LITERARY NOTES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13596, 16 May 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY NOTES.

i'Sally Bishop,'*.by E. Temple Thurston.—Mr. Thurston's weakness is that he takes his critics and himself a great deal too seriously. In a dedicatory epistle he anticipates *'the shrug-shoulder '■> smile of critics at my sub-title—'A Romance''':; he-says that he has broken through cohventuonalities and thrown canons to the winds by making his story end in a tragedy, and therefore the critics! will deny that' it is a roamnce. It is so easy to set u]> I imaginary critics and knock the stuffing out of them in this Wty'le; but there is a novel, to many only one, called "The Cloister arid 'the Hearth," arid 'all critics agree that it is" one/ of the of xo,mances, yet it ends-unhappily. ■ The com l placerit, rather too pompons note of" the preface refers in, the itself^' always with'l'a jarring effect... CMr Thurston'vis an -uncommonly cjlever writer,.arid "Sally Bishop" is an uncommQnly pleyer'books the analysis of character arid motive" is occasionally, : itne 'phrasing is sometimes - laboured' ahdV.sometimes ifrltatingly.: self : cQnscious ? -fhuti' the interest of'the narrative. L strengthens / and- ris&s tnumphantly' throngWab Jail. : The pier ture'-of clerkrlife in London is outrageously exaggerated; Ifc.Thlu*stqn,is not., contented to. represent that ■■: .some .clerks, but wishes -us,to believe that: all ofjihemj.-arje worn out and. -at '--;ihe end of each day's work. "Now, w£en all, the hours--of*:the nightmare; before,him, his nervoiw eriergy;; has-beencapped?away. Yon get no spiW-in .a tired }Jiorse.v -Itshies, at nothing- but- drags .oiie foot :weai-r ily ••■■after;- .another until; the :• ;js reached.", . Pit'andfgallery:of musicJiall and theatre tell a different talej so do the tennis-courts .and-, the cricket-pitches '■( in the County Council-parks. -Itlis when he generalises : that "Mr Thurstbri -goes wrong; Sally's own . nfeW as -a: - typist/is presented; with;knowledger mirable cunning, story ;; of .'her career,, of how she ) escaped out of-"the drabness of her surroundings -into..-• llappiriess, and presently' all ther happiness slipped through herfingers^andi -wasylest,f is full of the charm and pathos and romance of real life. It is a -story of-love that ignores the marriage laws; and the- woman pays. l —(London: Geo. Bell; Timaru: P. W. Huttori and;; Co.).

"The World's' Awakening,'' by .jrayarclnis.— In 1920;Jrorld Hostilities 04. a "tremendous senate" going begin,; jusfc „on the lev© of the of Peace Congress' called;fogetherjby Mr Jphp.Stanhope a tlun,disguise foiv.Mr Winston Chufchill.... Trouble will.■■coihr mence in Australia, the Japanese bombarding ; Sydney narjbour. ; Indeed, the awakening of the, Japaneseand mands of the working, classes that".-.will shake the foundations,: of many,. enrpirfes, and create universal anxiety,. - " Nayar &r ehus" has a wide knowledge" of .home, and international politics, oipuHtaryv and navai affairs, and of aUjfche -varied subjects that enter into the composition; of ..so large--a -work as this. \ The amount of detail js extraordinary.—(London: Hodder and Stoughton; Tjmaru: P. W. Hutton, and Co.) ■'...-.,.. -■ ■:^:i.

"The Crested Seas," by James .Brendan Connolly.—-If you have read " Out of Gloucester," or " The Seiners," or "The Deep

Sea's Toll," you will know what to. expect of Mr. Connolly. ...No other Irving novelist lias shown a cloiser or more won* derful intimacy with the sea in all its moods, nor with- fche hard • rough lives of the deep-sea fishermen. These thirteen short stories in "The Crested Seas" have a vividness in detail, a _sharpriess of oiiline, are presented*with' a. -'simple - v and graphic realism that give (them all the tone and colour and force of absolute ti'uth; They are tales of life as it is lived .■off>tlit* bleak coasts of Newfoundland; .tales rof shipwreck, 'of smugglings of adventure'aii fog and storm ■ and in perilous, ice-b'ounfd waters; and the characterisation is;sqsure and good that always you are as" much interested in the men who go through the adventure as you are In the. adventure it-self. Here and there you have a touch of pathos, here and. there, niore often, somethin of raw, grim humour,'samd everywhere the . ruggedness and. savagery of elementary humanity' jfbr. ever with one of the -untamed "and ; -untamable forces of nature. If there 'are. any"stories of this kind that... are truer;' hauntingly effective, one reviewer, at least) has never come across them. —(London: Duckworth; Timaru: P. W» Button and Co.) ..