Books and Bookmen

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 21, 24 November 1906, Page 35

Books and Bookmen

‘’DISENCH ANTED": Translated by Clara Bell. (Macmillan and Co., Loudon.) An admirable translation of Pierre Loti’s “Desencliantees,” the subject matter of which the reader will hope to hear more of. It is a pitiful story of the lives lived by Turkish women of rank in harems, of lives whose miseries have been intensified and aggravated ten fold by the high state of culture attained by them of late years. In order to acquire this culture, European governesses, bringing in their train high class literature, have been introduced into the harems to instruct the inmates. With their advent, together with this higher education, has come disillusion, disenchantment, wild longings for liberty. rebellion against the old customs, some of them preferring death to marriage with men they have never seen, whose voices they have never heard. And the last state of the Turkish woman is worse than the first. And to Pierre Loti has come the Mesopotamian cry, “Come over and help us.” And in “Desencliantees” he has responded nobly. In the short preface he says:

This is a purely imaginary tale. Any endeavour to fiml real names for Djenan. Zeyneb, Melek, or Andre would be waste of lime, for they never existed. The duly real thing in it is the high level of culture now prevailing in the harems or Turkey, and the suffering which conies of Tills suffering, more striking, perhaps, to my eyes as a foreigner, is already an anxiety to my dear friends tile Turks,- amt they would fain diminish it. I, of course, do not pretend to have dis covered the remedy which profound thinkers, there on the spot, are still seeking. But I, like them, feel sure that there is one. ami that it will be found; for tlw wonderful Prophet of- Ismm, who was above all else compact- of . light and charity. cannot have desired that the .rules he dictated of old should become in the lapse of time a cause of suffering. Now. though the author does not pre tend to have found a remedy, it will be plainly ■ understood by the reader that the only real remedy lies in the revision. or abolition, of the laws laid down in the Koran for the regulating of the marriages of the Faithful. Looked at from which ever point of view’ those interested in this question may take, the remedy is not an easy one to apply. The Turk, though lethargic enough in ordinary matters, is said to he the most bigoted fahatie in existence on religious matters. But Pierre Loti says that the Turk is anxious that these laws insisting on the absolute seclusion of women and their compulsory marriage, should Ire altered, and if this be true the Turkish women have it in their own power to bring about their own emancipation. But before great reform can come about, revolution must precede, it, and some must suffer, ai)d some must die. And as the pen is mightier than the sword, this effort of Pierre Loti's may act as the wedge in bringing about, their emancipation by a consensus of public opinion. The story opens where Andre - lihery, a French writer of note, receives a letter from a Turkish lady of rank begging him’ to help them by writing a- book about the monotonous lives and sufferings of the women in Turkish harems. It was written in..such faultless French, and with such purity of expression, that at first he .was inclined to believe that some European had written it in mockery. But while thinking this he was tempted to answer it, to the great delight and comfort' “of the Turkish woman Djerian'. and her i-blishis, and coqipanions in suffering. Zbvneb and Melel<. Three years after, . |>eing appointed to the French Embassy in,,Con,; stuntiyople, he receives another letter from the trio, making an assignation with him. He accepts the nppointiuentt fully conscious -of the terrible-rrek-' botl*' lie and they run,' as in Turkej- it iw known that for the Turkish’'woman who' talks' with’ or sees a man riot her husband/ faflier, dr trotlidr, there' are

only two ways open—flight or death. In spite of bolts and bars, and the strict watch kept upon the harems by the Eunuch’s, they contrive to meet often, and Andre.is posted with material for the book, aud as pity is akin to love, from pity for Djenan he falls in love, which love she returns hopelessly. About this time Andre returns to France. Shortly after reaching there, he receives a letter from Zeyneb. telling him that both Djenan and Melek arc dead, the one of poison, administered by her own hand, the other of broken heart, both the result of a second compulsory marriage being forced upon them. Zeyneb herself is in the last stage of consumption and welcomes early death as a relief. To Andre Lhery is left the book, and the waters of Lethe. The denouement is essentialh French, as is the dramatic, realistic way in which the book is written. But the book requires to be read in order to be properly appreciated, as though it is realistically written, there is nothing in it to shock the most fastidious. The character of Djenan is splendidly drawn. Capable of the highest culture, womanly in the truest sense of the word, in short, a being to love and be loved, and to be the mother of children, yet refusing the love and liberty offered her by Andre Lhery, because, according t'o her own lights, and the laws of her count ry, she was not morally or legally free to accept. The pietitre drawn 'of the Turk proper will come as a revelation to those who hitherto have looked upon the Ttirk as hopelessly degenerate. According to Pierre Loti (who speaks with intimate knowledge), he is religious, deeply mertitative. kind, loyal, one of the noblest people of the world: capable of terrible energy, of sublime heroism in the battlefield, if his native land is threatened or if the cry is Islam or the Faith. Of the Perote, or native of Pera, on the other side of the Bosphorus, he is not so eulogistic, though. “While agreeing with the Osmanlis as to the Perotes in general. I must admit that there are exceptions to the rule —men of perfect respectability and breeding, women who would be exquisite in any country or any society.” He waxes- very indignant at the depraved style of the architecture of Pera, and condemns very strongly the aping of European dress and manners. But even in his beloved Stamboul Parisian costume and furnishings are almost general; no inmate of the harem unless she be what is nicknamed a 1320 —"The nickname given to anyone who recognises no dates but from the Hegira, instead of using the European calendar,” ' wearing native dress. There is also an interesting description of the reception held by a Turkish bride after the wremony. She is taken to her husband’s house and seated upon a throne. Then the front doors are opened wide and every passer-by in the street may come in and pay homage, or. what is more eommon; condole with the bride. The eus toms 1 observed at ‘ the Moslem Telit, Ramazan, too, are described; one custom of which might be copied with advantage in the Western Hemisphere, namclyT the -whole of the' Koran, chapter by chapter, must be read during Ramazan. Contrary to bur •Lent, the days are- spent in faisting and ' sleeping-. - the nights in feasting and > rewl. Taken altogether, nearly every preconceived notionisof the >‘!Turk. at ll«me" will l»e upset, and the hook taad down re, lUCtantly. ru

“THE CHRIST IN SHAKSI’EARE:*’ . I,'. Ellis (Bethnal (i|'fen Free Lib, • ,- rary, Tamdon. Street. Bethnal Creep, London, N.) »■

To stiulepls of. any interpretati<\n tliat. yv*|l throw additional light on passages Inal are obscure, even

to the most devoted lover of the great master, or throw into higher relief his matchless imagery, will be re eeived with the greatest welcome. The author, speaking, as it were, in defence of this Irook of interpretations of his, quotes George Wither on interpretation, who. when asked to explain his meaning of some obscure passage in one of his poems, replied. “That to make his meaning clear would be to take away the employment of his interpreter." Any great work, whether it be poetry or prose, must always seem to have more than one meaning, not to the individual, but for the benefit of the many, as each individual interprets it according to his own inward light, anil receives, or diffuses knowledge, wisdom, help, comfort, relaxation, according to his interpretation of it. ■ Mr Ellis’s motive is to show I lie connection bet ween the Bible ami Shakspeare's works, and he has succeeded admirably. For this purpose he has used the Genevan Bible, the Bible most commonly in use in Shakspeare’s time, and lias taken for comparison “The Merchant of- Venice,” Richard 2nd aud 3rd. Henry sth and 6th, “-Macbeth” ami “Hamlet". “Measure for Measure,” and 50 of the sonnets. That Christ was in Shakspeare was abundantly evident. Since “By their works ye shall know them." and surely since Christ there has not lived any greater teacher of alt that was Christ-like, or whose ideals for work a day use have been so transcendently high. There is abundant testimony in the book from eminent divines, writers, poets, etc., ami a reproduction of what is said to be the best portrait extant of Shakespeare, namely. 1 he “Houhraken” engraving of 1747. and the lines written by Ben Jonson on beholding it. This figure that thou here secst put. If was for gentle Shaks|ware cut: * Wherein lite graver liail a strife With nature to outdo the life. O could lie lint have drawn his wit As iCl'ti in brass, as he ■ ' His face: the print would theu surpass All I bat was ever writ in brass; But since he caiqiot. reader, look Not on liis picture, hilt his book. There are also facsimiles of several autographs of Shakespeare, which are said to lie authentic. •• The book is worthily bound, and this short, inadequate review may well close with the eulogisin of Iw-n as 'a man by Sir Henry Irving in his “Lectures on the Drama." “The noblest literaiy man of alt time." writes Henry Irving, “the finest and yet must prolific writer —the greatest student of mail, and the greatest master of man's highest gift.—of language surely It is treason to humanity to speak of such tin one as in any sense a cominon-plaee being. “Imagine irini rather as he must have lieeu. the most notable courtier of the court, tiie most perfect gentleman who stood in the Elizabethan throng. “The man in whose presence divines would falter and hesitate, lost their knowledge of ‘The Book’ should seem poor by the side of Ills, and of whom even queenly royalty would look askance with an oppressive souse that there was one to whose . . true imagination tiie liearls of kings and queens and peoples had always been an open page! “The thought of such a man is an incomparable inheritance for any nation, and such a man was . . Shakspear|?."f DELTA. ti-Sirl Henry Irving. “Lectures on tiie * Drama." (W. Heinemann, 1893).