ADDITIONS TO LIBRARY

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1935, Page 14 (Supplement)

ADDITIONS TO LIBRARY

AMERICA IN THE THROES MODERN RURAL LIFE IN BRITAIN. A BOOK OF SPARKLING NONSENSE. The chief librarian of the New Plymouth Public Library reports the following books in popular demand: — General Literature. “Red Road Through Asia.” by Bosworth Goldman. “In the Steps of the Master, by H ■. Morton. “C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian,” by J. L. Hammond. “Retreat from Glory,” by R. H. Bruce Lockhart. “War Letters of General Monash, edited by F. M. Cutlack. “Strolling Through Scotland, by W. S. Percy. Fiction. “Pitcairn's Island,” by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. “Good-bye, Mr. Chips,” by James Hilton. „ “Tzigane,” by Lady Eleanor Smith. “Full Flavour,” by Doris Leslie. “Now We Set Out,” by Susan Ertz. “So Red the Rose,” by Stark YbUng The following volumes have been added to the library recently:— “Pilgrim Father,” by Guy K. Austin, ; (Geoffrey Bles.) The sub-title of this book is “being the adventures of an English family ’n America through the great depression _ It to an interesting Story, though on the whole adventure was less ih evidence than good fortune. Nevertheless Mr. Austin has shown how catastrophic to preconceived social standards the depression proved, and how gallantly American men and women accepted the jars of Fate. , Really this to the narrative of a modern emigrant from Great Britain to America. Of course Mr. Austin was no illiterate escaping from oppression or starvation. in his own country. He took with him a certain amount of money and the reader never feels that there was any chance of real privation for the Austin family although it was called upon to accept a less pleasant standard of living than seemed likely from the first experience of life and work ift the United States.

As a director of entertainments the author had specialised experience behind him that gained him early employment and at a respectable salary. Unfortunately the firm went under during the depression aiid then the troubles of the English family began. It was a terrible time. In the suburban flats occupied the previous year there were 47 tenants paying rents of £l7 to £2l a month. When Mr. Austin returned in 1931 there were but 23 tenants and Of these 19—nearly all business executives—were unemployed before the end of 11)32. ’ But courage was undaunted. “Harry Smith” when he lost his job had a beautiful home, a high class motor-car and two almost paid up endowment policies worth £4OOO. In two years, during which he never failed to search diligently for work, he lost everything and had io rely upon friends and the local charity organisations for food and shelter. But Smith stuck to it and ultimately got back to employment. And if that was the experience of the “white collar” ex-executive, the sufferings in the ranks of the lesser wage-earners can be better imagined than described. Mr. Austin tempted fortune in a theatrical enterprise. It brought him up against trades unionism in America in a manner which- left him a sadder but a wiser man. It gave him the point of view of so many American business men, namely, that racketeering has become one of the worries of industry and allowance for the cost of Overcoming its demands must be allowed for in all commercial estimates.

For the State schools in the United States Mr. Austin has nothing but praise, while the conveniences supplied in what were termed “unfurnished apartments” filled him with admiration. He found American speech and idiom a bit bewildering, but on the whole he found the people kindly and courageous, with a great belief in themselves and m their country.

When the depression was at its worst the Austin family motored to Florida for the winter. It wits a journey of 2000 miles and gave the travellers a wonderful insight of rural America and of the provincial cities. Of all these and of the people met in Florida Mr. Austin writes in a pleasant and interesting manner. He only skims the surface, but the reader can Sense behind the lightness of his narrative how far-reaching and serious are the problems to which the United States must find a solution. “Latter Howe,” by Doreen Wallace. (Collins.) This Is another of those quiet studies of English rural scenes and people for which Miss Wallace has attained a high reputation. It is the story of a well-born but impecunious Cumberland farmer vzho marries a woman ten years older than himself whose life has been devoted to scientific research and teaching. The early idyll is charmingly described. It is sane as well as beautiful, and the principal characters have the saving grace of humour to keep them from being -over-sentimental or ridiculous The effect of the different social standing of his wife and her relations bring* the first cloud over the happiness of Lanty and Katherine Lewthwaite. Their “primitive” mode of living shocks their more sophisticated visitors and subtle influences are brought upon Lanty to give up the home of his forebears and to which he is so warmly attached. Eventually his wife’s health makes a change necessary, but it is not the lack of success in material things that is the tragedy of the book. It is the gradual drifting apart of husband and wife,’ first by the nature of Katherine's illness and then by the intangible but very real barriers that surround human beings when they come to regard themselves as “interesting cases” rather than as still active members of society with duties and responsibilities to fulfil. Material anxieties added to the misunderstandings. but before the final tragedy occurred husband and had found their way back to the old warm affection, although it was tempered and mellowed by the experiences they had shared. Miss Wallace has written a careful study of human nature in varying circumstances and in the grip of high emotion, happy and tragic. She combines with it a record of quiet countryside happenings and the effect upon them of tlie restlessness of post-war city life in England. Though the tragedy appears inevitable, this is a thoroughly enjoyable narrative. "Master Sanguine," by Ivor Brown. (Hanish Hamilton.) This is another of the volumes of sparkling nonsense Mr. Brown seems able to throw off without effort. T allegedly concerns the life and adventures of one “Master Sanguine, who always believed what he was told.” Sanguine is a peg upon which Mr. Brown hangs his witty and caustic comments upon modern society. Sanguine was the child of parents who were “scientists” to the ninth degree. His mother- “was a Doctor of Paedosophy,

and holding the European Diploma of Maternal Technique was at the constant service of Working Mothers into whose homes she entered with all the authority of science and with an unqualified passion for research.” The abolition of all rules of conduct was the panacea for the frailties of mankind, according to Sanguine’s parents. Still, “when one of the Working Mothers became choleric at the use of her bed-kitchen-sitting-room as a sphere of Paedosophic Research, gave Sanguine’s mother a sharp cut about her posterior with a rolling-pin, and tossed her down 124 stairs with much flow of uninhibited language, that lady did so far forget her principles as to summon a constable and implore the . aid of a repressive arm.” . Sanguine's infancy was spent in the more normal atmosphere of his grandmother’s home where an entirely, nonscientific nurse spanked and cuddled him in the most orthodox fashion. But the fun begins when his parents take a hand and he is sent first to a nudist school: then to one where repression of youthful instincts is the unforgiveable crime, and so on and so on.

His experiences at Oxford enable Mr. Brown to gird at many of the weaknesses of cherished tradition. They ended any chance of Sanguine obtaining Holy Orders! A journey to the Continent follows in which the hero becomes embroiled in border warfare, but finds in old-fashioned affection for a girl the way out of the bewilderments of life. A brilliant, but not always a pleasant bit of foolery, this book will appeal to those who can laugh with others at themselves and the ideas they once thought were such unassailable facts.