THE NEW BOOKS

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19451, 15 December 1934, Page 18 (Supplement)

THE NEW BOOKS

AUSTRALIA PASSES BY.

A Chronicle of Melbourne’s Years. BRAVE MUSIC. Ernest Wells (Angus and Robertson). This is a very enjoyable chronicle novel with Melbourne in the ’nineties and Edwardian period as the chief setting. The book certainly owes something to Cavalcade, but has a distinct originality with interesting touches of frankness and humour and many satiric pictures of the Melbourne tradesman class of 'thirty and forty years ago. As with most of the chronicle-saga type of novel the development o'f families .and individual constltues the plot. In a reviewer’s space tt is impossible to do justice to the “plots" of “Brave Musio’ as so many families and individuals are introduced. The hero and heroine are Drissie and Karl. Drissie, orphan and runaway, Is Anally adopted by Luke Struhan, keeper of the Spandril lighthouse, off the Victorian coast, and grows to young womanhood on the lonely island in the sole companionship of her -fosterfather and Ms one-legged assistant. Karl is the son of a -German officer 'and his wife, Mathilde, famous opera star of the eighties and ’nineties. The Prinz Bismarck, in which Karl is serving his / diplomatic cadetship, is wrecked off the Spandril light and he is the sole survivor; heroically rescued by Dris'sie, with whom he falls in love. They are married, Karl becoming a naturalised Australian and mate of a sailing vessel, the Wainfleet. His hope is to save enough to be able to settle down as a tradesman in Melbourne, hut the wreck of the Wainfleet off 'Cape Horn results in his spending three dreadful years with a handful of survivors on a lonely frozen island.

A second “plot” deals with the rise to political power of George 'Brace, obscure immigrant with socialistic ideas, who conceives vhd organises the great 'Labour Unions of Australia, becomes Premier of the Commonwealth and. directs it through the strenuous years of the Great War. Another traces the gradual decline of Struhan from a great giant who fears neither God nor man to a religious and mathematical lunatic. A fourth gives us well executed pictures of the life of Mathilde, the singer, and introduces snapshots of contemporary diplomats, Including Edward, Prince of Wales, and later seventh King of England of the name. Yet another (In some ways the best) deals with the lives of a number of Melbourne shopkeepers and business magnates. From time to time, too, “flash” portraits, sometimes faithful, sometimes caricatured and sometimes disguised, of Australian notabilities are superimposed -on the pageant which illuminates the screen.

The tale closes -on a high note with pictures of a passionate defenslo in Parliament by the ageing Brace against a ealuminlous attack on his private life, and of Drissie and Karl reading

[WODEHOUSE’S OLD BOTTLES

Why His Wine Is New. “ RIGHT HO, JEEVES.” By P. J. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins). Whether or not he is niaking-his-tory, Mr Wodehouse generally manages to repeat himself. Opening a novel by' him one knows pretty well what to expect. This is particularly so when the novel is about the resourceful manservant Jeeves. One knows that Bertram W-ooster, or more probably one of his friends, will become involved in difficulties, and that ■those difficulties will be caused by some member of the opposite sex; that they will be aggravated, and more and more people will be involved, through Bertie’s blun'dering efforts to And a ■solution; and that 'finally all will be settled satisfactorily by a masterstroke on 'the part of Jeeves. And one knows, too, -that the setting will be a country house party, and 'that there will be the usual by-play between Jeeves and his master over the latter’s clothing. The details may be new; but one knows the mains outlines well enough. And, since the whole point of a Joke lies in its unexpectedness, one would have thought that Mr Wo'dehouse’s humour would fall flat in consequence. But somehow it keeps its freshness. The old .familiar plot has not lost the old familiar charm. If Bertie is still the same old blunderer, Mr Wodehouse is still the same magician. And the reason is that the essence of his magic does not lie in the familiar plot or the familiar characters at all- These things are merely the background for the exercise of Ills real art. And that art is the art of verbal felicity, It is the ingenious similes, the skilful quotatlofls, the far-fetched anologies that, fall from Bertie’s lips that constitute his •real attraction. And these are new. We have seen him get himself into •trouble before: but we have not heard him speak of “treading on life’s banana skins" before. The manner of jesting is the same, but the particular jests are fresh. And that is why an hour with Mr Wodehouse (it does not take much longer) is still entertaining. Particularly now that the holiday season is approaching. —D.H.M.

■the letter in whioh .their son, blinded on the Western front, announces his return to Australia, to -the “ Goldenland’’ of his birth. One outstanding chapter of “ Brave Musio" is that describing a great strike riot of 1890, when a massacre is prevented) at a ‘critical 'moment by the cool and calculated action of Braoe, the unknown, and unseen, 'spectator. Another Is that whioh gives a humorously satirical description of a suburban wedding breakfast. 'From cover to cover, however, the dale is paoked with interest and 'is undoubtedly an outstanding Australian prodetion which should also make an impression .outside “ Goldenland.' —EI.H.B.