BOOK OF THE WEEK

Taranaki Daily News, 22 November 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

BOOK OF THE WEEK

A NEW WRITER’S COURAGE

(By

C.E.)

"Rapid pleasure," by Thomas Camborne: Cassell and Company, Ltd., London and Melbourne, through T. Avery and Sons. Ltd.,. New Plymouth.

Among some familiar names in a parcel ■of Cassell’s novels I found a new one, Thomas Camborne, and to my mind a new writer is always interesting. It is, of course, never quite safe to assume that a book by a''writer of whom one has not heard previously is a first book, for it is quite impossible for an ordinary reader like myself to keep track of everything that is published. If, however, an author has already had a book issued liis publishers are pretty sure to draw attention to the fact. On opening “Rapid Measure” I could find no mention of any other book by the same author. Turning over the title page I found the dedication, “Crosbie Garstin, kindest of friends, most helpful of critics,” and the mention of this successful novelist as a helpful critic suggested again that Thomas Camborne be a tyro.

• The next thing was to read the book with a view to ascertain from internal evidence, to'use a phrase .beloved of-the critics, whether the assumption of newness could be more fully justified. On the whole the evidence proved. to be sufficiently strong, though at times it was inclined to be contradictory; For a few pages the impression conveyed was that of a young aspirant to fame treading’very cautiously. Then would, come a passage rather suggesting the practised litterateur who is quite sure of himself, and if I stopped for a moment to consider the. general lay-out of the story I could almost believe it to be the work of an old hand. Yet at the end I was more firmly. convinced than ever that it .is a book by a young man in liis novitiate as a novelist —a very courageous young man and one who as novelist is very likeable.

Meikle Alleyne, who is a serious Oxford undergraduate because he has to make his way in the world, goes to spend u ?hort holiday with his Aunt Sarah in the .Midlands. He meets Jennifer Melling-foster, daughter of a retired colonel who hunts a pack of hounds, Jennifer acting as whip. ’She is little, more than a schoolgirl in age, but has been for some time the only woman in her father’s home, and she is rather spoilt—impetuous, intolerant of opposition, yet remarkable strength pf chare(pr. Meikle enters the Civil Seryiee, put’• within a few -weeks is knocked down by- a’ motor-car and receives such injury to his head as to necessitate his giving up brain work for two years.- '

! His.fortunes now at a low ebb, Meikle spends his convalescence among friends, finally going to liis cousin, Awl ay Tristram, who has inherited a fine property and a big income. About of an age, the two become great friends, and Meikle finds work to do in helping Awlay to look after his affairs. He suffers a great shock, however, when Awlay him of his engagement to Jennifer: Meikle, of course, has not been in a position to be a suitor, and the truth is that his apparent coolness has piqued Jennifer, hence her acceptance of his cousin. , Meikle looks after Awlay’s affaire while husband and wife go abroad, but meanwhile succeeds to Aunt Sarah’s property, and a moderate income.

Not long after ..the birth of a son to Jennifer her husband is disturbed by the ,ghost of a past indiscretion—a very substantial ghost that threatens blackmail, and as he is to be a candidate for Parliament he has. cause for alarm. His wife, of course, knows nothing of the matter, and she and Awlay are the best of friends, for they have much in common, especially their love of horses. Awlay has already ridden the winner of a Grand National ; and is to try again with the same horse. Just: as the blackmail affair is developing to a crisis he is killed by a fall on the racecourse, and Jennifer, a widow of 22, is left to manage a big estate and bring up her little son. i

That is far'enough for me to take the story, though it is far from the end; in fact, tlie last line of the book tells us that its closing incident is only 'the beginning of another story. Readers with a taste for romance will find it worth while to follow Jennifer’s fortunes to the. end of this story, and I expect a good many of them will hope for a sequel. ~ i I have ventured to suggest that •Thomas Camborne is a courageous young man. I envisage him as young because he so thoroughly understands the young people who make his story. The older ones play their parts very unobtrusively, and that is evidence of considerable artistic skill on the author’s part. His characterisation is good—quite uncommonly good for a first novel. Meikle, Awlay and Jennifer are not at all ordinary people, each having characteristics that are quite unusual; and yet each is entirely human and understandable.' It has required daring on the author’s part —a very wholesome -kind of daring, I should add, lest someone may think of the baser use of the word —to depict such a Jennifer as he has, and it has required no little craftsmanship to make her the consistent heroine she is.

The plan of the book also evidences the author’s courage. There are no chapters, but simply live divisions of the story. In the first we look on at the doings of Meikle and Jennifer. The second division is a period of Meikle’s life, told by himself. Then comes the married life of Awlay and Jennifer and next the story of Awlay’s ghost, the narrative in each case being in the third person. Finally Jennifer tells her story of. the events after her husband’s death It seems to me that none but a very brave young writer would have faced, the difficulties of Meikle’s and Jennifer's stories in the first person, for both characters -must from, their very nature be inclined to introspection, and an introspective soliloquy may be very wearisome. It is very much to Thomas Camborne’s credit that even in their loneliest moments his characters hold one’s interest.

The weakest features of the plot are Awlay’s ghost and the racecourse tragedy, and I shall be surprised if the author cannot improve upon that kind of thing in his next book. That there will be a next one seems most probable; that is, if his first has the- success It deserves. As a writer of romance he has considerable possibilities. Ho is frank, but not of the ultra-modern type, and he has a sureness' of touch that should commend him to a very large circle of readers.