WHAT LONDON IS READING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21180, 29 October 1938, Page 12

WHAT LONDON IS READING

POET LAUREATE’S STORYTELLING NOVEL SET IN HUNGARY (Specially written for “The Timaru Herald" by Charles Pilgrim) LONDON, September 30. Mr John Masefield is a great teller of stories and his new novel “Dead Ned’’ (Heineman) is worthy of his record as a writer. Indeed, it is only half a story for it leaves off in the middle and the other half, of African adventure, is yet to come. It is a remarkable tale with the sub-title “An Autobiography of a Corpse.” The book is written in the first person by Ned Mansell who was hanged at Tyburn and cut down as dead. His body was to be taken for the amputators, but was resuscitated and so we can be promised a continuation of his fortune. Edward Mansell was the son of a doctor and became assistant to another doctor, Josiah Copsheews. He becomes the intimate friend of Admiral Cringle. When the Admiral is murdered suspicion and Indeed proof are fastened on Mansell and we have the description of the hanging. There is an exciting account of the removal of the body and of the flight to Liverpool after revival. Dr Mansell under a new name leaves England as a ship’s surgeon on board the Albicore and we are given to understand that equally exciting adventures await him on his voyage. Mr Masefield gives us rapid and thrilling adventure, the power to make almost incredible facts credible and the colour of life which comes through the masterful colour of words. “Dead Ned” may well be described as a great novel. There is a suggestion of Robert Louis Stevenson about its galloping pace and an inclination to the macabre.

Hungarian Comedy

Mme Jolanda Foldes will be remembered as the author of "The Street of the Fishing Cat” which won a large literary prize in an international competition. She has now published in English another novel, “I’m Getting Married” (Nicholson and Watson). This is a less mature work than the other with a much lighter interest and plot. The story might be considered apposite to-day. Suzy Hanzely is a Hungarian who has become against her will a citizen of Czechoslovakia, owing to the Peace Treaty of 1919. She is determined to resume her nationality and so marries a young Hungarian architect .to whom she pays a thousand pengos for the nominal contract. Janossy, the Hungarian, has promised her divorce as soon as possible. He makes his fortune and returns to fulfil his promise only to find that Suzy has disappeared. Her disappearance is because she does not want to be divorced as she has fallen in love with her husband. As will be seen, the plot is slight and rather trite. In the end, the heroine, mistaken for her own cousin, wins her husband’s love and there is the usual happy ending. Obviously, the tale should not be taken too seriously, but it is well told and has an entertaining quality.

The Humble Hero

Mr Warwick Deeping is another of the experienced story-tellers. In “The Malice of Men” (Cassell) he has told the story of John Lancaster, the son of a small grocer. After his father’s death by suicide, John enjoys better fortune through the success of his mother in the seaside town of Sandbourn. When his mother dies, he finds himself in possession of four thousand pounds and starts a career as a businessman with artistic proclivities. In time John meets the heroine. Sanchia Cherrill, considerably his social superior and destined to become the wife of Sir Beverley Bullstrode. Sir Beverley may be ranked amongst the bad baronets. He illtreats his wife and in the past has inflicted an intolerable indignity on John Lancaster. Therefore, the two are enemies on more than one count.

Mr Deeping is too experienced at writing novels for popular success not to provide the kind of ending his readers will enjoy. “The Malice of Men” should be, and doubtless will be, amongst the best-sellers of the publishing season and the author’s large army of admirers will find once again ..’heir favourite has not let them down. From Weakness to Strength Miss Maza de la Roche has written another tale about Canada, “Growth of A Man” (Macmillan), but not about Whiteoak. The hero is one, Shaw Manifold, who has an unhappy boyhood with harsh grandparents. He takes up forestry and overworks himself into a sanatorium. As a patient he does not thrive, so leaves the sanatorium and in the freer life of Quebec recovers and redoubles his strength. Through the tale runs Shaw’s devotion to Elspeth, a girl he has met in their schooldays. In the end, with Shaw strong and vigorous, the two marry and there is completed the growth of a man which the title forecasts. Miss de la Roche has given us yet one more picture of Canadian life mainly in the cquntry which she knows so well and with which the Whiteoak series has familiarised us.

A Fine Gentleman

There have been some personalities in real life, almost too vivid and picturesque to be true. Shelley and Byron were amongst them and a more recent example was Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Wilfrid Blunt, like Shelley and Byron, was born of the landed aristocracy and like Shelley he was a Sussex man. Miss Edith Finch has just written his first biography in “Wilfrid Scawen Blunt” (Cape). The author has drawn us a fairly full picture of this truly English man who was at war with so many of England's idols and conventions. He was a poet, a romantic liver and lover of women, an indomitable qulxote and a passionate rebel against his own class. When he seemed to be the most fiercely denouncing England it was because he loved England so much. Even while he took up the causes of eastern peoples and lived amongst them his heart was in the Sussex Weald. Probably, Wilfrid Blunt will be a new character to many. If so, they will make his acquaintance with a sharp interest. His life and his soul explain a great deal which is incomprehensible to those who have not the key to the English character. He was at one time chevalier sans peur and sans reproche and a typical English squire.