SNIPPETS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 43, 13 May 1927, Page 10

SNIPPETS

The Bookman’s Gleanings

Henri Barbusse, the first writer of the late war to be recognised as a classic, has had his magnificent “Le Feu” (Under Fire) reprinted in Everyman’s Library. Classics only are included in this series. Ten years after the war, it is posIsible to make a reasonably impartial survey of literary activity during that feverish period, but much that was thought good in those days is now almost forgotten. Englishmen produced a few memorable lyrics, and one prose classic, C. E. Montague’s “Disenchantment,” Austria produced “Men In War,” a disquieting masterpiece by Andreas Lazio, but France through Barbusse produced “Under Fire,” the greatest war work of all. It was published in French in 1916 and translated in the following year into English. In his introduction to the new edition Mr. Brian Rhys writes: “Under Fire” will remain on record as the greatest novel of its kind. Other books seem to tell us about war, about our emotions in war-time. “Under Fire” is

In the trenches Barbusse finds himself. The noise and horror seem to give calmness and counterpoise to his mind. The tenderness that was unexpressed in childhood and marriage finds its object in the men—the children—who live and suffer round him. These men who do not think, talk, laugh or feel as we do ; their very irritations are not ours. They seem to have been fighting for years. They have none of our illusions about bravery ; and though they can pay passing homage to the man who dies for an ideal, they do not waste words on patriotism. But when their sufferings are past human endurance, cries burst from their lips, and they curse their destiny.

In March last Barbusse published in Paris a new book, “Jesus.” “The greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study in religious hypocrisy since Voltaire.”

So writes an American reviewer of Sinclair Lewis’s new novel, “Elmer Gantry.” A more important observation is made by America’s merry devastating critic, PI. L. Mencken. Out of it leaps the most vivid, most gaudy and glorious, the most dreadful and perfect portrait of a man of God that has got between covers since Rabelais painted Friar John. It is packed with observation, all fresh, all shrewd, all sound. There is gargantuan humour in it, and there is also something not far from moving drama.

“Ask me another,” one of those depressing tomes which contain most of the Junk-like information cultivated people should carry in their heads, is just now an American best-seller.

The introduction, written by novelist Robert Benchley, tells what per cent, of answers 68 famous people gave when they were faced with questions in the book. Here are some of the questions : What is Coral? What is a Centaur? What was the “Tweed Ring?” What is a leviathan?

Who painted La Gioconda?” The celebrities on an average recorded 80 or better, but ordinary people nay be satisfied with cards of 70.

In one of his recently published letters George Gissing wrote: “To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.”

For the first time in 20 years, the poetry of Gordon Bottomley is to be available in a cheap edition, that is, seven and six, which is a small enough price to pay for the pleasure that his verse gives. Bottomley’s “Chambers of Imagery,” two modest books containing much of beauty, have been “0.P.” these 20 years, and cannot be purchased only at greatly enhanced prices. As many as possible of his previously published works were withdrawn from sale two years ago, on the author's instruction, as a preliminary to the publication of his collected work, “Poems of Thirty Years.” This was published in a limited edition, but even the cheaper edition cost 255. Now, however, a reasonably priced edition is available. Bottomley, largely through modesty, is not as well-known a poet as he should be, but his work has a rugged, uncompromising virilty, not often met with in these days of precious emasculate poetasters. Refusal to be anthologised extensively has also tended co keep him in the shadows.