PURPLE” NOVEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 676, 30 May 1929, Page 2

PURPLE” NOVEL

MUSSOLINI’S THRILL® WRITTEN TWENTY \TARc Aqq A novel by Mussolini— a thriller • every sense of the word hag given to the British public. "” lt One -w onders on perusing the pa. of “The Cardinal’s Mistress" the Duee remains the cynic he when he penned this purple roniancl (says a writer in the Londor’’Day' Chronicle”!. “He despised the great men ol u* earth. He had seen them too close a> hand,” wrote Mussolini of one of m s characters, and later he indulges £ this analysis; ’ There is in each of us somethin, which does not come, and can never come, to the surface. We are pm. foundly distant, one front another What is called the union of souls is but one of the illusions which are necessary to our existence. “The human soul is lonely. It hano sisters. The mother cannot read the thoughts of her daughter. Th e judge cannot penetrate the myster. of the crime. The lover deceives himself. You may possess the bodv but the soul escapes you.” "’ It is fair to Mussolini to point out that he wrote his story 20 years and that it has just been rescued It was written at fever heat, in week! instalments, to keep up the circnlation of a weekly supplement. Time after time he wanted to <H S . patch the heroine —who in the book perishes at the third attempt. Bui his chief implored him to let her live,for the subscriptions were being renewed splendidly, and the homicidal young author had perforce to extend the adventures of the beautiful Ladv Claudia.