words and the “st” endings make these lines a bit stilted at times, but they covered a very wide field, and I am sure they will have a wide circle of readers, especially among those who remember the poet as a contributor to the Otago Daily Times. “Eggs and Olives” is published in excellent form by Messrs Coulls, Somerville, Wilkie, Ltd., Dunedin, my copy through the Georgian Bookshop, Dee street. MAKING A WOMAN. In “The Brittle Shadow,” April Thorn has an interesting study of the sophistication of a girl, under the influence of passions let loose by a woman ignorant of the dangerous effects of her own careless, selfish attitude to life. Agnes, the daughter of a Spartan father and a righteous mother, was reared carefully, and her parents were ignorant of the weakness developed through their own severity and of the strange influences to which she was subjected through Kate, the domestic into whose care the child’ was thrust. With Kate alone the risks were not so terrible, but Kate married, because she had to, Kenneth, a handsome labourer, when she preferred the more showy fellow who had betrayed her, and then gone away. Then came a nurse to the home, and in her Agnes saw lust excited by the physical beauty of the labourer husband of her nurse. The nurse went her way, but Agnes came under the spell of this romantic peasant, was discovered by his wife and rescued by the man who, older and wise, could see what was going on. It is a story of village life, done with considerable care and a shrewd 'understanding of adolesence. The author reveals the development of the girl, her unconscious treading through the strange dangers of life, and keeps the story clear of anything suggestive of sordidness. The three principal characters are Agnes, Kate and Lenneth, and these are all well proportioned characterizations, giving distinction to a simple but extremely well written story. “The Brittle Shadow” is published by Messrs Mills and Boon Ltd., London, whence came my copy.

.THE NEW ARCADIA. I can hardly forbear fancying that if we had a sort of inquisition, or formal court of judicature, with grave officers and judges, erected to restrain poetical licence, and in general to suppress that fancy and humour of versification, but in particular that most extravagant passion of love, as it is set out by poets, in its heathenish dress of Venuses and Cupids; if the poets, as ringleaders and teachers of this heresy, were, under grievous penalties, forbid to enchant the people by the vein of rhyming; and if the people, on the other side, were, under proportionable penalties, forbid to hearken to any such charm, or lend their attention to any love tale, so much as in a play, a novel, or a ballad, we might perhaps see a new Arcadia rising out of this heavy persecution: old people and young would be seized with a versifying spirit: we should have field-conventicles of lovers and poets; forests would be filled with romantic shepherds and shepherdesses, and rocks resound with echoes of hymns and praises offered to the powers of love. We might indeed have a fair chance, by this management, to bring back the whole train of heathen gods, and set our cold northern island burning with as many altars to Venus and Apollo as were formerly in Cyprus,. Delos, or any of those warmer Grecian climates. —Lord Shaftesbury (“A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm”). MYSTERY IN SYDNEY.

“The Shadow Crook” operated in Sydney and thoroughly mystified the police. When Inspector Mason was moved into the city, the Shadow Crook was working blithely and daringly, in fact the first experience Mason had was a raid on police headquarters, and the only result was the discovery that this clever criminal was interested in a man connected with! a jewel robbery of some years before. With this piece of evidence as

his starting point Mason sets out on the trail of the Shadow Crook and follows the track through an extraordinary maze of adventures, which are detailed by the author Aidan de Brunes with the calm of an experienced reporter. It is a first-class mystery story and not a little of its value comes from the manner in which Mason’s operations are followed. This smart and tenacious police officer is no Sherlock Holmes. He is a bull-dog of a man, who gradually builds up his case, often puzzled, but never letting go the threads he has painfully colletced, and the final denouement is sensationally dramatic. “The Shadow Crook” is a first-class piece of work, and it can be numbered among the best of the mystery yarns given to the public in recent times. “The Shadow Crook” is published by Messrs Angus and Robertson, Sydney, from whom my copy comes. SAWDUST. / In August the new novel by Knut Hamsun, “August, Circumnavigator of the Globe,” was published simultaneously in twelve languages as a continuation of “Tramps.” Those who have seen the manuscript describe the work as a masterpiece. H. G. Wells’s long novel, with the title, “The Autocracy of Mr Parham,” appears with Heinemann. The story is concerned with a political crisis which throws up a British dictator as drastic as the Cromwell of “Take away that bauble.” It also deecribes a war with America, but the aim of the work is not so much prophetic as satirical.

Lord James of Hereford, a modern statesman and lawyer, is the subject of a biographical study by Lord Askwith. The book throws new light on the Home Rule controversy. It also gives lively personal accounts of Queen Victoria, who did not, at first, like Lord Janies, but afterwards changed her view.