PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 24

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "Cappy Ricks Conies Back," by Peter B. Kyne, and "The Scarlet Beast," by Francis Gerard, as the books of the week, and has furnished the following reviews:— Gappy Eicks is one of the most famous characters in all the fiction of post-war years, and he "stages a comeback" in Peter Kyne's last novel "Cappy Eicks Comes Back." Not only does Cappy Eicks come back, but Peter Kyne also returns to his old' style. In. this novel his native Irish wit and his unique gift for telling a story are as pronounced vi ever. Captain Alden P. Ricks, owner of the Blue Star Navigation Company and the Eicks Lumber and Logging Company, had retired from business in favour of his son-in-law, Matt Peasley. But the habit of work had set its everlasting seal upon Cappy Eicks and he could not relinquish hu, authority. The bookis a series of incidents in, which Cappy strikes out on his own in defianco of his .son-in-law and his pessimistic general manager, Mr. Skinner. He is always successful and never misses his bet. One of his greatest joys in life is to help his young friends along, especially in their love affairs. He purchases rights in a motion picture company and makes a great success of it; he wins a golf championship at the ago of eighty; makes a fortune in pineapples, and swears "by the holy pinktoed prophet"—a truly remarkable old man. '' THE SCARLET BEAST. '' It is not long ago that the old form of dry-as-dust biography began to be supplemented by more human attempts at the portrayal of great lives. The bones, permanent, and indisputable, are now clothed with a living body! Perhaps the nose is a little long, perhaps the ears stand out too far from the head, the expression may be a little awry—but in the main the man of the biography is the man of history. The biographer of today recreates the man as well as the chronological record of his life. Not only the lives of great men, but. the literature and the history of their times have been all too frequently spoiled for us by the dry-as-dust school. Greek and Eoman history, the history of England and New Zealand, instead of appearing as a glowing, strongly-coloured, pageant, appear as pages from dog-eared and dirty school text-books. Sometimes . the schoolmaster is to blame, sometimes the scholar, sometimes the system. And yet these stories; the greatest, some of them, among man's achievements, do sometimes ride a winged shaft which finds a welcoming mark in the mind of some enthusiast who can see the truth below the platitude; the body that once clothed the skeleton. Mr. Gerard acknowledges, one debt to Mr. Chesterton. His indebtedness to Titus Livius and to Polybius is too obvious to require any comment. sTet this is no Livy-and-water, this story of the Punic wars. Livy (so far as we know) never showed up the utter horror and barbarity of the Barca family. Human sacrifice we read of, yes—but in a dim long ago. Contemporary, Livy yet needs sometimes an interpreter. And Mr. Gerard interprets by vigorous description of incident, by a complete reconstruction of the period, and by fusing the personal with the republican. These are not only Romans id his pages; they are men. . For too long "Civis Eomanus sum" has meant to us "I am a man in a brass helmet—or was ages ago." With .the touch of a Lyttoj, Mr, Gerard waves his pen over the helmet—it becomes a symbol; over the soldier, and he becomes a man. Touches like the following recall as a. living entity an atmosphere of. which we have, most of us not been vouchsafed mort thau a glimpse: "Rome was fighting, and would continue to fight in face of a hundred Hannibals, for the decency and sanity of the entire human race. Rome, was struggling not with another cityState, "but with a horrible, and degenerate philosophy, one' that had come out of Tyre and Sidon and had been further debauched by the vileness that was Africa. For the first time Marcus understood the difference between the decent Italian farmer, who would fight for the kindly, homely, familiar things, and a peoplo who were at once more and loss than men." The scene at which the young Roman patrician was assisting, a slave in the service of the enemy) "was the crucifixion of an African lion. "He realised that Carthage and all she stood for would have to be destroyed—utterly He understood at least that there - could never be an honourable peace with a people such as these Carthaginians." Plutarch's "Hannibal" brought to life; with as sure a patient a touch as Mr. Lindsay's in "Rome for Sale," this book is an immense battle scene with Hannibal and Scipio in the foreground. And the subject, the cry of "Carthage delenda ost"—and its fulfilment, is one of the greatest in all history, the triumph of civilisation over barbarity. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows:—General: "Vienna Diary," by N. Mitchison; "T. E. Lawrence," by Liddell Hart; "Beasts, Men and Gods," by F. A. Ossendowski; "Charles Parsons," by R. Appleyard; "Lions, Gorillas, and Their Neighbours," by C. and M. L. . Akeley; "Tho Ape and the Child," by W. N. and L. x^ellogg; "Dry-fly Fishing," by R. C Bridgett. Fiction: "The Wooing of the Queens," by E. Barrington; "Rivers Glide On," by A. H. Gibbs; "I, Claudius," by Robert Graves; "Altogether," by W. S. Maug-ham;-"The Man from Whitehall," by J. M. Walsh; "We Go Round," by M. M. Price; "Scrambled Yeggs," by 0. R. Cohan; "A Make-and-Mend," by "Bartimeus."