SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 263, 31 July 1920, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

"The Crimson Tide," < Mr. Robert W. ■ Chambers is surely a twentieth century masculino prototype of the amiablo Vizier's daughter, wbo beguiled n cmel IChalif's leisure moments and saved her fellow virgins of Bagdad by an almost endless spinning of yarns highly, seasoned alike with sensational adveritiires and romantic love episodes. It is simply astonishing how his imaginative powers continue to bear the heavy strain hg places upon thorn. "Tlie .Crilnson Tide" (N.Y.: Appleton and Co., per Whitcombe and Tombs) is the third story from his pen which has como tho way of this particular reviewer this year, and yet I perceive no sign of any falling off either in the skilful weaving > of. plot or tho vigour ■. of ■ narrative. Mr. Chambers has a keen flair for subjects of topical interest,'-ftmL in his latest story gives US: a sories of highly-coloured sensations arising out of Bolshe.vik and I.W.W. activities in New York. His heroine, Palla Dumont, returns to America from' Russia in a parlous frame of Wind, having lost her faith in, God and' the accepted order of things. She now determines to follow only-tho religion of "Love and Service," and as.a result finds Iteelf involved in some very mysterious and dangerous plots and enterprises, for tiw "Love and Service" sisterhood incurs the deadly enmity of the "Reds." Of course there is an incidental love interest which enables Mr. Chambers to alternate his sensations ;'by those sentimental passages which endear him to maiiy; feminino readers. There is much in the story which is melodramatic and tho sentiment" is . apt'to become over- saccharine in places, but much can be forgiven an author who can hold his reader's attention so unbrokenly as" does ■ Mr. Chambers in this, his voTy novel. .

"How They Did It." Mr. Gerald O'Donovan, -who wrote that powerTuT and much-discussed -story of Irish life rind politics, "Father Ralph" has now produced, in his "How They Did It" (Methuen and Co.), a smartly written' exposure of the dreadful muddling and extravagance which went on in ao many Government Departments in London- during the war period. Whether there was over a Ministry of Business,' even under somo other namej conducted on the same lines as that Whose operations are described in Mr. O'Donovan's novel, may well ho doubted. In

all probability the picture is a clever mosaic of facts and fancies based, periiaps, upon personal experience in one department, but owing not a little to stories and scandals referring to other branches of official activity. Be.this as it may, there is no denying the freshness and vigour of tiie story, wliich includes many satirical skeches of stupid nnd officialdom,, together with some' even uglier portraits. More than one of Mr.-O'DorioViin'sfigures would have carticd the complete approval of tho heads of Dickeiw'ti immortal "Circumlocution department. How Boz would have delighted in tho official characteristics of Major-General Sir Frederick Talbot Jennings, chief, assistant to the '"Minister for Inspiring Confidence"! There are .some sly hits at.the curious methods by whiuh certain., recipients of Hie 0.8. E. gained that now sadly discredited distinction; and tho' profiteer class and peopfe generally who "did well out of the .war" como in for a probably well-merit-ed castigntion. In certain of tho episodes anil characters the novelist nlay err on the side of'exaggeration, but tnere is no gainsaying the entertainment which his 6atire will afford the reader.

"Slippery as Sin." The last time I met (in print, blen that elusive super-criminal, tho mysterious Fahlomas, he' was in Berlin. In the latest effort of MM. Pierre Sotivestro and Marcel Allain, "Slippery as Sin" (Stanley ■ Paul and Co.) Fantoinas has betaken himself to'' London, where a comio opera Scotland "Yard—the Sou-.vestre-Allain conception of the British' detectivo is' almost -as unintentionally iiumorbus as tho old-time French dramatist's idea of "Sir Jones," or "Milor / Brown"—is terribly upset by the diabolical doings of the criminal gang which Works under tho direction of tho supercriminal. Tho authors display ~even more than their customary. ingenuity in building up a network of criminal mysteries; indeed, it is an open question whether they have not displayed an unwise excess of complicated detail, ior it is just possible that some renders of tho story may get weary of trying to nn<l out what the criminals aro actually aiming at, and put down the book m Sheer despair.. The equally .ingenious Gaboriau and.his faithful follower, De Boisgobey, never fell into the error of overentangling their central motif. btivpery as Sin"-can scarcely bo accounted equal to the earlier volumes of the l'antomas series.:- ' : . "A .Pawn, in Pawn." "A Pawn- in Pawn," by. Hilda, M. Sharp (T. Fisher Unwin) is a well-tola and pretty story by the author ot .that clever novel, ."Tho. Stars in lheir Courses.". The bero, Julian Tarrant, is a poet who adopts .a little girl out ot a- home for orphans and illegitimate children of well-born paren s, wliich is nicknamed "Tho Pawn Shop. - story, practically the. life .story of the pretty; ingenuous, and -very charming girl whom Julian adopts and educates, il , told by'an: elderly bachelor Uncle Dick who plays the benefactor to both the young- lady and a very voung fellow, Miles Argent, who loves.her Suinieion falls -for a time, upon the hcS 6f having stolen-the manuscript of'Tarrant's unpublished / poems, J«d published'theta as her own orlgnmlWv As a matter of fact, it turns out in-the king run that Lydia is in leaby la£ rant's own daughter, and that. Jei literary talent is comes in towards the end of the floiy, which, however, has that happy finale which is expected p£ all wel-behaved novelists by I certain class-of reader. Albeit some of the lead ng meiden« smack of the conventional, the brightness and charm of its telling may well bo accepted as a redeeming feature.

"A Lost Love." , To reprint a novel first published so far back as 1854 would seem, at first a somewhat doubtful experiment, but it is (interesting to know the sort of iiction in which mi earlier generation found pleasure. "A Lost Love," By Ashford. Owen (John Murray, per Wliitcombo and Tombs) is said to have won for its author the personal friendship of such eminent Victorian litterateurs as ■ K.. Browning and Swinburne, and was made tho subject of laudatory reviews in "Tho Times." The author, Miss Anno Charlotte Ogle (Ashford Owon) was born in. 1832, mid was, ther*forc, only twentytwo whon "A -Lost Lovo" was first published.- Slio died, in 1918, being then in her eighty-seventh year. ' Her story, so famous in. its'day, is .'possessed of .a certain quiet charm of its own, but may, I am afraid, bis voted somowhat tepid and unsatisfying by present-day renders. Tho characters, remind mo not a little of certain figures in the novels of Jane Austen, but there is hero none of that undercurrent *of Satirical 'humour which has .'made "Pride and Prejudice," "Persuasions," aud. other stories by tho "fair and willy Jane." as Androw Lan£ once styled her, still retain sorno measure at least of their old-time popularity. As a literary curiosity! "A Lost Love" is, however, well worth reading.