NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 29, 26 July 1923, Page 30

NOTES

Bad Books « One is often asked whether such or such a novel is on the Index, and as a rule the question is not asked concerning books that are forbidden. . There are few English books named in the Index of Prohibited Books, and the majority of these few are books that most people are not likely to read. People who speak without knowledge sometimes tell others that Mari© Corelli’s books are forbidden but, on the contrary, we remember recently seeing them praised by a sound Catholic critic who knew what he was writing about. Beyond the books that • are contrary to faith and the books that treat directly about obscenities, the badness of a book may be said to be relative : a book that might well be described as a good book could easily be dam gerous for young readers, and, in fact, a book that is positively a good book, nay, even the best of all books, the Bible itself, may be relatively bad reading if we consider what parts of it are read and who reads them. For instance, a Principal of a Protestant college testifies to the fact that tradition handed down from one generation of students to another certain parts of the Sacred . Book which were read with prurient minds and corrupt hearts, by no means to the spiritual benefit of the youths. Shakspere is a good book in the hands of mature and educated readers, but it can easily be a cause of great scandal to inexperienced and impressionable persons. The same thing is true of many of the great classical works. On the whole, perhaps, they may be described as good, but for some persons they are certainly bad. Among modern novels, there is a class of light, erotic, suggestive books which can truthfully be described as bad in every sense; they are bad from a literary point of view, and bad from a moral point of view. New Books - A word about some new books which came under our notice recently. First and worst, London-, by the author of Adam of Dublin, is a novel by a clever writer of perverse mind and of huge conceit with his own importance. That it is a reflex of the mind from which it emanated can be said without paying a tribute either to the book or its author. Two Shall Be Born, ’by the author of The Butterfly Mon, is good reading. It is a fine wholesome story, well written and intensely interesting. The adventures of the little exiled Polish Countess, who finds , herself involved in serious political intrigues, and. the story of her love for and marriage with a big New York Irish boy, will keep the reader who takes up the book awake until it is finished. Rooted Out, by Dorothea Conyers, is one of the best novels this popular lady has written. Dorothea Conyers has among writers of hunting stories no superiors, except the Sommerville and Ross ladies, who perhaps surpass her in some - respects and are inferior td her in others; in Rooted. Out she has given us of her best. The story of Desmond Moore’s adventures in Ireland and England never wanders far from the sound of the horn, and you cannot read the descriptions of the hunting days without being convinced that they were written by a lady who has first-hand knowledge of what an Irish hunter can do : whether across a country .fit for a Point-to-Point race or behind hounds that' follow a hot scent over ’gorse-grown boundary fences as big as ramparts, savage stone fences on the slopes of a mountain, and banks that loom high and wide between deep ditches filled with dark bog-water. .. We deem .unworthy of mention by name a novel ' of anti-clerical tendencies which describes a bishop as ■ being. dressed all in white! and gravely informs its p readers that priests; were not allowed to have mirrors

in their rooms! Probably that is why all the clergy wear ■ long beards in all countries. Why don’t these people tell a lie with some color of truth about it? Cards Discarded '• A contemporary notes that the time-honored and fatuous custom of visiting cards (irreverently called , s shooting pasteboards”), has practically died out, and that stationers and printers mourn the loss of revenue which used to come from the extravagant us© of the meaningless little slips. It was certainly as silly an observance as "fashion ever imposed on human beings, and if there is amend to it no man or woman endowed with common sense ought to be sorry. There was an entire ritual surrounding the right use of cards. In Society it was deemed more wicked to ignore the ritual than to break some of the Ten Commandments. For generations the silly business was kept up without protest from the victims of convention. While many of the laws which decree what is good or bad form are based on right reason and on good breeding, there was no reason whatever in the card custom, and it had no more to do with good breeding, or true courtesy, than with horse-breeding. If indeed it is gone let it go, unwept, 11 honored, and unsung.,. In its wake we would be pleased to see departing a few other almost equally nonsensical things which still conquer common sense. True politeness is inspired by sound Christian principles. Its test is how you consider the interests of others rather than how you conform to ridiculous and vain observances. Conrad in America Joseph Conrad’s visit to America has been a universal topic for the principal papers of New York recently. there was a genuine note of welcome for the ex-sea captain, who although a Pole by birth and' a stranger to English prose up to his twentieth year, is at present in the very front rank not only of novelists but of stylets. In America there is a -meat deal of extremely shoddy writing in our clay. The average novelist in the United States writes poor English and has no pretensions to style. . Hence it is a good sign that in the enthusiastic recognition of Conrad’s gifts a tacit appreciation of noble prose is expressed. Noble, indeed, his prose is. It would be hard to name a contemporary English writer who has such magic power ovei words. Mis taste is faultless. There is music and poetry in his descriptive passages. When reading his books one has the indefinable feeling of being in contact with a classic. Withal he is clean and as wholesome as the free breezes and the sweeping billows of his beloved ocean. We venture to say that Conrad’s novels are excellent tests of a reader’s critical sense: to enjoy them is almost a guarantee of good taste; to fail to see anything remarkable in them is condemnation without appeal. TTis works are nearly all pubjlished at moderate prices nowadays, and if you -want to learn what nervous, lucid, logical, arid imaginative prose is, you cannot do better than buy them and study them. If you fail to respond to the stimulation of such books as I he Mirror of the Sen • and Rescue, abandon all right to express your opinion on the merits of English prose.