WORTHLESSNESS OF MAN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18659, 30 August 1930, Page 14

WORTHLESSNESS OF MAN

A WOMAN’S BOOK. It is inevitable that “No Goodness in the Worm,” the brilliant first novel by Miss Gay Taylor, will cause a flutter in the dovecots of the novel-reading public. There is within its pages the delightful mixture of very good and very bad, that has so often proved irresistible. The first few pages, for instance, carry the reader away. Here, at last, are the very people one enjoys reading about. Here is a true picture of modern life. The next few chapters, perhaps, find one a little dubious, and this see-sawing continues to the last chapter. But approval or disapproval scarcely counts, so excellent and stimulating is the writing. It is essentially a woman’s book. It tells the story of a modern, self-con-scious and highly civilised woman of 25, who tastes life with glorious anticipation and finds it exceedingly bitter. It is unfortunately a book to delight all men-haters, for in no uncertain language do the young women of this book declaim against the modern travesty of man. Not that the book, as it stands, says very much for the modern woman. The Valentine of Miss Taylor's story is the sport of circumstances, and is denied the power of yea and nay in her own actions to an extent j that is unconvincing in a girl of her character. It is not, however, the story of this novel that makes it important; that, one feels, is often false and overdrawn. It is the verve and brilliance of Miss Gay Taylor’s style and her biting comments upon modern social life. The book is heavy with the beauty of the changing seasons, and the tenderness of awakening love. It is ugly, too. Miss Taylor’s characters are a little distorted, while even the course j of their lives is sadly mismanaged in j order that her theme, the worthless- j ness of man, might be emphasised. j It is, however, a first novel, and since it teems with all the gifts of the bom novelist, with vitality, shrewdness and irony, the tendency toward overwriting is easily forgiven. One can hardly wait for Miss Taylor’s next book, so disturbing has been the effect of her first. “No Goodness in the Worm,” by Gay Taylor. (Gollancz).