AMONG THE BOOKS

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1066, 12 July 1917, Page 3

AMONG THE BOOKS

BOOKS REVIEWED.

The Shining Heights. I. A. R. Wylie is a writer whose | fame hitherto has been achieved as a writer of short stories, such as are published in popular magazines, i These stories were usually good of | their kind, and the author, fertile in imagination, was a voluminous contributor. Wylie’s most ambitious ary effort in the way of a complete novel is enshrined in “the Shining Heights,” published this year in London. It has received some commendatory notice from Home writers. The book is w'rilten in three parts, but the principal action is contained in the first two, “Before the Storm” and “Aftermath” —two titles which indicate that the story has something to do with the present world struggle. It is not, however, a war novel in the ordinary sense—there arc no tales of battle a’-d sudden death, or pictures of the panoply or glory of (lie field. “The Shining Heights” is the story of a man who stayed at home, who held himself justified in using every arlili.e to evade service with the Empire’s forces. Why? Because he was engaged in research work which promised to produce a cure for the scourge of consumption, and his own death would have robbed suffering humanity of the panacea for one of its most deadly ills. So the young scientist, who is entirely out _ of sympathy with conventional medical practice and etiquette, consecrates his life to a task which he had inherited from his discredited father, and willingly becomes a shirker and pariah in the eyes of his fellows and of decent society. He marries to escape the conscription of single men, and emigrates to America (the United Slates is not included in the contending nations) when married men are to be called upon. The story of his trials and struggles, his apparent failure, his flight, and his eventual success and rehabilitation is told with skill and sympathy. The author takes a glimpse at postwar conditions: — Change had come to the world, but they v ere disappointing chnftgcs as far as the moralist was concerned. .. . Social conditions. indeed, had scarcely moved. Universal brotherhood was not. Men who had robbed shoulders in the face of death went hack to their old places and knew each other no more. . . . Sion and conditions had merely developed rapidly on their own lines; cads, wasters, and fools, after their hour of heroism, had come back to themselves to find their little stock of good exhausted and the abyss right at their feet. Silly parasitical women, having made ammunition, went hack to their so-chlled femininity and any f«v.| anxious to be preyed upon with a redoubled zest. ... It was disappointing, and it damped the eloquence of bishops who had prophesied a world of Sauls. The author naturally has some remarks to make about the post-war view of the shirker, and one of the most graphic passages in the hook is that which describes the return of one of these gentry to bis native village, and the reception he got there. The writer introduces many characters info the novel. Most of them are drawn cleverly, and the strings of these mannikins are skilfully manipulated to produce a satisfying climax. If there is a mistake, it is found in the fact Hi.o l the hero was too dehumanised, and that he gave in when the real!*’ strong man would have held on. The introduction of an admirer for the hero’s wife also strikes one as an artistic mistake. However, “The Shining Heights” is a creditable effort, and may be read with real appreciation. Our copy is from Messrs Simpson and Williams. The publishers arc Mills and Boon. L'nexciting “Sensations.” The author of “With Kitchener in Cairo.” Sydney A. Moseley, has done his utmost to make the book a “bestseller.” We are not now referring to the particular merits of the work itself—it hasn’t 100 many—but to the author’s would-be sensational explanation in the foreword as to how and why his original MS. was confiscated. and revised by the Egyptian Government, and how he refused to publish the amended version in his *wn name, preferring to re-write the storv anew from notes. So he Is able to impart an extra thrill to the impressionable reader by announcing that an unexpurgated edition is before him, waiting to be devoured. According to Moseley, who was editor of a Cairo newspaper when Kitchener held the reins in Egypt. Hie now dead War Lord was greatly afraid of a preface which Sirry Pasha, one of the Ministers, had written for the seized work in the first instance. We are invited to picture Kitchener as desperate in his anxiety that Sirry Pasha’s observations should not go before the public, and asked to believe that the masterf’d Governor feared the candour of Moseley’s pen. For our part we refuse to do cither. \Vc can, however, imagine without effort that the Kitchener policy and methods crossed with Moseley’s journalistic enterprise, and that the journalist, who fakes himself ton seriously, saw the opportunity of making copy out of the mild clash, As a matter of fact the author has high praise for Kitchener as an administrator, and devotes a considerable part of his book to Kitchener's efforts to soften life for th fellaheen. This makes interesting reading, but the “exposures” and “sensations" are comparatively innocuous affairs, and all the dexterity the writer has failed to make then ise. Moseley seems to have ■Mtored over his contemporaries will; ;Hmu-;d "sc., •j 1 -the chief ot which I V.. ith I'."- r- net \ • -;i 1- ds with her politii'BWul refugees in Egypt, and crimina medical practices which failed to re- * reive the departmental alfentioi they invited. In short, there i< nothing in I lie uncensored edition ol “With Kitchener in Cairo.” thal justifies the inciting and mischicvom foreword which has been noted The book is on flic dull side, am very much padded out with whole editorial references to tlie highlyexaggerated “disclosures,” which an nothing more exciting than clevei newspaper stories. t hat any Government should have troubled l< suppress them is mystifying. “With Kitchener in Cairo” is pub lished by Cassell’s. Our copy conic through Wliitcomhe & Tombs. “Giddy Mrs Goodyer.” Before she ran away from her bus band, giddv Mrs Goodyer lived ii a dusty little mining town in Soutl

REVIEWS AND NOTES

Africa—and Ihc chief value of Mis Tremletl’s story is its JohannesburgBrctoria selling. South Africa is the most complex, aml yet superficial, the most priggish, and yet most Bohemian and cosmopolitan area in the British Empire; a place you loathe i when you arc there, and for ever after hunger for. But it is not liecause it reflects all this that “Giddy Mrs Goodyer” will have readers by the thousands. A divorce is worth more to a novelist than all the mines on the Band, and if the heroine never actually qualifies for her divorce the authoress is hardly to blame. From the day that Maudic announces to her husband that sh'e is “utterly bored with him and his rotten old mine, and never intends to set font in the place again,” and he savs, “Better slop away, then,” Mrs Trcmlell rushes her through a series of compromising entanglements. all of them so “near the edge” that the salacious reader cannot reasonably complain. It is true that when Captain Paget asks her to kiss him she refuses. When he thereupon kisses her. she gets angry—hut only after a deliberately enjoyed interval of surrender; and when he turns up penitently a day or two later and asks if she does not love him a little, it cannot be denied that she savs “No; 1 am not a bit in love with von. I don’t think I could possibly fall in love with anybodynow. . . . Love is beautiful and straightforward; but when once you are married all the nice part becomes wrong.” Nor can it be denied that when tier husband eventually comes after her she falls undamaged into his outstretched arms. But if that convinces you—well. . . . In the smart trifling way Mrs Trended is a skilful novelist, although it is impossible to believe that Johannesburg’s lending lawyer would say. “I’ll learn him, the blighter,” or that at a race suuner even amongst the “nonveaux riches” a wealthy vulgarian in the soft goods line would shout out, “Now then, Thomas, some of yours for a ladv. Get a move one, me lad. Deliver the goods.” And it is absolutely certain that no one in South Africa ever said to his partner at table, “What about a little bnbhlv water?” All the same, Mrs Trended writes well. Her dialogue is sprightly, her narrative ranid. and terse. If a dawdling, philanderin'? offer anprals to von, who can salute a ladv “in a manner only achieved hv the elect”; if you never get wearied no matter how deeply you must ‘Tabulate and'puddle in the social slush”; if a novel to you is simple a riot of bright eves, and clu-nn talk, amKcpstly feathers and (hdTi- • ness, then you will rejoice in Mrs Trended, and giddily wait for more, (Our copy comes direct from John , Lane.) Very Feminine. Viewed as a detached collection of sketches of people who have been caught in eddies of war. - .1. G. Sirne’s , “Canada Chaps” (John Lane) is no! without merit. But if Miss Sime seriously intended this little book i to he really part and parcel of Ilia! interesting series of Army sketches i which opened so well with \. Ned i Lvons’s “Kitchener Chaps” an- ; Pierre Mille’s “JofTre Chaps,” Hu ■ critic is impelled to protest that Mis; I Sime must have allowed her fancy b ’ plav in the wrong allotment! Foi i “Canada Chaps” is true to neb!km . its tide nor the series in which i ; is issued. Miss Sime betrays a yen I marked development of the feminine - characteristic of straying from the . point. The first five or six skclrhe; I in the book certainly are about Can j adian soldiers or about-10-bc sol I diers, but they are written from ; S very feminine viewpoint, and the> 1 arc not at all vivid pictures of tin “ subjects. Except for a few place ' names, an occasional mention ol ! maples, lumber, a few other Canad : ian adjuncts, and a little dialect there is little to identify the “chaps’ ' as Canadian. In the rest of the hook the “chaps” are mostly womer ‘ and children —and some of them are 1 Belgian. However, all the sketches J are readable, and some are qnile ’ good, even if the hook is wronglj [ labelled. They would appeal particularly to women. ) * 1 A BOOKFELLOW’S GOSSIP. ’ As far back as 1881, George ; Braudes, now the most famous Dane j alive, wrote:—“ .. . Germany one 1 day will lie alone, isolated, hated b\ the neighbouring countries; : j stronghold of conservatism in the J centre of Europe. Around her, ii ■ Italy, in France, in Russia, in the ’ North, there will rise a generation imbued with international ideas, am ’ eager to carry them out in life. Bui " Germany will lie there, old and hale stifled in her emat of mail, armed t< • the teeth, and protectee! by all the • weapons of murder and defence which science can invent. Professoi ; Brandes’s latest book, “The Worh ’ at War,” will appear shortly will Macmillans. ) f The vogue of English literature ii • Russia continues, and in especial the s cheap translations of William J 1 Locke Hood the news-stands am ‘ bookshops. Walter Baler is alse ’ being discovered to the Russians - though in a piecemeal fashion, am ■J is much appreciated in intellcctua ■ circles. The Russian newspapers an ■ reported to he printing much mon '■ British and French news than for 1 merlv. L' ‘ . . 1 English people, says a Londoi 1 bookman, should not overlook tin 1 “Letters of R. W. Gilder,” edited b; " his sister, Miss Rosamond Gilder • which Constable has just published ‘ It is the record of a man who was ; 1 great editor, who made the “Gen s lury,” in his day, almost the world’, f greatest magazine. Richard Walsoi • Gilder was also a poet, a traveller s and a worker on behalf of interna k tional copyright. He enjoyed tin I friendship of many men in man; c ‘ varied wa Iks of life, among then ■ Bresident Cleveland, Jefferson e Paderewski, and Andrew Carnegie r 'l ire hook is altogether a real am • important page in American life " literary, social, and personal. Reviewing “Susan Lenox,” a bool s in which the late David (Indian Philips attempts to prove that hal the troubles of the world aris ;- through our social prudishness on th u subject of sex, the “N.Y. Evening ii Post” remarks; “Even where on

most di'tests it, where one would i gladly lay it down and forget the j putrid horror that it reveals, one is j somehow held by the remorselessness of its vivid realism and com-1 gelled to accompany the author to ; the end.” In an article on “The Return of Blake,” a writer in a recent American weekly says that “perhaps il is to escape from a dread, now become intolerable, that if man’s activity be ' !confined strictly to the earth he is indeed but a “poor player” strutting for an hour and ids life without permanent value, that William Blake, the poet and seer, the disinterested artist, who fulfils so adequately Ihe function of (he artist, appears so often in many recent English books.” “t’ncle” llansi. the Alsatian artist whose (•indentures of Germans | brought him into trouble with the Prussian authorities long before the j war broke out, is shortly to he represented in Britain by an F.nglish edition of his “Professor Knalschke.” The author-artist took French leave of his German persecutors a few days before the declaration of war and, cussing the frontier, enlisted in the French Army, in which he is now serving as Sub-Lieutenant Jean.Tacqn.es Waltz. The English edition | of “Professor Knatschke” is to he j published by Messrs Hodder and] Stoughton, with a preface by AI be! F. Wetterle. Balzac was a novelist who found all his names in real life. Me bclicvi ed thal every name was some in ii- ; cation of character, and his researches for the names of some of Ids own personages often occupied i him for weeks. Leon Gozdan has an amusing story of how Balzac compelled him to walk through the I streets of Paris upon one of these ; emesis, reading all the signboards and advertisements. In vain did Gozlan propose name after name. Balzac rejected all, until, stopping before a small shop, and trembling with excitement, he said to Gozlan, “There, there; read!” Gozlan looked up and saw the name, Marcas. | “We need look no farther.” said Bali zac. “My hero’s name will be Mar- ■ j cas. In (his name there is the philo’lsophcr, the writer, the great politii| cian, the unrecognised poet.” '\ A rather unhappy bit of war read- . ing is Pierre Loti’s “War,” says the ij“N.Y. Evening Post”—(lie work of ■jan artist into whose soul has enter- :: ed the iron, and who cannot write | without bitterness. The motto of ; the book might he the title of one of •jtho essays—“ Above All, \Ye Must I Never Forget.” The expressions ■ i he uses in reference to the Kaiser G (infamous devil-fish, hyena, the un- ! spcakakle Kaiser, unbalanced lunaII tic, abominable monster) are cloLquenl of the hatred many French -jam! Belgians feel for that monarch. - j With this hatred mingles a biting )! contempt when the Grown Prince is -1 considered. The German Grown ' i Prince is a “microcephalous youth. • equally devoid of intelligence and I soul.” and the Kaiser made Ike war | “for Ihe greater glory of that feroj cions young nonentity whom he has p for son.” i 1 s 1 Swinburne, savs an English writer, I I did not grow old like other men. Me , j merely became aware of the fact j j that he needed a nurse, and retired ) into the safe nursery that Waltss|l)nnlon made for him at Putney. 1 ! ] “Malice In KiiTturl.and.” | “You are old, Father William,” the young - j man said, S ' “And the end of your life is in sight; , Yet you’re frequently patting your God on the head—--1 Do you think, at your age, it is right?” I’ | “In my youth,” said his sire, “I established ( my case , , As a being apart and divine; v : And 1 think if I try to keep God in His 2 place, C He ought to support me in mine.” —Horace Wyath. s i