J. B. PRIESTLEY’S NEW BOOK

Southland Times, Issue 23182, 24 April 1937, Page 13

J. B. PRIESTLEY’S NEW BOOK

Australian admirers of Mr J. B. Priestley will like his new book, “Midnight on the Desert,” which has just been published, writes Arthur J. Rees in The Herald, Melbourne. Mr Priestley has taken an American journey, and transported himself and his family for six months to a desert ranch in the crystalline spaces of Arizona beneath Arizona stars. He did much writing in a small shack 12 by 10ft, made of unpainted boards, with many a knot-hole in them to admit the aromatic air.

Here, with rough shelves supporting a litter of books, tins of tobacco, pipes and unanswered letters, a small table for his typewriter, and another for odds and ends, Mr Priestley sat down to write this account of his travels, intermingled with his reflections on all sorts of things. It is a fascinating journey he takes us. Whether he is describing the Arizona desert, a country of “geology by day and astronomy by night, musing upon life in New York, where “time must not merely be killed, but savagely murdered in public,” talking of modern children or of cheap, irreligious literature, or discussing the fourth dimension, the space-time continuum, or the prospects of human immortality, he is always provocative and interesting. Sense of Unreality There is something strange about Hollywood, according to Mr Priestley. It is a region in a moving picture. It does not seem quite real—it does not take hold of the mind. In the middle of this old unreality of landscape and atmosphere, Hollywood is remote from anything else. It is so remote that the strife of nations and other subjects of human interest dwindle into nothingness or a few feet of news-reel: the film’s the thing. Is there a threat of war? Then what about another war picture? That, in effect, is the Hollywood point of view. Mr Priestley says: “The people there cannot be justly accused of being absurdly self-centred. It is a tremendous, difficult and engrossing task, this of providing entertainment for the world. And we who are not there encourage people to believe that we are all simply living for the sake of their little shadow shows. “We shower millions of dollars upon I them. We snatch eagerly at every bit of gossip they send out. . . . Secondrate actresses, whose good looks have been carefully built by the make-up department and their personalities artfully created by publicity men, descend upon us as Hollywood stars, and are received as if they were visiting queens.”