BOOKS & AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2283, 17 October 1914, Page 5

BOOKS & AUTHORS.

(By Libeb.)

BOOKS OF THE DAY. FOUR BOOKS ABOUT BOYS. A Descendant of Tom Sawyer, The boy, that mysterious creature, the workings of whose innermost mind still remain inexplicable to the wisest of philosophers—especially philosophers who are parents—is tho most prominent figure in four recently-published books, all of which call for more than casual attention. The titles are Mr. Booth Turkington's "Penrod" (Hodder and Stoughton)-, "Jean Gilles, Schoolboy," by Andre Lafon (George Bell and Sons), "Blue "Water," by Frederick William Wallace (George Bell and Sons), and "The Greenstone Door," by W. Satchell (Sidgwick and Jackson), copies of all of which I have received through the courtesy of Whitconibe and Tombs. In those four books we have studies of Amorican, French, and Nova Scotian and New Zealand boys, boys utterly diverse in temperament, boys the records of whose escapades, feelings, emotions, and everyday life, although, widely differing in the point of view of their respective authors, are each and all of no small interest, and make exceedingly good reading. If is in no spirit of bV littlement that Mr. Booth Tarkington's young hero must bo adjudged a lineal descendant of Tom Sawyer, and that not a few of his extraordinary eeovpados and those of his friends, Sam Williams, Rudolph Kraussj and Maurice Levy, are latter-day variants of the scrapes in which Tom Sawyers, Huckleberry Finn, Bob Rogers and Co. played prominent roles in Mark Twain's never-to-be-forgotten narrative of boy life in'the little Missouri town which gave him birth. Penrod and his friends move in a higher social sphere, and the'mate-rial for their amusements ■ includes articles which'

would have "parlysed" Tom and Huckleberry as completely ae -would an aeroplane or a motor-car. But Penrod is just the same "huinan boy" as was Torn, and whether ho is, with the aid, of his fellow, pickle, Sam Williams, concocting a, "smallpox mixture" and trying it on Ms unfortunate but everfaithful dog Duke, or tarring the inside of a bell-topper, the property of an unctuous clerical visitor who persists in addressing him as "my little gentleman," or indulging in a hundred and one other impish tricks, he has still tho everlasting boyish hankering after mis-cbief-makinß. . Also, his love passage with the brown-eyed, golden-locked Marjorie, and the much-too-worldly experienced, city-bred Fanchon, are, despite their own way and their .own social period, delightfully reminiscent of Tom's attachment to the judge's pretty daughter, which urged him on to sucn riotous acts of boyish "derring-do" and extraordinary manifestations of youthful "eweetheartiug." Tom Sawyer deserved a twentieth century prototype, and in Penrod we get him to tho life. Still "Penrod" is, I warn my readers, not a boy's book—that is, not a book, save in certain "passages, which boys will read as they read Mark. Twain's

immortal- masterpieces. It is far too psychological—the humour is far too ironical * for. boyish appreciation. But adults who know boys, and love, boys, and flatter. themselves' , they "uudorstand" boys—a perennial but always vain paternal self-delusion—should find hi Mr. Tarkington's story a rich fund : of healthy amusement. ,; A French Schoolboy, ■. Between the cheerful insouciance, innate "devilment," and rapturous deflight in the material joyi or boyish life, and the thoughtful, -wistful, and now and then just a'little morbid point of ,yiew from whichYhis domestic surroundings, his school experiences, and the conduct of life as he knows it generally are regarded' by little Jean Gules, the hero of M. Andre Lafon's story ,_ there is a vast gulf fixed. In his upbringing, his bojish .tastes, his school life, his relations with his parents, hie almost unquestioning recognition of authority— inwhatever form it may he presented— Joan Gilles is as far apart from Tom Sawyer and Penrod and their prototypes in America and England as are the poles. As a. matter of fact, tliis timid, self-conscious, self-questioning, over-thoughtful, little French lad is much more a child than a boy. A "human boy" of the type Mark Twain loved he is certainly not. M. Lafon's book is not a novel, as that term is usually understood. It is the autobiography of a child, and is, in fact, quite curiously devoid of any purely masonlino interest. Nevertheless it is in many ways a work of great literary beauty, and affords a striking revelation of the workings of the childish mind and soul. Tho pictures it affords of the simplicity, the quiet charm, of French country life; of the devotion of which a French mother is capable; of the intensity of the affection which French children have for their mothers—an affection at .tho outward manifestation of which the average British boy would bo inclined to scoff—the little yignottes of faithful servants, of family friends and relations, of various types of schoolmasters —aE those combine to make M. Lafon's story one of special and -peculiar interest ' at the present moment, when French fathers, and -mothers, and their gallant sons are so much in the public mind.- The author is himself a very young man, who has won high praise lor his delicate aud graceful verse. His first really important prose work, the story now under notice, was awarded, the Grand Prix-de Litterature by the French Academy. In an interesting preface the translator, Lady Theodora Davidson, reminds us that although "other authors have endeavoured to portray the, workings of a child's mind, Tolstoi, in his 'Souvenirs, , Dickens in 'David Copperfield,' Pierre Loti, Alphonse Daiidet, Henry James—all these lave written in later life,- when the vividness of their own impressions had faded, and disillusion had laid its withering grasp upon them. . . ." "They relate, as mature men, the stOTj of infancy, whereas Aiidro Lafon,- a. youth not long emerged from adolescence, who*: stcppßcl straight from boyhood into the teaching profession, has never lost touch. He knows exactly what every typo of French schoolboy thinks and feels. The chief art of the book is its wonderful faculty of suggestion." With all duo respect, however, to the translator, I would remind those who read this charming, if somewhat pathetic, story, that Jean Gilles must not .he taken as a typical French schoolboy. As I have said, he is moro child than boy. His is a beautiful nature, but thoro are tens of thousands of French schoolboys who, in their own way, are precisely the same "human boys" as were Tom Sawyer, Huckleborry Finn, as were Tom Brown and Dick East, and as wns that delightful boy—l forget his n-----~in Henry Kingslcy's. "Ravonshop." , ' ' You will find some of them, slightly cr.i 'ir.tured mnybe", in George Du Maumc:; ''Peter Ibbetson." I have met them on tboir native soil, and know them—l do not say I understand thorn—well. As compared with the "human" French schoolboy, litUo Jean Gilles ie a mero exotic, a tenderly, too tenderly nurtured child —hardly a boy, a "real boy" at all. . With this.reservation I can heartily commend the" simply beautiful story M. Lafon has written. A "Banker" Fishing Lad. As affording a series of pictures of a lifn utterly foreign—in its details at leaet—to tho knowlcrlgo of most Now ZealandcrS; Mr. Wallace's story, "Blue Wafer," has a certain educational value quite apart from its general interest as a novel. I have .classed Mr. Wallace's story amongst "Books on Boys,'.' but ae'

a matter of fact his horo, Frank, otherwise "Shorty" Westhavcr," is only for a few chapters before us as a lad. Hβ is a young "Banker," that is, a Nova Scotian youth, who, after ft somewhat stormy boyhood, adopts his dead father's calling as a fisherman on the famous Banks of Newfoundland. The life of the "Banks" fishermen, probably the hardiost, pluckiest, and most industrious seafaring men in. the world, was, ns all good Kiplingites will remember described in "Captains Courageous." But Kipling had to "got up" Ms subject, and almost demoniacally canning as he is in saturating his mind with technical detail, his story has, I believe, been greatly scoffed at in the country of the "Blue Noses." Mr. Wallace is of that country born and bred, and so long as he sticks to his exact text,to his account of a young fisherman's life, lie is, so even a landsman can see, oasily Kipling's superior. It is in the introduction and working out of a sentimental interest that he is less 'convincing. When the fishenfolk are to the front the narrative is delightfully fresh and'»picturesque. It is a hard life which ho describes, and read-, ers of the book will congratulate the horo when after many varied and trying experiences "on the "Banks," he finally settles down as a, wholesale fish trader in the little town of which, in boyhood, he had been admittedly the champion scapegrace. The devotion of a young Breton.lad, Jules Sabot, to "Shorty" forms i a pleasant feature of a story which is much out of the ordinary. There is romance as well as realism in , Mr. Wallace's story, which well deserves inclusion in a list of "Books About Boys" ,if only for its vivid exposition of how manhood's virtues and faults are evolved from boyish traits and characteristics. A Pakeha Lad and Some Maoris. My fourth book, "The Greenstone Door," is by Mr. Satchell. whose agreeable story of colonial life, "The Toll of the Bush," may be remembered by Borne of my readers. In his new book Mr. Satehell has produced an exciting .vet by no means uninstructive story or life in the Dominion in the early days. The youthful hero, Cedric Trogarthen, is tho son of a pakeha Eettler, a man who has fought against the Maoris, being greatly ' esteemed and feared for his reckless courage. Taken prisoner by the Natives, tho lad is saved • and adopted by the famous old-time Maori chief, Tβ' Whararoa, and a largo portion of the ' story is devoted to descriptions of Native life, manners, and customs. ■ Later on, the hero is introduced to pakeha society, and an inRenipus and interesting plot is developed in which both Maori and English characters figure prominently. A sentimental interest is also provided, incidents of exciting adventure alternating with episodes in the course of the hero's attachment to the fair Helenora, the 6tory concluding with the fall of Orakau and the conclusion of peace be•tween the contending races. Historical characters, including Sir George Grey,, are freely introduced, and the novel is on tho whole a decidedly successful effort. Cedrio's career is specially interesting to New Zealand students of boy life and boyish oharacter, in that it affords so many vivid glimpses into tho conditions under which many who are now grandfathers lived in the far-off days of their youth.