NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18906, 22 January 1927, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

NERVES

Days of Disillusion. By Chester F. Cobb. George Allen and Unwln, Ltd.

It is difficult to review a book which has too little imagination to be good fiction and too much to bo acceptable biography. The title is also too ordinary or not ordinary enough—the first, it the author regards his experience as out of the way, the second if it is the importance of the unimportant, as really seems to bo tho case, that las narrative id intended to suggest. The book is, we may suppose, the story of Mr Cobb's heart (in the Richard Jcfferies sense), or of the heart of someono not too remote from him in temperament and experience, and on the principle that everybody lias at least one novel in him, .the story was worth telling. But except for its candour, and the manner in which it is told, the narrator being half outside and half inside the subject's skin, it does not make a very remarkable book, or justify any suggestion in the title that the disillusionment is the stuff of tragedy or poetry. It was certainly a rather happv idea to make the story a six days' tale—the little boy's day, the young man's day. the married man's clay, the father's day, and the day of the man who has at last found God; and it is of interest that most of these days are lived in Sydney.

IN THE DESERT. Camping in the Sahara. By E. M. Hull. Eveleigh Nash and Grayson. No one could imagine Mrs Hull, creator of Sheiks, camping anywhere but.in the desert, or going there without a notebook and camera. Now also that "progress and civilisation are dvancing into the desert by leaps and bounds," we expect her to "approach it again with misgivings." But we need have no misgivings as readers. Mrs Hull got her caravan together to enjoy herself, and she did enjoy herself, and it is not her fault but our own if, following her day by daf and sometimes night by night, we renrain unmoved. For Mrs Hull finds extraordinary things in the desert in addition to "space, limitless space, and emptiness that is almost frightening" —the divers, for example ("plongeurs") who keep the wells open, murderers who call daily on Allah, false (and poisonous) oranges, myriads of genuine nestincr larks; and her camera is as active as her pen. Her camera, indeed, is a reinforcement—it is worked by G. W. Hull, and worked so well that anyone who is not satisfied with the results is more fastidious than Mohammed Seghir ben Smail himself, Caid des Raid—Ouled—Amor, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, who governs his tribes with a rod of iron, but drinks mint tea with intriguing, daintiness.

A GRAUSTARK. Kindling and Ashes. By George Barr McCutcheon. Dorid, Mead, and Co. In "Kindling and Ashes" George" Barr MeCutcheon. has broken away from his mythical Graustark kingdom and written a plain novel about plain American peole. The book is well thought out and well built up on the foundation of a feud, carried on be-: tween two families for several generations, and culminating in the events of the present time. It would be a remarkable book were it not for the fact that the chief character behaves all through • with utter inconsistency. As a picture of life in a small Indian town it is, however, excellent. (Through Dymock's Book Arcade.) MORE WILD MEN. The Painted Stallion. By Hal G. Evarts. i Hodder and Stoughton. Mr Hal. G. Evarts no sooner knocks you over with one book than he comes at you with another —written in the same style, and describing the same scenes with the same gusto. "The Paintecl Stallion" keeps you in the ranges near the Mexican border, among the usual wild men cracking revolvers to prevent you from wearying. The plot is woven round the life of a wild mustang, and the writer has successfully used his knowledge of animal life and introduced some interesting information about their habits and capture for trade. The book is easy to read, and will brighten the average man's holiday. IN A GARDEN CITY. Forrester's. By J. K. Pulling, Hodder and Stoughton. Garden cities of the Port Sunlight typo have not figured much in fiction. "Forrester's," by J. K. Pulling* is an attempt to deal with one of the bo places, and with the economic problems they involve, but it is not very successful. The book is loose and patchy, and gives tho impression that it has been written outright, and not subsequently polished or revised. Yet the main idea is a good one, and it is a pity that when he had something like an original .subject tho author missed his opportunity. TOO GENEROUS. Destiny's Darling. By Mrs Horaco Trcmlett. Hutchinson and Co. Mrs Horace Tremlett is a practised novelist of the sophisticated type, who knows how to tfsll a story provided she has it to tell. Unfortunately, in "Destiny's Darling" she has too much> to tell, and if she had cut down her plot by half, whatever she did with the unused half, she would have produced a better novel;- As it is, after a promising opening on a picturesque African island, which gives her scope for some good descriptive writing, and a sudden change to a rather amusing set in London, tho £ook turns into a wild goose chase, in which the heroine is abducted by a supposed Arab father, and goes through many unnecessary adventures and mental tortures.