LITERATURE OF THE WAR

Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 1929, Page 14

LITERATURE OF THE WAR

STRENGTH OF LATER BOOKS SUMMARY AND CLASSIFICATION. VOLUMES ON LIBRARY SHELVES. 1 “It- is over ten years since the end of the war, yet only in the last eighteen months have books been widely read and published dealing with the war frankly and truthfully,” said Mi\ A. ■L. Low, librarian to the New Plymouth library, in a summary and classification of war literature to a News reporter yesterday. “The real story is coming now, not from the stage-managers, the divisional commanders and staff officers, but from the men who went through the piece, the rank and file.” Continually from the close of the war -—even from the first days of the. war — books had been written arid published on the war, said Mr. < Low,; but - many of the earlier volumes had failed. Many were partly historical, mariy came from the source of the higher command—in part historical arid ip part justification of the higher command. Probably the one form of war literature that had kept its hold on the reading public was that of the stories of escape by prisoners of war. - There were the older and better known books. “The Road to Endor,” by- W. 11. Jones; “The Escaping Club,” by Evans; and “I Escape,” by Hardy. Then there-were the later volumes which made fascinating reading, “The Further Side of No Man’s Land,” by V. W. Purcell; “Prisoners of Mainz,” by Waugh; “Escapes and Adventures,” by Ellison; “The Enormous Room,” by Cummings; and T. W. White’s “Guests of the Unspeakable.” With a few exceptions, nevertheless, the other war books failed. The older civilian population had lived through the suspense arid the men who fought only. wished to forget it. The rising generation was not old enough or curious enough to want to find out about it. BOOKS BY RANK AND FILE. But now, said Mr. Low* finer and greater -books were being published, written mostly by the rank and file of the armies. There was Rudolf Binding’s “A Fatalist at War,” Ludwig Renn’s “War,” and Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” from the German side. There was the war seen from the. French front line in “L.M. 8046,” the diary of a legionnaire by an American who joined up with the French- and fought mostly on the Verdun sector. The war was seen through English eyes in “A Soldier’s Diary of the Great War,” “The Undertones of War,” by Blunden,, and Blake’s book “The Path to Glory.” “These Men My Friends," by .. Thompson, a book on the fighting in Mesopotamia, was exceptionally good, and life iii the Turkish army-' was pictured in “Four Years Beneath the Crescent,” by Rafael de Nogales, a Venezuelan filibuster who served with the other side bn Gallipoli. Some of these books, perhaps, said Mr. Low, were more crude, more coarse and more brutally - realistic, but they revealed the temporary reaction —the “shell shock” period —was passing from the men who fought. Not only were soldiers writing the books, but also soldiers were reading them. The returned man, generally, recognised them as true. He had felt the same things, seen the same. things and done the same things himself. The books showed, too, the intolerance of the civilians in the past towards the soldier’s unrest and his slow but steady return to normal life. NAVAL AND SUBMARINE. The next group, said the librarian, gave the naval and submarine aspect of the war, of which remarkably little had yet been told. “Raiders of theDeep,” by Lowell Thomas, gave the German version of the submarine campaign and the stories of -the commanders. Britain’s defence of its shipping by Q-ships, so clothed in mystery in war-time, was told by Gordon Campbell, one of the most successful commanders, in “My Mystery Ships.” In. this book Campbell told the graphic story of his many attempts to trap enemy submarines. “The Auxiliary Patrol,” by E. K. Chatterton, and “The'Blocking of Zebrugge,” too, were both practically historical. ■“The Letters of a Flying Officer,” by Stuart Wortley, shed light- on a phase of the war, said Mr. Low, of which not nearly enough had yet been written. “War Birds/’ that popular book, had a successor, practically a sequel, in “Above the Bright Blue Sky,” by Elliott Springs, who himself edited “War Birds.” In addition Springs had written another flying story, “Nocturne Militaire.” THE STORY OF GALLIPOLI. The Gallipoli campaign, with its special appeal to the New Zealand public, was "dealt with in the “British History, of the War —Gallipoli,” edited by Briga-dier-General Aspinall Oglander, ( which gave more the official side of the campaign. “The Campaign in Gallipoli,” by Hans Kannengieser Pasha, was the story told from the German-Turco viewpoint, and the British war correspondent’s story wa-s told by Aslimead-Bartlett in “Uncensored Dardanelles.” Finally, said Mr. Low, there were the books dealing with the diplomatic side of the war. “Versailles,” by Karl Nowak, dealt with the peace treaty, particularly from the German aspect. “The Intimate Papers of Colonel House” threw light on the war from a different angle, revealing the intrigues of Governments and the character and aims of President Wilson. The threads of German diplomacy were gathered .together in “The Memoirs of Prince Max of Baden,” British and American diplomacy was described in. “The Life and Letters of Walter Page,” and the purely British side was given in-“ Asquith’s Memoirs and Earl Grey's “Twenty-five Years.” One more branch of war. literature should be mentioned, said the librarian, the war play, headed by Sheriff’s “Journey’s End.” In his opinion this ranked with the book of Remarque. The text of the play was as popular as the stage version itself. The play was remarkable for its simplicity and its depth. At present it was playing in Melbourne and should soon be coming to New Zealand.