Bookstall and Study.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19075, 21 May 1930, Page 7

Bookstall and Study.

FROM

A colossal new novel by Herr Lion Feuchtwanger, the author of “Jew Suss,” is shortly to he translated into English. It is entitled “Success.” and is long enough to fill three ordinary volumes. *’* t-J Mrs Mary Colum, wife of Mr Padraic Colum, the Irish poet and author, has received a £SOO award from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation of America for her literary criticism. This is the first time the award has been given to one who is not an American. Mr 11. G. Wells, who has not published anything since 1928, when his “Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island” appeared, is writing a new novel to be called “The Autocracy of Mr Parham.” Mr Thurston Ilopkins, whose book, “Kipling's Sussex Revisited,” was well received, is now writing a life of Rudyard Kipling. :*: A correspondent of the London “Sunday Times” suggests an interesting theory: May not Mrs Gamp’s peculiar pronunciation of certain words, e.g., “suppoge,” “reagion,” “excuge,” have been caused by lack of teeth ? For this we have internal evidence: . . . which Gamp himself, Mrs Chuzzlewit. at one blow, being in liquor, struck out four, two single, and two double.” Miss Yictoria Sackvilie-West and Mr Harold Nicolson are a remarkable example of husband and wife who are both distinguished authors. Miss Sack-ville-West has just written a new novel called “The Edwardians,” and Mr Nicolson’s latest contribution to literature is the biography of his father, Lord Carnock, which is eagerly awaited. ::

It is proposed to erect a memorial at Davos, in Switzerland, to James Elroy Flecker, the English poet, who died there in 1915. Flecker, who was only thirty when he died, was a son of the Rev W. H. Flecker, formerly head master of Dean Close School, Cheltenham. His best-known poems are probably “The Dying Patriot” and “The Old Ships.” His unpublished drama, “Hassan,” was produced posthumously in London.

Captain Henry Harrison has written “Parnell Vindicated: The Lifting of the Veil,” which purports to tell us the truth of the Parnell-O’Shea love affair at last. Captain Harrison was invited by Parnell’s widow to write the official biography many years ago, and for that purpose a mass of biographical material hitherto inaccessible was given to him. lie was unable to undertake this gigantic task until recently.

An anecdote is recalled about Lord Balfour and Lady Oxford concerning her widely-read and rather sensational “Autobiography of Margot Asquith.” In it the author speaks of him in a manner not too kind. Lady Oxford relates that, meeting him shortly after its publication, she said, “I do hope you will forgive me for what I said about you in my book.” Lord Balfour answered, “What book? I did not know you had written one.”

One of the most remarkable literary gatherings seen in London for a long time took place at the headquarters of the Society of ’ Authors the other day. Sir James Barrie was in the chair, and others present included Mr Bernard Shaw, Mr H. G. Wells, and Mr Arnold ißennett. -• The chief business of the meeting was to discuss a dispute •which arose recently between Mr Wells and a collaborator of his in a new historical and scientific work, and which seemed likely at one stage to end in legal proceedings. Mr Wells had previously circulated among the members a pamphlet vigorously setting out his case. In the end, it is understood, it w r as agreed to submit the matter to the arbitration of Sir Donald Maclean, a solicitor of renown and the former leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons.

The celebration of the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Virgil, which falls on October 15 next, has already been begun. The festivities will extend to the end of the year, and will be held in all the important towns of Italy. It has been officially resolved to name 1930 as the “Virgilian Year.” At Mantua, the birthplace of Virgil, the “Virgilian Wood” is being planted. It will contain all the trees mentioned by the poet in his works. At Naples the road leading to the famous Grotto of the Sibyls, which has been reconstructed, will be opened, and there will be special ceremonies at the poet’s tomb, ami visits to Lago d’Averno and

other places mentioned by Virgil. In the summer a cruise will be arranged to visit all places in the Mediterranean mentioned in the zEnid—Seilla, Etna, Syracuse, etc. At each place lectures will be given illustrating the connection of the locality with Virgil. Of special interest to scholars will be the great number of publications which will be issued during the “Virgilian Year.” The Femina Vie Ileureuse Prize Committee awarded the prize given by the “Vie Ileureuse” newspaper for the best English work of imagination published in the past year to Mr < harles Morgan’s “Portrait in a Mirror.’ The Northcliffe prize, which is a reciprocal award presented by Mr Jonathan Cape for a French imaginative work. was won with “Le Sourire de l'Ange” (“The Smile of the Angel”), by Leandre Vaillat. More than 400 entries were received for the £SOO German Novel or Biography Contest promoted by Messrs Harper and Brothers, in conjunction with Messrs Ileinemann. The winner of this contest is Herr Bernhard Guttmann. a member of the staff of the “Frankfurter Zeitung.” His winning book is a historical novel, to be called in English “Vaulting Ambition.” It has as its background and setting the rise of Prussia under the Great Elector in the 17th and 18th centuries. Colonel E. Ivitson Clark, Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge University, expressed the view that literature could have an ennobling influence on the workaday life of the people, when speaking at the Authors’ Club. “I think,” he said, “that if we were only taught by someone outside that what we are doing is worth while, the happiness of the world would be enormously increased. I beseech those who are thinking and writing to pay more attention to understanding and supporting the work of the ordinary person. I refer particularly- to the ordinary middle classes and the submiddle classes, who are carrying on and are really the best in the world.”

In the introduction to his book, : “Rope, Knife and Chair,” Mr Guy B. H. Logan writes: “If I am an offender: against public taste in describing some peculiarly atrocious crimes, culled, in this case, from the records of England, France and America, I can find some excuse and consolation in the fact that I err, if err I do, in goodly company. Greater writers than I, from De Quincey and Edgar Allan Poe to Sir John Hall and William Roughead, have not disdained to make murder and mystery their frequent theme; and literature, I think, would have l>een the loser if they had. Truth is so much stranger than fiction that it is hardly surprising to find an ever-growing demand for actual crime stories and a ceaseless supply.” “Laughter gives a holiday both to the virtues and to the vices,” writes Mr Robert Lynd in the “Atlantic Monthly,” “and takes the imagination on its travels into a country in which the only principle is the principle of comic incongruity. Here man can resign himself to the enjoyment of life as a topsy-turvy wonderland as strange as any that Alice ever visited, and can see his dullest neighbours as a gallery of caricatures. It is a land of happy accidents, of large noses and blown-off hats, where words are misspelt and mis-pronounced, where men wear spats on their wrists instead of cuffs, the land of paradoxes and bulls and the. things that could not happen. Whether it is worth visiting nobody will ever know for certain till the Day of Judgment. The worst thing that can be said against laughter is that, by putting us in a good humour, it enables us to tolerate ourselves. The best thing that can be said for it is that for the same reason it enables us to tolerate each other.”

In an endeavour to correct wrong impressions of Rabelais, an American, Mr Samuel Putnam, after many years of travelling in search of information and after consulting numerous documents dealing with his subject, has published the result of his efforts under the title of “Francois Rabelais: Man of the Renaissance.” The author says: There are those who read Rabelais merely for his coarseness, laughing at that without understanding his wit, his satire, the zest and vigour of his writing, his inimitable resourcefulness. This is not the Rabelais of a night club satyr. It is not for bond-brokers’ apprentices, nor for “the Village,” nor (above all) lor those jolly old Pantagruelising lads who never step out of the house without their rubbers without fear of catching cold. Rabelais the Humorist, in whom, according to our Pantagruelizing friends with the overshoes and the green umbrellas, it is a crime to see anything other than a humorist, is now seen to be a Humor-

ist with a Purpose—he is even, one might say*, a Constructive Humorist. Certainly, the old portrait of a guffawing vulgarian at the tavern table must go; there is no longer any room for it. It is easy to hash up the legendary and the picturesque, to give the public the Rabelais whom they have always known, and whom they- wish to see again, to give them the big belly-, and to forget the brain above the belly. .... Scholarship has performed a valuable service by- wiping out the fables and setting up the facts; but it is inclined to forget that a man is something more than documents, and that Rabelais was an artist as well as a man. j.j *.* j.; “Annals of a Chequered Life,” byArthur Montague Brookfield. Published bv John Murray, London. Arthur Montague Brookfield writes very entertainingly in giving us his life story, and he has packed in a very liberal measure of interesting incident and items of interesting r -> his earlier day-s the Tenny-sons, the Carlyles, and Lady Byron, anu u... . Fletcher-Moulton, and many other notables, were included amongst his friends or acquaintances, and there are many ' entertaining personal sketches and stories in the volume. Many unusual links with the old days are preserved in this book. For example, there are the old play-going memories of the author, which date back to such a long time ago that they have a very- special interest. The author remembers -with plcastire the day-s when drama and melodrama were very frequently presented by such artists as Kate Terry-, Fechter, Mr and Mrs Dion Boucicault. Mr and Mrs Charles Matthews, Webster, Phelps, Barry Sullivan, and many- others, and he has also a word of appreefation for the “screaming” old farces by- such as Madison Morton. Of the old social life and old manners and customs he tells us a good deal, and he remembers when “a sea of heads” was mainly “a sea of tall hats”; when the policeman carried a wooden rattle for sounding an alarm: when a dancer in a crino- : line would “make a cheese” in the middle of the ballroom, and he remembers seeing the turnspit operated by two small dogs. His further experiences included his training for the army-, and after bright times with the militia, com" *dvent ----- ous _ service with the 13th Hussars in India. On returning to England he settled in Sussex and sat for the

Rye Division in five successive Parliaments. For a period of fifteen y-ears from 1885 he gives some incidents of his political career and sketches of many of the better-known celebrities of the period. He served in the South African War, being given the army rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and having under his command for a space the “Imperial Bushmen”—a finely-mounted and very- serviceable looking corps, consisting of 500 Australasian cavalry. Later he was in command of a train which was meeting more than its share ’ of trouble. “The engine driver. I remember, told me that he came from New ' Zealand, so that he ‘didn’t exactly know the country.’ ” Later circumstances obliged him to accept a consulship, and there is an illuminating record of his experiences during some years’ residence in Dan- ' zig. Here he came in contact with many Germans of rank, and he de- . scribes the Kaiser as being very natur- ' al and unrestrained when off duty, his , bearing suggesting a fairly good-natur-ed grand seigneur or Prince with some ' sense of humour. “Unfortunately, how- . ever, he had allowed his personal vanity to persuade him that the pose in which he was seen to most advantage was that of a monarch of some ancient melodramatic ty-pe, devoured by the fire of his genius and ambition, and . constantly- meditating gigantic pro- ; jects.” Mr Brookfield subsequently- became British Consul at Savannah in Georgia, where he made many- good friends ; amongst the agreeable and refined famj ilies resident there, but he describes . some of the inhabitants of the sitr- [ rounding country as of the roughest and most truculent of American types. The “cracker,” who is no doubt responsible for much of the unpopularity towards Americans, is by no means a i national ty-pe, but he is certainly an undesirable neighbour according to the . author. The volume presents a most enjoyable piece of reading, the author’s ex- • periences being told in a happy- vein which will appeal immediately to the reader. It is packed with interesting - items well out of the ordinary run, and 1 supplies some informative material on old ways and doings which are now i almost forgotten. “ Wild Justice ” by George A. Birmingham. Published by- Methuen and l Company* Limited. . George A. Birmingham usually contrives to insert some scenes from Rc-

volutionary Ireland into his later tales, and though this present story of murder, revenge and retribution has its setting in a peaceful English countryside, the origin of the whole matter arose during the “wild days” in Ireland. The tale has an extraordinary plot and the thrilling events are told in this author's usual attractive style. “ The Land of Dohori,” by Alice Jeannetta Keelan. Published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney. : Mrs Keelan first journeyed to ’ Papua to become the wife of a ' resident magistrate there, but later her husband’s health demanded a change and he was for some time ’ manager of a plantation. Subse--1 quently, on his retirement through 5 sickness caused by war service, he commenced on his own account as a 1 small planter. This story provides an ' interesting study of life in Papua and " Mrs Keelan appears to have proved a 5 very keen observer during her stay in ' the territory. Iler lot was a very hard ; one on account of the very bad condi- ' tion of her husband’s health, yet there l is no word of complaint and one feels 1 that this lady is built of the stuff of : which pioneers are made. \ arious pro- : blems of the territory are discussed, ' sketches and anecdotes of both the 1 white and the coloured communities ' are found very frequently in these pages. One novel feature of the book s is that it gives the first insight into the . daily life of a while woman in Papua. “ The Star in the Dust,” by Beatrice 5 Grimshaw. Published by Cassell and ' Company, Limited. : This is a highly coloured story of : • romance, with the setting in the South 1 ‘ Sea islands, which this author knows so 1 ’ well. For the hero, and especially the ; 1 heroine of this story, the course of true * 1 love runs anything but smoothly, and : some of the positions into which they ; are cast leave the reader breathless ■ with anxiety. The girl, Yvonne, has 2 terrific trials, and all that the man i risks in going to her and winning her ! i freedom, only to find himself again ] ; .caught in the terrible net from which ‘ she had escaped, provides a series of . thrills. The convict life of New Caledonia and especially the scenes in the female quarters are very realistically told, and Beatrice Grimshaw’s many readers will find this another stirring story to enthuse over. “By Misadventure?” by R. J. Flet- 1

cher. Published by John Murray# t/O&i# don. “ If you read your newspaper carefaj* ly, you will see that not a day passHl without its tale of victims of accident. And I maintain that most of tho6# fatal accidents could have been design* ed by a really thoughtful murderer.* These words of Gilbert Davidson bad £ good deal of significance when applied to the case of Lorraine Harrup, the* beautiful and immensely rich younjf woman who on several occasions mirac* ulously escaped destruction from a series of what appear to be accidents. Gilbert Davidson interests himself in the lady’s case, and he finds that a villanous member of her Chinese staff is responsible for the attempts on his mistress’s life. How the shrewd plots by an unscrupulous gang who try to remove the heroine and acquire her money are frustrated when almost at the point of success, and how a Chinese secret society wreaks a terrible vengeance on some of the plotters, makes a thrilling story. i R. J. Fletcher was associated with Alex M’Lachlau in producing a previous Gilbert Davidson novel in “ Half Devil, Half Tiger,” another sensational story told in a really good style.