NEW BOOKS REVIEWED

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

NEW BOOKS REVIEWED

GAY OLD WOMAN’S INDISCRETIONS.

MURDER: AND ITS PUNISHMENT.

“Shining And Free,” by G. B. Stern. William Heinemann, Ltd. London. A. J. Fyfe, Ltd., New Plymouth.

A great-grandmother who at the age of 88, and in spite of being partially crippled, refused to give up the joy of living was likely to be either a source of pride or of continuous anxiety to her family. Anastasia Rakonitz was both the queen and the despair of her family. Her grand-children admired her courage and her faculty of commanding respect wherever she went, but they loathed the discomfort she could make in their own homes. Her daughter Truda, with whom she lived, was in constant terror lest her physical frailty should lead to a tragic accident, and in almost as much dread lest her mother’s conduct should destroy the comfort that remained after the bulk of the family fortunes had disappeared. Anastasia is a charming old wretch, but for all her charm and faculty for living in the present, the reader has full sympathy with Truda. It was very trying to have a mother who came home at two in the morning having “travelled in the sidecar of a motor bicycle belonging to the young man of Ivy Burtt, the waitress who had served her at the Universal Cafe. She said to Ivy; ‘when you are 88, isn’t it, there will be time enough for you in a chair-side, but now the behind for you and tfie chair-side for me, and we will both be carried, I am sure with pleasure, by this obliging young gentleman.’ And indeed she enjoyed her drive exceedingly, laughed at the bumps, and frequently and with gusts urged the obliging young gentleman to greater speed.” Truda, who had sent a car for her mother and seen her thoughtfulness declined was not thrilled by the old woman’s request that she should come down and entertain Ivy and her young man, whom Anastasia had brought in on the promise of giving them supper. Truda came downstairs in time to prevent her mother giving a family heirloom to Ivy, and to get the waitress and her escort away. It was an unpleasant half hour and the worst part of it was that Ivy’s sympathies were entirely with Anastasia, whom she considered a hardly-used old dear. The incident arouses introspection and Truda reviews her own life, darkened by her mother’s refusal to her marriage with the man she first loved, and by that mother’s determination to remain always first in any family picture. Truda had “married well” and her husband had remained devoted all his life. Now, where she might have had peace, for her two daughters were prepared to maintain it for her, her mother came to live, with her and to resume the dominance from which' marriage had delivered Truda. But while Truda lay brooding and resentful her mother was a person of action. She had arranged a trip to Brighton and the descripition of that excursion is a long delight. Anastasia gathers around her many different personalities. She is grave and gay, kindly and imperious, but withal, an old woman it is a pleasure to meet and an inspiration to study as an antidote to the deadening influence of advancing years. “Shining And Free” can be recommended as great fun and deft character-study as well. ■

“We, The Accused,” by Ernest Raymond. Cassel and Co., London. A. J. Fyfe, Ltd., New Plymouth.

lliis is a remarkable. book. It is the story of a murder about which, there is no mystery, and but for sheer bad luck, for the murderer, might have, been the crime.” Up to the time Paul Presset, an insignificant assistant teacher at a third-rate private school in London, murdered his wife Elinor there is little to. awaken exceptional interest in him or his history and surroundings.

Paul had fought : his way up from village shop keeping., In the process he had achieved snobbery in its most offensive forms; and had married Elinor. Pope, a widow of 45, with an income of £250 and a house of her.own. Paul was 42 when they married, and Elinor was tolerably happy, although, annoyed at her husband’s Jack of position and his want of candour-before they married. She had some kind pf heart trouble, and “enjoyed her house, her. furniture, her heart trouble and her resentments.’ To Paul his wife was “the negation of all his hopes,” particularly his hopes in regard to Myra Bawne, another assistant teacher at the school where Mr. Presset was employed. In due course Myra became Paul’s mistress, and the story seems the usual smeary one of a wife deceived and a husband and his paramour making the most of rather sordid circumstances. Elinor discovers the relationship between Myra and Paul and Miss Bawne breaks it off and leaves the school and the neighbourhood. It is proof of Mr. Raymond's skill that as this commonplace story progresses he awakens a very real interest in Paul. He is not so much a sensualist as one who craves for tenderness and understanding, whose nature is in a ferment with frustrated desire to rise in his profession and lack of determination in his earlier years to undergo self discipline and application necessary to accomplish success. His married life is a long tragedy and his longing for Myra’s company makes his wife’s intolerance harsher than ever.

Aii illness of hers that might have proved fatal, opened the vista of a life with Myra which fascinated Paul. The sequence of his progress towards murder is told well. Paul poisons his wife and has no regrets until he is suspected of the crime and becomes a hunted man. From then, and it is a great achievement for the author, most readers’ sympathy is likely to be with the criminal. For some time he and Myra baffle the police, but both are ultimately arrested and Paul is found guilty and sentenced to death. His psychology through the period preceding his trial,

and through the trial itself, is analysed with much care and in a manner which adds to the reader’s feeling of personal intimacy with an unfortunate man. The description of the police and detectives and of the trial is thrilling, and give stern reality to the narrative.

From the day of his sentence Paul becomes almost transfigured. All the nobleness in his nature comes to the surface. Indeed, so poignant is the story of those terrible 20 days before his execution that one wonders if Mr. Raymond has not written this book as propaganda against the infliction of capital punishment. Paul impresses all who come in contact with him as a victim rather than as a criminal, but the story is grimly realistic. There is no eleventh hour reprieve. Paul was guilty and he pays the penalty. The torture of the waiting period, and the description of the execution morning with its reactions upon Paul's old father and mother and upon Myra Bawne are as powerful as Dickens’ stories of Newgate a century ago. “We, the Accused” is a stirring book.. Like Hardy's “Tess” one feels almost that Paul Presset has been made the “sport of the President of the Immortals.” Yet there was Elinor’s right to life as well! This is a book to read and to think about, although the thoughts will not be pleasant.