Stray Leaves from Book World

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21216, 10 December 1938, Page 12

Stray Leaves from Book World

V NEWS AND NOTES

Mr Eugene J. Yeung has been mak-I ing himself an expert in foreign affairs I for a quarter of a centuty. He is | cable editor of the sedate and unsen- , sational “New York Times,” and his job ! is to sift and interpret news from all the world outside America. Gul of his experience he has written a book, “Looking Behind the Censorships” (Lovat Dickson), in which he undertakes to tell us what has really been going on, chiefly in Europe, during the last decade or so. It is all interesting; some of it is startling; and much is convincing, although there is no evidence that Mr Young has ever been outside the United States. The title, “Spella Ho,” of Mr H. E. Bates’s new novel was once the name of a real great mansion, and he first came across it in the records of the I Place Name Society of his native county, Northamptonshire. He thought that it referred to one of the Hundreds in that county, called Spellhoe. It was not until the book was nearly finished that he found that Ho was merely short for House. “Spella Ho’’ is being serialised in an American magazine, and Mr Bates recently went over to Boston to cut down the book from .120,000 words to the required length of 80,000.

Although he writes in his new novel, “Anne Alone,” about such manifestations of civilisation as Bond Street hat shops, Mr Owen Rutter spent mr'.:y cf his early years far away from civilisation, for when he was 20 he v.'ent to Borneo as a political officer. At cne time he was District Officer '.■■ ''• trate in one of the most remote parts of North Borneo, and he helped to settle the head hunting disputes that were still being carried on. When War broke out he resigned his appomtment, returned to England and jemed ths Wiltshire Regiment, serving in France and Macedonia, and gaining the rank of Major. In “Vital Speech: A Study in Perfect Utterance” (Methuen), Mr Harold J. Ripper distils the knowledge and experience he has gained during 25 years spent in expounding the s " ■ “h. He may be said to deve? : : boson's remark: “To speak. ;.. ■■ • well, arc two things." T'< ;is jus', as true of private as it is of (ilff.rance. Mr Ripper's prim ■ :...rn is not with platform or dinner table speaking or with elocution, but with speaking well in all these and other situations. In fact, he addresses his book not only to the actor, the reciter, the public orator, the lecturer, and to the teacher in front of his pupils, but to “all who possess the power of speech." Luigi Pirandella, who has produced a volume of short stories, “A Character in Distress,” was an astonishingly prolific writer. He was 46 before his first play was produced, but in his remaining 23 years he wrote some 59 more. He is said to have finished one play in three days, and he also wrote dozens of novels and short stories. He worked to a daily schedule, starting at 8 o’clock in the morning and continuing until the early afternoon. His famous play, “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” adapted from “A Character in Distress,” was for some years banned in England, although Pirandello protested, “I have never written a shocking line in my life.” He died about eighteen months ago. Mr John Dos Passes is, in the opinion of many competent judges, the foremost American novelist; a realist with his own highly individual method of presenting contemporary America to the world; a social observer whose political creed is never explicit in his ( fiction; an analyser of communities who creates representative individuals. It is interesting to see what happens when he takes his sharp eyes and quick ears out of the United States to Europe and the Near East, and an ideal opportunity is given to the reader who may know only the Dos Passos fiction to “catch up with” this most alive author, for a number of his travel books have been gathered together, and brought up to date, in a single volume, “Journeys Between Wars” (Constable). We start with Spain, the now far-off Spain of 1919-20; but Mr Dos Passos even then was' noting net only the picturesque survivals of the past, but the social and psychological elements from which the present civil war has developed. We go to Turkey, to Baghdad, to Leningrad and Moscow, between 1921 and 1926, and then we return to Spain, to Madrid besieged, to General Miaja and the International Brigades, and to the thesis that “the villages are the heart of Spain.” The charm and the convincing effect of this book comes from the fact that the author so rarely talks in generalisations —it is a compost of visual observations and amusing and ironic dialogues, brilliantly inset with sketch portraits of odd characters nncountered by the way.

Nelson is publishing the first twelve titles of a new . two-shilling series called “Discussion Books.” The authors have been encouraged to discuss the j pros and cons of their subject and leave the rest to the reader. A glance at the list of titles will indicate the scope of the enterprise, which is described as “a popular series on serious subjects.” Mr Roger Dataller, the exminer novelist and critic, writes on “Drama and Life”; Mr M. L. Jacks delivers “a counterblast to the modern cults of the body” in “Physical Education"; Professor Lloyd James deals with vocal habits in “Our Spoken Language"; Mr R. S. Lambert traces the national and international effects of modern propagandist methods in “Propaganda"; Miss Nora Ratcliffe writes of the Village Drama Movement in “Rude Mechanicals.” The following will be added to the Nelson classics: “Modern ! Biography,” an anthology edited by Lord David Cecil; “A Hundred English Essays,” edited by Rosalind Vallance; and “Letters of John Keats.” Mr E. Phillips Oppenheim recently celebrated his golden jubilee as an author at his Guernsey home. A “Sunday Chronicle” correspondent rang him up to congratulate him. “I’m busy completing my 150th novel for the occasion,” he said. “You interrupted me in the middle of an exciting chapter. It’s all about espionage in Britain and on the Continent.” At 71, jovial and i witty, “Mr Opp” writes 3,000 words a | day, and looks like beating all records ! for literary output. In 50 years of | novel-writing the “Prince of Storyi tellers” has achieved one world record of which he spoke with pride. His American publishers issued his 100th novel on the firm’s 100th birthday. He was the guest of honour at the centenary banquet in Boston. For recreations he plays a round of golf daily, has trips round the Channel Islands in his 72-ton yacht, and dances. “I gave a dance last week,” he said, “as a goodbye party before leaving Guernsey for the Riviera, where I shall stay for six months. “It will be good to get back to the tables again. I have a nice little balance in hand from last season’s play and if I go on winning I shall probably give up novel writing.” In the midst of novel writing Mr 'Oppenheim is also busy on his memoirs. He will have an interesting life story to tell, for he has had almost as many adventures as his Secret Service heroes. First prize in a literary competition in “John o’ London’s Weekly” (September 30Lwas awarded to Dr C. Raymond, Waipukurau y Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, “for a dainty poem in the Herrickian manner";— Whenever Cynthia with my heart's desires, To please an idle whim, makes kindly play, Ah! then fond hope reborn, beyond the spires ,Like lark in blue of heaven, exalts the day. But when, triumphant fool, I count my store — Those arms, those cheeks, those cherry lips my prize, She beats hope bleeding to the earth once I more, I And love upon her rippling laughter dies. Oh! wayward mistress mine! Can such pretence, So oft repeated, bring thee pleasures new? To set the door ajar, all innocence, Display the sumptuous feast—then bid adieu? Yet do thy moods perverse, blind passion’s fuel, Prove but a setting to enhance the jewel. The protracted economic agony of I post-War Austria, a country created by J the will of the victorious Allies after the destruction of the Austro-Hungar-ian Empire, and its abrupt end as a political and economic entity have (as was to be expected) produced a crop of books —books on ths historical aspect of the now settled “Austrian Question,” books chronicling the fateful events of the last five years, and books written from the heart-ache of the victims. Such a chronicle of events is “Thus Died Austria” (Arnold), by Oswald Dutch, which is, of course, a pseudonym. The book contains no new facts, but it will prove useful for those who now or in years to come want to recall or to • co-ordinate the happenings of the last few years as we have all ready them in the press of the day. The author’s personal point of view creeps into his narrative here and there, as when he remarks that “it was only natural” that the Western Powers and the Little Entente frustrated the wish for reunion with Germany expressed by an overwhelming majority (his own words) in various plebiscites in 1921 and 1922, From many other remarks one gathers that the author, who seems to have had some influential position in the Viennese Press, always preferred the dependency of Austria on foreign nations to its incorporation into the German | Reich.