BOOKS AND AUTHORS

Wanganui Chronicle, 14 December 1949, Page 8

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

(By H. C. J.) THE CHINESE VIEWPOINT. The Chinese Earth, stories by Shen Tseng-Wen (Allen & Unwin) pp. 289. This volume of short stories told by a Chinese to Chinese about themselves without any concern for the outside world is of the earth earthy. It is just a story-teller’s effort and yet it makes the reader feel how old is the culture of the Flowery Land. This is registered in the sensibility displayed not only by the authors but by the characters that are made to walk and talk in these stories. It may be said that the test of a people’s development is in its reactions to the external world and the ability to record such i reactions. A Chinese lady who went I to China for the first time from her I homeland Australia, found herself I surprised and overpowered by the beauty of the countryside. She had been told of the squalor and the poverty but none had mentioned the poetic quality of the rural scene. Although the author does not mention it, he takes rural China in his stride and conveys it to his readers. The inscrutable Chinese is found in this volume to be extremely human, but possessing something so patient and wise in his makeup, even when to our eyes he does not understand. This is a beautiful collection of stories translated by Ching Ti and Robert Payne. UNDERSTANDING. Human Relations by Rom Landau (Fabers) pp. 368. There are some books that make friends with us. Bacon's Essays for me is one of these and so is a volume of Emerson’s Essays, while Byron’s poetry is lodged nearby althougn I cannot tell you really why that third volume is so frequently referred to. Perhaps it is because Byron is so strengthening to one’s English. To this coterie of companions I have added Rom Landau's Human Relations. I was attracted to a previous volume of this author’s writings. He seemed to me to have succeeded in. reviving English interest in the conte, that compositional form in which the French excel. In this volume he gives the wisdom that he has gathered up in a lifetime of trying to understand human nature and to make the best of life itself. This dual purpose is everybody’s business. It is good to be able to turn to a knowledgeable man and say “What do you think of this?” It does not matter whether it is the American attitude towards work, a sense of values, State control, slavery, Baldwin, Balsac or Baring, Goethe or the Gospels, habit, holidays or home, they are all there, conveniently listed in an index and one may turn up ■and find his answer to your question. Well, perhaps that is not the way to explain it. It will carry you along on his wings of words, down his alley way of thought and musings. And it will be a refreshing interlude for which you will be thankful and by which you will be either comforted or refreshed or both. He is a happy and quiet mentor. He does not preach, although I have no objection to a good preacher on occasion, but. he is a kindly counseller, and for that I thank him and recommend his book to you knowing that you too will soon be in his debt. HUMOUR. Guns Wanted, by J. K. Stanford, (Fabers) pp. 346. The dominant ingredient of this story of the men who go out with guns because it is the right thing to do—socially that is—is humour. It is in line with Three Men in a Boat, it is an Englishman’s invitation to the world to laugh at Englishmen. The invitation includes his compatriots. Possibly it is only they who will enjoy the fun to the full. It would have made a fine serial for Punch. FICTION. Virtue in the Sun, by Barbara Beauchamp (Macdonald) pp. 222. A light, easy story told from a new angle. It is the triangle seen from the standpoint of the sister of the wife who was left behind. But the husband arranged the divorce found on the sands of the seashore something he could not forget nor replace and as a result he went back to the bosom of his family. It took a tragedy to heal the wound.