THE NEW BOOKS

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19125, 9 December 1933, Page 14 (Supplement)

THE NEW BOOKS

LEISURELY ESSAYS. “SAUNTERERS’ REWARDS." (By E. V. Lu-cas, Methuen). New Zealanders should welcome “Saunterers' Rewards," If only because -of the season In which It has appeared. The publishers no doubt intended these essays to brighten the approach of an English winter, but to us, who may read tnem in flannels, under the shade, let us say, of a pohotukawa tree, has been given the greater privilege. And this summer, when most of us are In need of a holiday, not merely from the ordinary oares of the dally round, but from a spate of pamphlets on Douglas Credit and kindred subjects, the soothing and leisurely quality of Mr Lucas’s writing should be particularly appropriate.

Not . that even this untroubled volume Is altogether out of touoh with the more pressing problems of the time. It Includes a diverting series of sketches dealing with the attempts at eoonomy of a gentleman named Beaney, whose inoome of £2400 a year seems to him in need of careful management. But Mr Beaney, you will be relieved to learn, has no really universal solution of the economic problem, being mainly concerned with the advisability of lessening his breakfast consumption of oream. And even here the New Zealand reader need not beoome apprehensive, for no mention is made of butter.

Other gastronomlcal matters do, however, reoelve generous) treatment in these pages. There is an interesting account of Mrs Beeton and other famous English cooks, and of the French chef Brillat-Savarin, who was (rather pointedly) born at the town of BClley; there are speculations on the best way of cooking mushrooms, and on the true nature of that Hippocrene of which Keats wrote so rapturously; there are revelations of the edible quality of dandelions and stinging nettle. And these are only a few of the rewards that await the reader who goes sauntering hand in hand with Mr Lucas. He will listen to gossip about Charles Lamb, and an'eodotes about Dickens; he will hear of the libel action brought by Whistler against Ruskln, who had oritloised one of his paintings adversely, and of the farthing awarded as damages whioh the artist, it is saidy wore on his watoh-ohaln for the rest of his life; he will learn the more pathetic story of the young soldier who died in the war, leaving behind a book of manuscript poems which his parents, though not muoh given to reading poetry themselves, wished to publish in order to reveal to the world the quality of the life it had sacrificed. It was not until the printing was nearly qompleted that they discovered that the poems were not original, but a mere compilation of the soldier’s favourite verses, including Indeed suoh famous poems as the dirge In “Cymbeline" and “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun.”

But it Is not merely the extent and variety of Mr Lucas’s knowledge that gives these essays their appeal. Muoh of It depends on nothing but his own fancy and wit. This is 'certainly true of the essays on "llfe-and-soul-ery." on old age, and on the monsters of pre-historio times. One of his similes, In particular, should Interest readers in this part of the world. Of a certain class of people he says that they "can bo as testy and short-tem-pered as a member of the Australian Board of Cricket Control."

EUROPE IN DESPAIR. ESCAPE TO LIFE. (By Ferenc Korinendl.) This novel by a Hungarian author has won an international prize, has been successful throughout Europe and is now published In English. It is a oharaoterlstlcally Continental piece of work. It has come out of Budapest but It might well have come out of auy European oapltal. And this is not to say disparagingly: "they are all the same these Continentals," and to thank God that we are not. as the Hungarians. There are "good Europeans” in the sense intended In England now, and they are breeding many paoreThey are good Europeans becauso they have lost hope. It seems to be characteristic of Europe to have lost hope. Industry no longer brings its own reward. Discontent Is by no means oonflned to the unemployed. To have a job Is no longer to feel, healthily, that one Is pulling one’s weight In tho world. * It is to he oonsolous that one has a precarious hold on • oertain creature comforts, to know that one has an insecure nlohe among a privileged class; It means for a time on unscrupulous straining to keep what has been gained. This straining brings weariness and longing for esoape. One might “escape to life.” Kadar, a 'Hungarian, has toy ohance —there is no question of desert—earned fame and fortune In South Afrioa- The little group of his old schoolmates who still meet together eaoh week at Buda-Pest hear of his success. Then write him a letter. When Kadar returns to (Hungary on a visit they entertain him. One tries to get him to Invest money in apartment houses. Another tries to sell him crookery. There is no unfriendliness. They had all disliked Kadar at school, when he was the dullest of them all. But Kadar has money, some small portion of which they' hope to transfer to their own pockets. If they are “to escape" the wheels of the chariot must be well greased. 'And Kelemen, who aims muoh. higher and despises mere money, is only seeking a completer way of escape. He has. visions of South Africa, the new oountry, the fresh atmosphere, the sun instead of the shadow of 'Europe.

And one can always esoape to death. Kelemen for months is devoured by the desire for the new life in Afrioa. He leaves his job to devote himself to his dreams. Then the dream finishes. Kadar goes baok to Afrioa, and Kelemen ends his life m the Danube. The story is told sensitively and well. A oertain hardness, almost brutality, a oomplete disregard of religion and oulture characterise most of the persons of the story, hut one cannot say they are unoonvlnoing on that acoount. The brutality belongs to the pattern which the. Great War has made In Europe. D.B.P.

IN DEMAND AT THE LIBRARIES.

Hamilton—“ Over the River” (Galsworthy), “Vanessa" (Walpole), “The Proselyte" (Susan Ertz), “Miss Bishop" (Aldrioh), “Two Black Sheep" (Deeping), "Ronald Standlsh" (“Sapper"). General: “Fore and Aft" (Lady Angela St. Claire Erskine), “Safari Sam" (Makepeace), “Glory Hole" (Thompson). Frankton —“Heavy Weather" ((P. G Wodehouse), “Tides of Youth” (Scanlan), "No Second Spring" (Janet Beltft), “The Master of Jalna" (Mazo de la Roche).