LIGHT NOVELS.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16811, 1 June 1926, Page 9

LIGHT NOVELS.

AMD MRS CRICK. FICTION IN ESSEX. Hector Bolilho, who Is wcll-knowi in New Zealand, writes in the British Australian and New Zcalander:I have always been what one migh call a supercilious young man in m; attitude towards light fiction. 1 was forced to write twenty short storie: for a housemaid's weekly in my earlici clays, and I know what a corrupt industry it is; wriLing about strong sitenl lovers, between pages of patent medicine advertisements and free coupons to make you thin or fat; to develop your personality or put you in touch with a romantic reader of horoscopes And yet I begin lo think that even the lightest fiction should he excused bj the heaviest intellectual! This week 1 am In Essex again, with six light novels and two weeks of leisure. All Ihe novels were given me by Mr Herbert Jenkins's manager, who scoffed when I announced my hatred of the light novel. "Tako these away," he said, "and approach them as amusement, not as serious contributions lo lilcraturo, That Is the trouble with you critics; you don't realise lhat entertaining fiction has its place as well as the more' serious hooks." "IWartha the Medium." So I believed him and came away with thern. One was "Martha the Medium," by Jessie Champion. it was amusing; there was a cook who was also a medium. She showed us that spiritualism was humorous even if U wasn't convincing. Then there was a thriller. "Dead Man's Dower," by Scfton Kyle. 1 read it the night before last, ami I looked up several times, quite certain that the curtains were moving, and that a blood-stained hand would come in and grub mo by the throat. 1 didn't like "The Whiskered Footman" quite so much. Mr Jcpsnn asks us to accept one of those stories about an Earl and a forlune and a girl; all very well in their way. I gave it to Mrs Crick, my housekeeper, and she said it was good, so I suppose it must be. Mrs Crick is a treasure, brought with two tin trunks and five references, from Bishop's Slorlford. She has always worked for "wrilin"' folk, she tells inc. and, to use her own words, "It seems to be in mc blood, for 1 can't sleep o' nights for lying' awake and composin' and composin' in me head." I 1 presume from this lhat I have a lost literary treasure in Mrs Crick. 1 told her, as a compensation, that she , produced poems from the pan. Still, j she approved of "The Whiskered Foot- j man," and Mrs Crick is one of a vast ! reading public. She lakes the • "Wooman's Weekly," and I borrow it from her. She says it is because nfi the recipes, but I suspect her of read- ! iug the instalments of "Sons of the i Sheik." which is described as "a story! (if tears and tenderness in the grim • heart of tin- desert," and then "The , intense and moving record of a lawless soul struggling against its own barbarity." Women and Sheiks.

Why should Mrs Crick want In rend about a "lawless soul"? Why should any lender, simple, rather pathetic village woman, whose horizon is measured by the sink on one. side and the stove on the other, want to

j leap inl.o romances of the desert? Is , il that every woman has a tyrant ira- ! prisoned within her? Does every I mother, singing a fairy song over a j cradle, close her eyes in the still hour? i before sleep and imagine herself wooed I within the strong, merciless arms of a | sheik? Jt is all beyond inc. I reI member dining with an impoverished j Italian Countess in Is'aplcs once. She shook jet earrings at me, shrugged her powdered shoulders, and said, ■ "Ah, every woman wishes to he kidnapped, and she has to he content with being loved." Perhaps it is true. If anybody kidnapped Mrs Griek, I'd he most annoyed. I'd far sooner see her sighing her unrequited emotions into the coffee mill than away out in that desert where the sheiks live in their damp, draughty tents. I Murders, Priosts, and Diamonds. ( ! Back to the six sensational novels! • "At the House of the Priest" is by | Major-General Sir John Adyc, K.G.M.G. i 1 am Quito huvc he is a better MajorGenoral than a novelist.; still, this Hamstcad story, with its murder, ils ' bearded stranger, ils priest, its burglary, and its simple opening with a game, of billiards as a. back-ground kept me vastly entertained. J really began ■ to think I had committed the murder i myself towards the oml. There was a new P. G. Wodchousc story, "Carry on J eves," in the. bundle. I'. G. Wodehousc was no stranger lo me; 1 have | read him in magazines and trains for ' many a long day. and this hook only confirmed my friendship for this excellent humorist. The last of the six was "The Man Who Knew." Patrick Leyton wrote it; all about a stolen diamond necklace. Personally, 1 had' diamonds. I think they are a little vulgar, and not lo be compared with pearls. Slid, If they are stolen. I j suppose somebody must write a novel about them. Patrick Leyton has, done it rather well. A chaos of ad- j ventures leads up lo a shooting sensa- J lion; just as you think one of the bullels is sure, to come out of the j novel and catch you In the eye, peace! comes, happiness prevails, sinners are j vanquished and virtue reigns supreme. I ask no more. lam converted, and if ever 1 am asked by one of lite Sundav papers, "What is your ideal holiday?" for one or those Symposiums, | I'll' say, "Sir, my ideal holiday is a i week iii Kssex, with six thrilling novels ! and Mrs Crick to 'do' for me. I prefor that it should be at this lime of the vcar, when Ihc sail earth is beginning | to move with Ihc child or spring; j when the hens cease In shiver in their I damp houses and come out once more | and crow in the garden; when Essexj itself is stirring from ils winter silence j and singing the. opening bars of the , great song of England's spring." \