BOOK REVIEWS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 22, 21 October 1942, Page 3

BOOK REVIEWS

Australian Short Stories

“It’s Harder For Girls,” and other stories by Gavin Casey (Sydney: Angus and Robertson). These short stories have all previously appeared in the Sydney “Bulletin.” Anyone who has read them in that publication will certainly want them in the more permanent form in which they are now published. Readers to whom these stories are new will also want the book, for Mr. Casey is a writer who cannot be ignored by those with an interest in contemporary literature. For the most part; he writes about life in the mining towns of Western Australia, conjuring up the atmosphere of heat, dust and utter drabness ■with a skill as remarkable as it is unobtrusive. And against this realistic background be sets characters which have the breath of life in them. That they are mostly unattractive characters does not matter from the reader’s point of view; it impossible not to be interested in them, in the hopes and fears, frustrations and pathetic pleasures which Mr. Casey depicts so well. Naturally the stories vary in quality, but none falls below a high level of competence and some extremely good indeed. Most striking of their merits are the obvious sincerity which informs them all, the deep undeistanding of human nature which the author exhibits, and, in particular, his ability to sense the mood of a moment and transfer it to paper without impairing its authenticity in the eyes of the reader. “Early Days, Taranaki,” by Fred B. Butler (New Plymouth). Mr. Butler is a keen student of early New Zealand history and more particularly that of laranaki. He has browsed over the early files of the “Taranaki Herald,” and from these and other sources has gathered items of interest whiqji he has reprinted in book form. He gives a very good account of very early days in laranaki, the time preceding the Taranaki war. This he claims to be the first account m print of this particular period. He does not go deeply into the actual outbreak of Avar, apparently as that portion of history can be read in any book on New Zealand history. The later portion ot the book gives the histories of many old buildings in New Plymouth, stories of ships which traded there, , industries which were started anil many other interesting pieces of information. Mr. Butler’s stvle is not that of a finished historian, but he has an aptitude for sorting out unusual incidents which should please those with a taste for stories of early da “The Psychology of Nervousness,” The Mind in Conflict, by William A. Mcßae (Melbourne: Oxford University Press). Mr. Mcßae, a practising psychoanalyst in Australia has already published two small books on aspects ot psychology, “About Ourselves and Others” and “Sex, Love and Marriage, both of them eminently practical, sane and easily understood. His new book is equally suitable for popular reading. It is a treatise, deliberately elementary, on the understanding of ‘ nerves, one which all sufferers from that many-sided affliction and, indeed, their victims, could read with profit. Mr. Mcßae explains how the mind in conflict can produce physical disorders of mental origin and shows clearly the causes which underlie nervous anxieties. r. “The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis (London: Geoffrey Bles). This brilliant little volume of letters contains the advice of an old devil to a young dc^ 1 on how to tempt the human race, bcrewtape, the old devil, displays great cunning in finding and exploiting the weaknesses of “patients” and so shows a deep knowledge of the human mind. The younger devil, Wormwood, is less subtle and has frequently to be shown bettei methods of tempting by his vicious mentor Mr Lewis succeeds very cleverly in pointing out in this manner the many pitfalls which are open to a Christian. Screwtape manages toamuse while, by contraries, he is yet teactnn = his Christian readers.