Stray Leaves from Book World

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 12 (Supplement)

Stray Leaves from Book World

INTERESTING NEWS AND NOTES

"Life's Little Day," by Dorothy Black, is a pleasant story of village life, and it begins and ends with the local flower show and fair, although a great deal happens between the first and the second festival. There is nothing sensational about the plot, although the local parson does tackle an escaping lion from the fair, but the romance and the pictures of the village worthies—Saul is a fine fellow—are well portrayed.

Mr Matila C. Ghyka, whose novel, “Again One Day,” was highly praised by Mr Richard Church when it appeared last September, is a Rumanian. He has served in the diplomatic-service of his country in Washington, Paris, Warsaw, Stockholm, and elsewhere. A week or two ago he returned, like the hero of his book, to London to take up a special appointment at, the Rumanian Embassy with the rank of Minister.

"Death at Eight Bells,” by Frederic A. Kummer, concerns a shady financier who has a hold bordering on blackmail over many of the guests he lures aboard his luxury yacht. His violent death for which so many might be suspected, made the captain of the yacht take the law into his own hands. The re-stag-ing of the crime reveals its perpetrator before the assembled guests in a most dramatic fashion. Unorthodox as the captain’s action may seem, it avoided a political scandal and a police inquiry. The ingenious solution and clever sleuthing makes this a good thriller, and it is as its publishers claim, “a crime story for the connoisseur.”

Mr J. A. Westrup’s addition to the Master Musicians Series "Purcell,” constitutes the finest study of Henry Purcell which has yet appeared. There have been two or three interesting books on Purcell published during the past few years, but none as comprehensive as this new work. Its biographical section is as adequate as it can be in view of the little that is known of Purcell’s life. Mr Westrup has taken nothing on trust and all the facts he gives have been drawn by independent research from the original sources. The chief importance of his work, however, lies in his appraisal of Purcell’s music. This he discusses with intelligent appreciation in a manner and from a definite critical standpoint which makes his exposition of continual interest to the reader. Numerous musical illustrations are provided.

Lord Amberley may be described either as the son of Lord John Russell or as the father of Bertrand Russell (the present earl). The reason why so little is heard of Amberley and his wife Kate Stanley, is that both died in their early thirties. They were, however, in the late ’sixties of last century leading lights among the English Radicals. Their diaries and papers have been edited by Bertrand and Patricia Russell and are published in two volumes, each over 500 pages; "The Amberley Papers: The Letters and Diaries of Lord and Lady Amberley,” The selection is a judicious one and the editors have been content to let the papers tell, as far as possible, their own story. These two volumes give an insight into a period of intellectual confusion as seen through the eyes of its contemporaries. The fact that he was Lord John’s son was sufficient to cause Amberley to be constantly in the limelight of criticism. He and his wife, however, were so much absorbed in their work and their happiness that they hardly noticed that the world was shocked. What the world thought or, rather, did, about the matter is seen in the account of the South Devon election of 1868. Intimate portraits of many of the leading personalities of the day are to be found in the diaries and letters. The whole forms a human document of no little value.

"Bright Flower of Youth," by Graham Heath is the work of an Oxford undergraduate, aged 23. and it won the Longman's Oxford and Cambridge novel competition of this year. Its plot is Intimately bound up with an ideal Germany. As a boy the hero romanticised the country and his visits to it while still young left him with a confused but joyful impression of dark woods and picturesque cottages, colourful towns and a charming people. Years later he spends a term at a school there before going on to Oxford and it is then that he first meets the heroine, and obtains an even deeper love and understanding of post-War Germany. He had glimpses then of the change that was to be wrought by Nazism, but it was not until he again visited the country after a few years at his university that he realised that the Germany he loved was being destroyed. His final visit Is tinged with tragedy and bitterness; his dream of a triumphant, youthful Germany is shattered. As a first novel it naturally lacks maturity, but its action and development are smooth enough. Its retrospective passages are definitely juvenile. The theme of the boy’s and, later, the young man’s devotiAi to an ideal is not quite convincing enough to carry the resultant tragedy. It has a little too much restraint, a lack of light and shade.

The ninth issue of “Verse,” a publication of topical verse deserves a warm welcome. Its contents show astonishing variety, ranging as they do from serious poems—one on the Coronation dedicated “To a Small New Zealander” has already been published in "The Dominion” —to the work of a lighter nature, including one or two very much in the style of the old-time broadsheet. The serious works have a pleasing sincerity and aptness of phrase, but much of the best things in the collection are the verses in more colloquial language These are bright, spirited and genuinely humorous.

Mr Gwyn Jones’s new novel “The Nine Days’ Wonder,” is a Welshman. He was bom at Blackwood in Monmouthshire and was educated at the University of Wales. When he left in 1929 he became a schoolmaster, and six years later was appointed to a lectureship in English at University College, Cardiff. He is an authority on Germanic and Scandinavian antiquites. His first novel, “Richard Savage," published in 1935, was a richly detailed study of London life—mainly low life—in the eighteenth century. His second, “Times Like These,” brought us to the South Wales coalfields.

Mr Ivor Brown, who has just published a new novel entitled “The Great and the Gods,” is a busy man. Apart from being a witty and erudite dramatic critic for two newspapers, he reviews books, writes leaders, and produces graceful essays on any topic. Cricket is his chief relaxation. He may often be seen at Lord's in the summer, and for many years he wrote on the game under the pseudonym of “Tit-Willow.” He has often defended the theatre against the enroaching cinema. “Tire theatre,” he has said, “is not declining as an art. If there should be fewer plays in future and more films, that may be all for the good of the theatre, whose life is in quality, not quantity.”

Adrian Alington’s books are usually amusing, but probably none has so much real fun in it as his latest, "Moss is the Stuff.” Godolphln Cox’s parents died shortly after supplying him with his remarkable name, and left him to the care of a tender aunt and a not so tender uncle. Rather than be apprenticed to his uncle, a sanitary engineer, Godolphln decides to run away to London, and, "after enduring months of toil and privation, return to Woolbridge respected and even honoured to lighten the last few days of Aunt Georgina and Uncle Matthew.” Before his triumphant return Godolphln was destined to meet many strange characters and undergo even stranger adventures. “Nil Desperandum” seems to have been the motto of Mr Anthony Morton, whose thriller, "Meet the Baron,” has won a £l5OO prize. He started to write articles and short stories when he left school, but had collected seven hundred rejection slips before the first halfguinea arrived! Another three hundred rejections came before his second appearance in print. He was constantly out of work, and twice was employed for only ten days in the year—as temporary postman during the Christmas rush. He had a frantic rush to finish his book in time. A week before the closing date he still had 10,000 words to write —but the manuscript was delivered on the morning of the final day. "Sea Spy," by E. Keble Chatterton, is a stirring Secret Service yarn about a Britisher spying on Mediterranean crooks determined to Invade England. He uses his own yacht and steers himself, his girl stowaway passenger lord-’ ered aboard secretly by the authorities) and the good ship Ariadne, through literally the most perilous of waters. Mr Chatterton’s vivid imaginative powers have never been bettered than in the plan divulged to conquer England by land and sea in one dramatic coup. The last chapter sees the Navy come to the rescue in the best traditions of the Silent Service. Unashamedly patriotic, Mr Chatterton's novel will probably prove an admirable subject for a far-seeing British film producer to turn to good account. While your red-haired rogue is fair game and his inevitable overthrow, for right must triumph, bring only relief and satisfaction, your scamp, if young enough to be just a trifle quixotic, can excite sympathy with his misdeeds and a faint whisper of silent approval when he double-crosses some shady confederate. So it is with “Cairo Card," by S. C. George (Robert Hale). Hassan the Card, is a scamp by all ordinary standards, and yet the reader is ready to laugh and forgive. From his schooldays when he did his class-mates’ exercises at a piastre a dozen, until he makes his last escape, Hassan is never out of hot water. In Cairo or in the desert he finds ways and means of prying the shekels loose from his fellows, but while he never does it honestly, the good-natural lilt of his wayward strayings earns a responsive smile rather than the deserved reprimand. The "Cairo Card” is as Artemus Ward would have said, “an amusin' kuss,"

Mr A. E. Coppard has been mentioned as a professional runner. Now Mr Angus Mac Vicar, whose latest novel is called "Flowering Death," confesses he, too, has sprinted for money. His house at Southend, Argyll, is built near the spot where St. Columba is supposed to have landed in Scotland from Ireland.

Modern civilisation is discussed in a manner entirely new and from many different angles in “Work and Property,” by Mr Eric Gill. The book is a collection of his lectures and essays which must be read to be appreciated. Mr Gill is a sculptor with ideas on industry and religion that will startle many, but nevertheless, his opinions are well worth seeking. There are eight chapters in the book and their titles give a good indication of the contents. Examples are: “Architects and builders,” “Art in relation to industrialism," “Man and Politics," “The value of the creative faculty in man,” “Art and revolution,” “The end of the fine arts,” “What is art and does it matter?” The illustrations, by Denis Tegetmeier, as the publishers say: “Are a commentary on the text, an alleviation of its anger and they will make you laugh.” Dr. Karel Capek, whose “War With the Newts” has won such favourable comment, is dark, slightly built, and rather shy. He taught himself English almost entirely by reading and although he speaks it fluently, his accent makes him difficult to understand. He has the distinction of having added a new word —robot—to our language through his play, “R.U.R.” (Rossum’s Universal Robots). The word is derived from the Czech robotiti, meaning to work. Dr. | Capek has now renounced play writing I as being unsatisfactory as a form of exI pression. He devotes his time to JoumI allsm, novels, fantasies, and essays—- ! and to his garden and dogs. His father was a doctor, and he was born in 1890 in the mountains of Bohemia. Until he was forty-five he remained a staunch bachelor—and then surprised his friends by marrying a distinguished Czechoslovakian actress. "Digest of World Reading,” a 100page monthly magazine comprising book digests and interesting articles on a variety of subjects, is a worth-while addition to the ranks of Australian publications. Published without illustrations and without advertisements, this one-shilling monthly represents a I new departure for Australia, although magazines on similar lines are produced overseas. In the July issue, which is just to hand, globe-trotting Peter Fleming contributes “Journey to Samarkand," the tale of a conventional journey amongst unconventional people to this glamorous but remote outpost of Soviet Russia. Amongst other interesting articles in the first issue are “Englishmen Like to Get Away From Women” by Rosita Forbes; "Queer London” by Peter Fenn; “The Food of Old England” by C. R. Bradish; “•—And On Earth Peace” by H. L. Mencken; "Beneath the Alcazar,” an incident in the Spanish war, translated from the French; and "Buffalo!” by A. B. Haines, the story of the unusual Northern Territory industry of hunting buffalo for their hides. “Comic Opera and Gotterdamerung,” by G. B. Lancaster, wellknown as the author of “Pageant”, is another feature article. Bright and entertainingly written, this article retells the history of New Zealand, not in the diy-as-dust fashion of the pro--1 fessional historian, but in the humanl interest style of the successful novelist.