HOLIDAY READING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 305, 24 December 1937, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOLIDAY READING

AN ASSORTMENT OF BOOKS (By H.C.J.) The problem of holiday reading Is not a simple one. It is often thought that anything will do for holiday fare, but simply because one has more time to brouse, to pick and to choose, one should be more careful of what books one does choose for one”s holiday companions. Books bespeak the man, of course, and an empty man will want empty books, for void calls to void. There is good reason for looking for the shilling shocker to engross one during a railway journey, but for a vacation, be catholic in your tastes, and go wider afield. If you have not lhe time to make a selection for yourself go to your bookseller and buy half a dozen blackjackets, the new series which is being published by Hodder and Stoughtons. They are cheap re-prints of recently successful books. As a short-cut they are firstclass. If you want more specific advice here it is:— Historic Novel. The novel which I would recommend for the representative of the historic section is undoubtedly “And SoVictoria’” by Vaughan Williams <Johnathan Cape). This author is the son of a slum parson. He, the son, served in the war in the Sinai Desert and in France. At twentythree he edited a London daily newspaper. The book was written partly in Wales, partly in America, partly on an Atlantic steamer, partly on a ranch at the edge of the Texan prairie and probably finished in the Adelphi, London. His descriptions are, consequently convincing: but what is the chief joy of the book is his Hogarthian touch which gives clear cut portraits of people who must appear like caricatures. His pictures of the times which preceded the ascension of Victoria to the throne are of interest to the present age which is so full of self-pity and brings to the mind a realisation of' what has been accomplished in a short space of a century and a little more. The tale is engrossing and provides the holiday fare with more than the froth and dubble of light literature. Essays. A hook of essays is a good companion, particularly when they are written by one who is both witty and wise. Dean Inge has left St. Paul’s’ Cathedral and now has adopted the role of the rustic. He is still, however, the scholar, but the scholar off the chain, the man who potters about in his gardening. Fleet Street, however, wont let go of his coat tails and here is a collection of his essays which have recently been published. Under the title “A Rustic Moralist” (Putman), Dean Inge gives us more of his lay thoughts. There is nothing which Dean Inge writes which is to be neglected. He is a man of tremendous erudition, his style is perhaps the best written to-day, it certainly is in his own field and it has the advantage that he deals with current topics. The necessities of metropolitan journalism compel a brevity which the reader sometimes regrets, for he feels that in a more expansive mood the Dean could provide the richer fare and the greater entertainment. After all on a holiday one must converse, and one tires of the latest gossip about the races and it is as well to flavour one”s talk with something more than casual remarks. Dean Inge’s book stores the mind of his reader with suggestive ideas which stimulates his own ponderings and musings. That, too, is a delight for busy men, for during the vacation it is as well to allow the mind to roam at large. I certainly recommend “A Rustic Moralist” to my readers. He is a convenient companion, so changeful and he does not demand continuous attention. Speeches. A book of speeches is not usually to be commended as a companion for a holiday and yet I deliberately make this recommendation. I have just finished reading the last speeches of Mr. Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister of England. They are tinged with farewells almost right through, but they are the considered thoughts of a man who has gripped the heart of Englishmen as has none other in recent times. There is something to be said about speeches as such. There is a changing technique, a difference of approach, an absence of the grand manner. The orator does not stand opon some distant platform and dominate large audiences, the conversational note is now dominant. Mr, Baldwin has a way of winning his audiences by what may be termed hig nearness to his audience, not as a crowd, but as individuals. It is for this reason that his speeches are delightful reading. The volume which has held me is entitled “Service of O”r Lives” (Hodder and StoughtonL Continental Novel. “Street of the Fishing Cat,” by Dolanda Foldes (Augus and Robertson) )is undoubtedly the finest novel which I have real during the year. It tells of an Austrian family”s uprooting after the war, of its members going to Paris, of how the two girls grow up foreigners in France, how one goes with her father to South America, but find no fortune smiling for them, to return to Paris to’bat tie away once again. The love interest of the younger sister is plain sailing but the elder girl with whom the reader is more chiefly interested treads the path of spoiled romance and eventually makes her compromises with life as do so many others. But here is seen no craven, but a brave soul meeting a changed and changing world, new conditions among people who have been cut away from their moorings. These victims of the world upheaval arc making an epic battle for rehabilitation under varying conditions and their story, as told in this novel is a moving one indeed.