BOOKS & AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2396, 27 February 1915, Page 4

BOOKS & AUTHORS

(By Libee.)

SOME RECENT FICTION, SINISTER STREET-NO. 2. The long-promised second volume of Mr. Oompton M'Kenzie's remarkable novel, "Sinister Street" (G. Bell and Sons; per Whitoombe and Tombs), has made its appearanco at last and will, I doubt not, be eagerly perused by all who read the first instalment of the story. Volume one closed with Michael Fane's going up to Oxford. The new volume is divided into two sections.. In the first Mr. M'Keiusie gives us a closely detailed description of the young, undergraduate's life at Oxford, a'life largely devoted to fleeting and often very foolish pleasures, but not devoid here and there of the promise of better things to come. Oxford life has often been described in fiotion, by Thackeray, Cuthbert Bede—who that has read "Verdant Greenland his Friend Little 'Mr. Bouncer" can forget that amusing production? and many others, but Mr. M'Kenzie gives us a' twentieth century Oxford, and many of his types are of a very different class of men to those with whom Pendennis or Verdant Green were familiar. The pictures are lively enough in their way, but it is impossible for an Oversea Briton who reads this book to come to any. other conclusion than that if Oxford life of today—or a few years ago—is voraciously mirrored in Mr. M'Kenzie's then Young Oxford of the Twentieth Century \yill never .be muoh good to England. I-regret to notice more than one sneer, at the Rhodes Scholars. One character in the story, a combination of prig and bounder, dubs them "the Basutos." In" the second section of the hook we have Michael's experiences and adventures in the. London underworld, wherein he deliberately dives in pursuance of a quixotic mission to find out and rescue the pretty, but silly, and as events prove, the naturally vicious girl, Lily Haden, whom the herb loved in his teens. - Upon returning to London after his Oxford career Michael is informed that poor Lily has taken to what Kipling called the "oldest profession in the world," and absurdly conceives it to be his duty to find her out and s marry her! Now follows a series of episodes which . recall memories of Zola's "Nana," and Do Gonoourt's "Gormiiiie Lacertreux." The underworld of London prostitution is not'a pretty theme at any time, and ®r. M'Kenzie carries his realism to an extremo which, in places, is almost brutally repellant. The sordidity, the utter hopelessness' of the life of the lower ranks of the cocotterie of Cockaigne is depicted with a wealth of detail which even Zola himself never exceeded.. It is needless to "say that "Sinister Street No. 2" is no novel for les jeunes filles. When at last Michael .finds Lily Haden, he determines, despite all-the.remonstrances*, sneers, and jeers of his male friends, and his, own family influences, to marry her., -He is rich, he is. free to act. as he likes, and even the fact, patent even to-him-self, that the. girl is depraved to .the very core, as , naturally vicious as! she is naturally silly' and' empty-headed, does not deter him from_ making, arrangements for the marriage. Ho?v,' finally, disillusion comes to the. young man, and how, .utterly .disgusted - with life—-and that only at twenty-five!—he-leaves London for -Rome, witih ,the; in-! tention of becoming a priest, is told by Mr.. Mackenzie with unerring artistic! skill. It is a pathetio story in'ite main | incidents, but it is relioved'by so many touches of ironic humour, contains so many brilliantly etched. • minor ' characters, .and. is. written in., such - a ~virile .and at the "same time such ,a graceful .style,; that it must for many readers exercise an irresistible fascination; The book is pagedi-.continnously from; the" first volume, this second instalment of the story of Michael Fane's life occupying over six hundred ; pages of ,-smaD print. It is a .curious and in-some ways a very fine literary achievement, but for my own part . I .confess > the. feeling that the subject was liardly' worth such an amount of industry as its production reflects.

"SPRAGGE'S CANYON." ' Quit© the freshest, most vivacious nnd ■ entertaining ' 6ta*y of' Californian .life that-1, have happened across 'for some time is Mr. H. A. Vachell's "Spragge's Canyon" (G. Bell and Sons; per Whitcombe and Tombs). Here'is a thoroughly wholesome 'and delightfully humorous story of ranche life in the Golden State, with a rugged, warmhearted young farmer as leading figure. George Spraggo, slow to even think of marriage, is loved in secret by his buxom, honest cousin, Samantha, who, however, to. her chagrin, sees the simple George fall _an easy victim to the studied fascinations of a "perky young city madam,V as his plain-6poken old mother designates the "cultured" Miss Hazel Goodrich, from Oaklands. The young lady,; who has dreamt of George's ranche as something much more exten* sive.than it really.is, comes .to the ancestral home of the Spragge on a visit, and forthwith begins a battle of feminine wits, the combatants being, the visitor, her antagonists being the ' tough and shrewd - old ranchwoman and the somewhat bovine but honest-hearted and, greatly loving Sahiantha. .It would be unfair to Mr. Vachell to give away the strikingly original expedient by which he arranges the disillusionment ' and discomfiture of the pretty but "cattish" Miss Hazel. Suffice it to say that it is a devioe which would only be possible in a Western American State. The special charm of the story lies in its descriptions of everyday lite on a Californian ranche, but it is also a story rich in clever characterisation. By all means make a : point of reading "Spragge's Canyon.' 1 , "THE WISE VIRGINS." The tepidity, banality, and ntter futility of middle-class life in a London suburb is by this time quite an ancient and well-worn subieot in twentieth century fiction. Perhaps the Great War and its general bouleversement of English life may bring about a much-desired change, but in Mr. L. S. Woolf's 'clev- , erly-written story "The' Wise Virgins"(London, Edward 'Arnold) ' the atinos- ! phere is still unchanged. The wise virgin's of the story arei four sisters,.daughters of well-to-do, : smugly bourgeois parents. All desire marriage, regard marriage, indeed, as the he all' and i cud all of life; marriage at any price is their motto. Two succeed, one capturing a pompous and stupid curate, the other bringing,dowij. her game by a ! device as ancient as tho liils, but hardly [ to be described in detail in_ these col- [ umns. The second male victim is, however, not very much to bo pitied, for although a clever young Jew of literary and artistic sympathies, . intellectually head and slionders over liis environment. I he is, in worldly matters, so crude and stupid a creaturo that ae alra'ost deserves his fate. There is a fino satiric flavour about the story, but nevertheless I it belongs to a class of fiction which it is ! to be noped will completely lose its j vaison d'etre by tho time the war is over.

OVERLAND RED. A racy "rattling" yarn of life in the "wild and woolly Wost" is "Overland Red, a Romance of tho Moonstone Canyon Trail" '(Houghton, Mifflin'Co., per Georgo Robertson and Co.). Tlio author, who preserves; his anonymity; has imagined a very original and vastly amusing hero in tho scapegraco "Overland R<;d," a mixture of cowboy, "hobo" (a tramp), miner, and adventurer in genora.l. Contrasted with this engaging wastrel is a young New

great wealth, who, following Horace Greoloy's inuoli-quotod adnco, "Go West, young man," seoks and' finds healtn and excitement on the sunburnt plains and in the rooky canyons of Colorado, Also, incidentally, he finds love, and the sentimental interest of' the story is quite equal to tlioundoubt-, od merit it possesses as a narrative of wild and often lawless adventure.. The reader will part with "Overland.Red," by this ttmo once more Jack Summers, the skilful range rider of his .earlier days, with : Bincore regret, and will trust that for his own sake that resourceful scamp will novor reopen the happily and, for him, very luckily clo6od book o:t his lurid past. The illustrations in colour and monochrome, by Anton Fisher, are exceptionally well drawn. ; "THE ETERNAL PRIESTESS." , Putnam Wealp is at his best in a story dealing Avith life in China, and in his latest novel, "The Eternal Priestess" (Methu'sn and Con) is more than usually successful. The Bcene is Peking, the leading characters ■ being English and American merchants ana brokers, plus a French secret agent, and Chinese of various social and official ranks. The ladies are the wives and friends—friends in this connection is quite an oxpansive term—these gentleman, and if we were to judge the moral atmosphere of the Chinese capital by this story, I am afraid the verdict would be decidodly unflattering. Be this a.i it may, the Btory possesses an exotic flavour which is by 110 means unpleasant, and a specially novel and interesting feature of the book is .the curious light it throws upon certain little known phases of the Chinese political position of the last few years. "The Eternal Priestess" is one of the "best stories of' life in the Far East which wo have had for some time past. •

"WILD HONEY." Cynthia Stockley's latest boob, "Wild Honey" (Constable, per George Robertson), is a collection of short* stories descriptive of. South African life. In •the majority of them the interest is highly dramatic, and in one or two the author has struck a note of real tragedy. In one, "The. Mollmeit of the Mountain," Mrs. Stockley gives us a gruesome .study of cannibalism. The dreary life of the dwellers, Boer and British, on the hack veldt, is described with relentless realism, and as in her previous books on South Africa the author is specially skilful in reproducing the weird fascination of the life of tlie isolated settlers in. Bechnanaland, Rhodesia, and the North-Western Transvaal. ' The opening and title story of the collection i 6 an exceptionally' well-told and pretty talo. _ Mrs. Stockley's heroes aren as previously, mostly of the strong, quiet "man with a past" kind. There is not a dull page in the book.