WHAT LONDON IS READING

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

WHAT LONDON IS READING

QUIET ENGLAND LITERATURE THE LAWRENCE ENIGMA AGAIN (Specially Written for "The Timaru Herald” by Charles Pilgrim) LONDON, June 3. In his new short novel “The Saturday Match” (Dent) Mr Hugh de Selincourt has given us a work likely to appeal to those who enjoy the spirit and environment of Mr Chips. Those on the lookout for romantic excitement will find very little to their taste unless they are amongst those essentially English people who find romance in the records of Wisden and enjoy a palpitating heart at the thought of high averages or close finishes. ‘"Tire Saturday Match” is all about a very English family of Kimpton, living at Tillingfold in Sussex. Tire hero of the book is the son, aged fourteen, known as "Kimpie.” Kimpia may be described as an ordinary, healthy little boy, feeling according to his kind and finding tragedy in the loss of his dog and intense enjoyment in the catching of prawns by the seaside. But the high light of this little work is the cricket match on a Saturday afternoon. Kimpie’s dream is to play for Tillingford. His dream is realised and he covers himself with that intimate glory which only a healthy schoolboy can understand. The glory expands to his delighted parents and the Kimpton family is able to thank the gods of the green award who have bestowed on them a perfect day.

There will be some who may think that Mr de Selingcourt has spent his time and his nice literary polish over a very small thing. Those who think so can know very little of that spirit and those institutions which make up quite a large proportion of English life and English character. The boy who can play cricket as wholeheartedly as does Kimpie has begun to enjoy the fruit of that education which may not make for academic honours but is somehow the envy of not a small proportion of the world. Saint and Sinner In “Cleo” (Hutchinson) Mr J. D. Beresford has been equally English but very different. The heroine is Ursula Jane Flytche-Fitton, who is called Cleo by her father, a high church parson. Cleo's life is regulated and plagued by the possession of two opposed personalities. Perpetually she is being drawn in two directions. The one personality is a puritan and the other something very different. In addition to her divided nature, Cleo has an exterior which attracts men in large quantities. At the same time she is attracted and repelled ny them. When they approach her, she shows them a cold, discouraging front. She talks abstractly, and is beware of' any rising passion. At last she marries but the marriage is a failure. Cleo makes of it an impossible bargain. Then something happens; she meets a man who is able to fuse her two personalities into one. Her troubles are not yet over, for anyone so complex is always liable to returns of puzzling complexities. Mr Beresford, with that care and conscientiousness which he always provides has drawn an interesting study in the parson’s daughter. The two strains are plausibly indicated and together make up a living woman. Cleo’s background is as vivid and convincing as Cleo herself and the author has added one more successful book to the very large number standing to his credit. Tribute to Genius It is doubtful if anyone will ever make a full assessment of that extraordinary man, T. E. Lawrence, more familiarly known as “Lawrence of Arabia.” If it be justified to describe one different from anyone else and flinging into life an unique expression of vitality as a genius, then Lawrence was a genius indeed. He lived as ha would. Nothing of convention or restriction seemed to hold him; he played his own game according to his own rules; he was something of that mythical superman, operating "beyond good and evil." Lawrence has left a monument of a kind in his own writings. Now his friends have conspired to produce another tributary monument in "T. E. Lawrence” (Cape). The contents of this book are made up of no less than 80 reminiscences by 80 different and distinguished friends and edited by A. W. Lawrence, the younger brother of T. E. The authors include Lord Halifax, Lord Allenby, Mr Winston Churchill, Mr Eric Kennington, Captain Liddell Hart. Naturally, the contributions vary in value and importance; naturally, too, they vary in their estimate of the man. Puttin; them together one can draw a character.

But suggestive and multiform as they are, these tributes do not carry : us so far as we might wish to be carried in finding the essential clue to i that man W’ho was at once so humb.e i and so proud. Clearly, to describe I him is as futile as trying to describe j the magic of an artist's art. Lawrence made of his life a vivid masterpiece. Only those who knew him can have realised even part of the vitality which came to such a sudden end. But these eighty efforts are a welcome addition : to all we know already about one who will pass into the annals of the world’s outstanding figures. A Maker of Kings These days have been busy ones with the members of the British Royal Family. The past year has thrown a startling light upon the monarchy, 't has been almost melodramatic in its sudden transmutations. All of which accounts in any way for the drama of abdication and succession must be of Interest to-day. Therefore "Victoria’s Guardian Angel,” a study of Baron Stockmar by Pierre Crabites (Routledge) should find a number cf readers. Baron Stockmar was the mentor or that Prince Albert who married tho young Queen Victoria and had so much to do with the formation of her reign and the tone of Court and .Society generally. The author of this book ranks the Baron and his influence very highly. He sees him as one who came into an undesirable atmospheie and left it purified. It may not be possible to agree entirely with this valuation. One may feel that there was a certain amount of the rigid prig about Stockmar; that his rigidity may have Lad not a little to do with some of the un-

(Continued from eighth column) fortunate reactions of Edward VII and found even further results in the revolt which led to a change in the monarchy at the end of last year. But, whatever may be the true assessment, there can be no getting over the fact that this Industrious German did affect English life in quite a remarkable degree. Therefore those who wish to get things into perspective and to understand things which are both puzzling and troubling may well turn to Pierre Crabites’ book and draw their own deductions. The English Spirit Those who wish to understand yet more of contemporary affairs will discover guidance in two new books on Mr Stanley Baldwin, whose resignation from the premiership wifi remove a powerful and significant figure. Mr Arthur Bryant’s study of Mr Baldwin will appear in a day or two and so will a volume of his later speeches.