BOOK OF THE WEEK

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

BOOK OF THE WEEK

A NEW ZEALAND NOVEL

(By

U.S.)

“Local Colour,” by Rosemary Rees. Chapman & Hall Ltd., London, per A. J. Fyfe, Lid., New Plymouth. Price, Is.

It is not often that works by New Zealand writers find a place in these notes and Miss Rees’ latest novel was welcome because its author was bom and spent her youth in the Dominion. But “Local Colour” does not long depend upon sympathy or even local patriotism for interest in its story. The book soon claims warmer acquaintance on its own merits, and the desire increases as the story unfolds. It is a story with no startling happenings dr characters. Its strength, in fact, lies in its delicacy. Hetty Price, a soberminded, rather dowdy old maid of 30 years, wins £lOOO in a newspaper . competition. Her success makes reality of dreams of freedom from the daily grind of a London typist’s existence. Hetty seeks her freedom, her dream-village. If she does not finds, all that dreams portrayed she does fin'd interest and a new joy in life. “Local Colour” is written good humouredly and with great tolerance. The story is as kindly as it is shrewd, the plot may be slight, but the reader’s interest never flags. With a few clever touches Miss Rees conjures up a background before which her characters none far-fetched—are presented with an unfailing deftness in emphasising what is racy, adroit and interesting. Miss Rees tells a story without any moralising. She sees the comic side of life as related to the pathetic as convex to concave, and she can imply and command sympathy and understanding, for instance, of a self-made “gent ’ ■ when she has no option but to call him an “arrogant upstart” Hetty Price’s wanderings in search of freedom lead her to Bam Cove, an English seaside village, with hopes of becoming a watering-place that do not seem destined to be anything more. Nor does Hetty desire any change in the back-wash existence‘she finds in village life. Her determination to become an author weakens as the difficulties of book-construction make themselves felt but she finds a fresh zest in life is kindled within her by mingling with people around her and, seeing what kindness and sweetness can do for oneself as well as for those upon whom it is shed. Hetty’s good fortune began in the lodgings she found, and still more in the landlady she acquired when she took rooms at Cliff House. Miss .Bollard, the owner of Cliff House was an extraordinary person. Her most definite characteristic, at first, appeared to be a lilting for alcohol. Hetty’s good nature and willingness to help did much for the seedy Miss Bollard, and if it is one of her drunken moments which introduced Hetty to Tarrant, the other boarder, a lame engineer, the meeting was to have quite a lot to do with Hetty’s enjoyment of life at Bam Cove.

Miss Rees is catholic in her choice of village characters. There is the selfmade knight, Sir Humphrey, a hardware merchant with a beautiful, wilful daughter, Joan, who has sufficient of her father’s trading instincts to desire a career of her own; no dull, stay-at-home domesticity for Joan. Sir Humphrey and the Vicar of Bam Cove have quarrelled because the merchant has, according to the padre,' taken away a playing-field which the village regarded as a public reserve. - When Hetty reaches Bam Cove one of the first people she meets is the good-looking son of the vicarage, Fat Verrail, who is having a warm flirtation with a yillage beauty who assists in the local store and postoffice. Hetty and Pat get on well together, and she meets his parents, the scholarly vicar and his pretty, delicate' and altogether tiresome wife. Then there- is the managing self-cen-tred busy-body of many stories and many generations. She is not intended to be liked and she certainly did not do much to earn affection. As a, contrast the author gives some glimpses of the impeccable lady’s sifter. Cecily Pendlebury, the full-blown 'dame with a past, .could scarcely be called a skeleton in anyone’s cupboard, but her unmoral outlook and actions were a source of neverending anxiety to her pharasaical sister. Cecily was selfish, lazy and exasperating. Miss Rees makes you see also the pathos of such a character and succeeds in making her likeable with all her failings. '

In the sketches of Mr. and Mrs. Wilding the author shows her tolerance. If their union was “irregular” it was happy, and if there were chinks and creases in their parents’ characters there was only joyousness of youth in those of the twins. David and Jonathan Wilding. Their introduction to Hetty was original, her defence of them and' friendship with their parents led to many happenings, and Miss Rees is skilful enough to make them all seem part of what was inevitable.

The love story of Joan Bartlett and Pat Verrail is another of the inevitabilities, though it mostly happens “offstage.” The interview between Hetty and Sir Humphrey when she tells him his daughter has married the son of “that stuck-up parson” is told with skill and humour. For all his ferociousness Sir Humphrey is less difficult to handle than the “preciousness” of the vicar’s lady, and Hetty comes away from the vicarage with her knowledge of human nature widened but with her sympathies more than ever with the young people who have defied family feuds. She could not see why their parents could not recognise, as she did, that if the Joan who had so desired a career of her own could see Pat Verrall, a home and babies not such a deplorably dull future after all, it really did not matter very much what an older generation thought or wished. Joan Bartlett’s love story is not the only one in “Local Colour.” The other is told with equal restraint and is equally charming, if not so swift in action. One , closes the book feeling the better for some pleasant company. It has not been that of saints or villains, some of it had a touch of both. In o.ther words, the book is thoroughly human, but it is humanity lightened by kindness, not the kindness that is organised, not the kindness that merely overcomes emergencies, but the mellower, more gracious virtue which can be found far more frequently even in these garish days than is sometimes imagined. “Local Colour” is a book that is pleasant to read and one that could be given to a friend with assurance that it will confer enjoyment and ease.

Everyman’s Encyclopaedia, the authoritative reference work, has been reedited and re-issued. Its variety and volume have been- vastly increased, the publishers aim being to produce a work giving practical information of all kinds in a form accessible to persons of moderate means. In 12 volumes price £4 10s, at. A. J. Fyfe Ltd., Booksellers and Stationers, Devon Street New Plymouth.*