NEW BOOKS REVIEWED.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16747, 13 March 1926, Page 11 (Supplement)

NEW BOOKS REVIEWED.

CURRENT LITERATURE. 13,202 New Books. The analysis of the books published in 1925, which appears in Publisher’s Circular and Bookseller s Record, shows that in 1914 and 1925 the order of popularity of different classes of books was as follows; — j 914—Fiction, religion, science, sociology, technology, poetry, juvenile, description, literature, history and medicine, biography, naval and military. 1925 —Fiction, juvenile, religion, sociology, poetry, biography, science, technology, description, literature, history, medicine. A striking feature of these tables is that children’s books have risen from the seventh place to the second. More hooks were published last year than in any previous year in the history of book production, despite economic depression, trade strikes, and ether troubles. Altogether 13,202- books were published —an increase of 496 over last year. Of these 9977 were new books and pamphlets and the rest were new editions.

“Ohopln: The Child and the Lad.” By Zofia Uminska and 11. E. Kennedy.

The truism that childhood leaves an indelible impression on the mind of the adult is demonstrated in the ease of Fryderyk Chopin. The great Polish musician was born in a manor house on the snow-covered plains of Mazovia. It was a land of dancing and song, where each incident and mood in ;he lives of the peasant folk was thus interpreted by them. In this atmosphere the child Chopin lived, an artist by birth, and therefore profoundly influenced by the pretty customs of Hie country. Chopin the musician evolved, the writer of perfect music for the pianoforte, music whose poetic thought, unconsciously or not, was 1 ased on the folk-tunes absorbed by the composer in Ihc early years of his life. Since, in the case of Chopin, boyhood played sucli an important part in 'fashioning his genius, it is a welcome and valuable book which can portray the character and youthful environment of Hie composer. Such a pioduction is the book titled above. Written in entrancing language, not over-burdened with a mass of biographical detail, it reflects not only t.hopin but the spirit of the Pole. And it is doubly interesting in that Hie bulk of the matter contained in it is almost completely quoted from Chopin's own diary, while the delightful passages of description are interspersed with music-type fragments of folk-songs. Indeed; it is altogether a volume calculated to delight Hie lover of music. “Sunlight In New Granada.” By William McFce. ■ Travel hooks may bo said to fall into two classes. The most popular is a book generally made up from endless i otes and diaries—a compendium of nformation, no more, no less. The other class ot' hook—the one not so widely favoured—is mostly a work ol' penetrative imagination, written in retrospect by an author given to the abstract and fanciful. Mr MeFec's work naturally belongs to the latter (Pass. Accordingly, if you are of the statistically minded, if fancy and a cultivated poetic prose irritate you as oi t of place in travel narrative, you arc advised to keep to Hie encyclopaedic variety.

Mr McFec's avowed intent has been to sec “a little way into the vivid, passionate, generous soul of the Latin, and report what happens there." To this end he has assembled a variety of characters, among which arc included such types as “Old Wolf,” who lived in ahousc made up of the debris of railroad yards, perched upon a small mountain lop of bis own, and who, when it came to reading matter, scarcely lived up to traditions. lie had a pasison for novels that dealt with scones of violence in Hie Far West, and would do anything for a story like “The Fight on Lazy B" or "Riders of the Desert Ranges.” Old Wolf is succeeded by a sketch of a member of a Rogota first-family, and t.iic Colombian aristocrat is followed by the story of the fisherman, Manuelo Cortes, whose energetic Anlioquian wife nagged him into making a fortune rut of bananas, and then dragged him away to live in the alien atmosphere of aristocratic New York. Added to loose character sketches are the author’s analytic digressions and remarkable descriptions of (lie various p'accs he visited. To him one place malls anollier place; one incident another incident. Whatever it is, he allows liis mini to browse upon the subject, which comes uppermoi-t. The result is Unit l.e ratum s the atmosphere of Latin America better than he could have by any expenditure of any historical or topographical detail.

Mr McFec says lie tias discarded the meaningless political name, of Golomb';>, and "revived Hie beautiful and significant phrase. New Granada.” Mr McFec claims too much. II was Mr Cunninghame Graham who revived (lie name. New Granada, by appending it to his incomparable history of Hie Spanish conquest of that, country. The dedicatory essay which prefaces '.Mr McKee's book is interesting, not an.y as an introduction to the. work itself, hut for Iho light it throws upon Hie early youth of the author —to be remembered firstly as Iho writer of that remarkable novel “Casuals of the Eea."

“Krakatlt. By Karel Cnpek

Engineer Prokop, a strango character, Invents a terrible explosive, which In; calls Krakatit. The formula is stolen from him, hut the thief does not know' how in utilise it, and Prokop is seized by Hio agents of a Power, who imprison him in the hope of Inducing him lo sell his secret.

Rut thero enters a complication in Hie form of n passionate, princess, with whom Prokop falls In love. Exciting events follow each other with breathless rapidity, but the great theme of the book is Prohop's mental light with himself. To disclose his secret, he realises would be to launch unlold misery and horror on Hie world —but it would also mean marriage with Iho princess.

With a bewildering succession of scientific arguments, delirious conversations, wild love scenes, and frightful explosions M. Gapck—creator of "U.H.H.” and, with his brother, the "Insect” play—leads his readers on lo a slrongo conclusion. 11, is a fantasy paradoxically serious enough In make one wonder —with a toneli of dread what Hie scientists will write on the next Dane of the world’s history.