BOOKS REVIEWED.

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14584, 5 February 1921, Page 9 (Supplement)

BOOKS REVIEWED.

CURRENT LITERATURE. , "The Modern Magclan." By Gertie do . S. Wentworth-James. (T. WerL ner Laurie, London.) t Frankly, Mrs Wenwtorth-James' s writes stories to sell; the very titles of i some of her books—-" Scarlet Kiss" and l "A Very Had Woman," for instance — ■ carry their own moral, whilst her • "Golden Youth" had a considerable vogue by reason of its originality. This • ! writer lias a happy knack of hitting off ■ | some folly or foible of the day, weav- • ing it into a readable while givi ing it a spice of scandal and possibly a touch of impropriety, without going to the point of actual immorality. Students of literature prone to a comparison between tilings ancient and things modern may derive pleasure and inI sliuction in contrasting "Coelebs in i ; Search of a Wife," that manual of i > "Observations in Domestic Habits and ■ I Manners, Religion and Morals," pub- ' ' iished in 1809, with "The Modern ■ ; Magician," since the theme pursued by Hannah More a hundred years ago ' ; nnd by Gertie de S. Wentworth-James i | in 1921 is identically the same —viz., i i that of a man in pursuit of a wife. The ! contrast will be found striking in at , | least one notable respect; Hannah More ! j lays great stress upon religion and re- . i ligious influences; Gertie de S. Went--1 j worth-James leaves religion quite out . ! of the question, and rails at eonveni , lional marriage, only to leave the door • open to what is virtually free-love. . | "The Modern Magician" describes Viv- . ! ian David Interbrook, a man who prevf I iousiy bad devoted all his energies to . making money, as suddenly awaking to '. \ the necessity of marriage, not as the ; ! outcome of'affection, but purely as a . ' business proposition, so as to ensure a ; ' family to carry on his name. Eventual-

■ ' ly lie selects a girl deemed suitable to [ become the mother of his children, i when fate Haunts him by making the , marriage a childless one. The Mod--1 ern Maigcian next comes on the scene , in the siiape of a fashionable specialist ■ wiio deals with such cases; thanks to . ins intervention the childless wife . meets a man with whom she falls in love and by whom she has a child ■ when tlie conventions are satisfied by the usual proceedings for divorce. Proi bably the picture is true to modern • society, but beyond the taint inierest ; stirred by the slory with its occasional social satires the book lias absolutely no literary merit. "The Vauey of Indecision." By Christopher Stone. l\V. Collins, Son, and Co., Loudon and Auckland). Both war and religion enter into , Major Stone's story, "The Valley of Indecision," which we take to be, from 1 us somewhat amateurish style, a first ' novel. Nevertheless, while the style , of the slory is not a'l that it might be, it lias a strong idea behind it, and is definitely an afler-lhc-war novel. Mary ' Courage, a wealthy woman, ruined and 2 widowed by the war, embarks on a business enterprise largely tor tin.' sake of making tilings easy for her " son, Peter, who, wounded and gassed, 1 is left at rather a loose end. But peter, while at the front and lacing the imminence of death, had a vision of God, ' I and returned to England convinced Hud ; his life henceforth must be devoted to > ' the service of his fellows in the • | making of a new world. The vision 1 ; was twofold; it revealed lo him the 1 ! rottenness, greed and corruption ol the old older, and at. the same time showed him Lhe possibility of a future in which unselfishness should cease, and brotherhood prev.nl. Peter's desire to embark upon his mission is complicated by a love interest and f checked by bis mother's death. "Tho : Valley of Indecision" is an unusual , ! book'but it will bold the reader to the | end, and it is not without its useful i [ lessons. '■ "Wang the Ninth: The Story of a i Chinese Boy." By Putnam Weale. :.W. Collins, Son and Co., London , and Auckland , . [ 1 Mr Putnam Weale, whose long resl- , | donee in Peking renders him an . j authority on China and things Chinese, has written a story which "is a par--1 t.ial explanation of the phenomenon of China which seems so strange when curtly dealt with in the daily press." Mr Weale adds thai the story has the r quality of being true, and "should ' I therefore be known." The story ot Wang the Ninth, born a few years before the end of lhe nineteenth century in a village called prosaically in the Vernacular Ten Li Hamlet, because il lay ten "h" or Chinese miles, from the gnat imperial highway, and who was called the Ninth because he was Hie eighth child, is fascinating; in its straightforwardness and infidenily to fact. Mr Weale traces the career ol ) this Chinese boy from the time he was three years old, and unfolds intcrest--2 ingly the combination of causes and influences which made Wang so faith, ' | fid to the Foreign Devils at, the time of Hie Boxer rising. Incidentally the book sheds a flood of light upon tie' Chinese character, and enables the Westerner to understand something of i the strange working of the Oriental , mind. - Students of the Chinese prob- ■ lem should not fail to read "Wang the i | Ninth." a novel which, apart altogether from its serious side, has an interest i for the mere story reader. Mr Weale . has done well.