Books to Read and Books to Keep

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12609, 20 November 1926, Page 12

Books to Read and Books to Keep

(Reviews hy

R.A.L.)

“AMERICAN SOUNDINGS” That big journalist and man of letters, J. St. Loe Strachey, formerly editor of the English “Spectator,” has been a-sail in Yankee waters. He has returned from the trip with a volume of impressions entitled (rather happily) “American Soundings” (Hodder and Stoughton), and readable impressions they are. That you must admit, even though you (or some of you) will not agree with Mr Strachey’s conclusions, the author’s inherent kindliness and benign culture may help to account for .iis critical benevolence and his seeming desire to be “nice” to his hosts. His book will surely enjoy an excellent Press in the States. The irrepressible H. L. Menchen, who comes obliquely under the almost apologetic Insh. may make that a pretext for vitriolic reaction; but Americans generally will greet the author with “Attaboy!” For iie speaks in suave approval of this State or that; of this national figure or that. Despite the Sunday “comics” and the fierce jargon of the sports pages and the “streamered” daily sensation, Mr Strachey can find pleasure in American “slang”; he regrets indeed, that he knew so little of it. His chapter on American women is studiously diplomatic and courteous, and is of small value because of that. His views on Prohibition are more emphatic. Among other results he finds, (1) that “To put it with brutal plainness Prohibition, in spite of its pathetically innocent origin, is in effect proving a school for crime”; (2) that “the corner-stone of anti-Prohibition is corruption in various forms, and its chief form is corruption of the police” ; •and (3) that “Prohibition has lately turned millions of American beer-drink-ers and drinkers of light wines into drinkers of spirits.” So much for Mr Strachey’s opinion of the Volstead Act.

“If I were to bo asked what,” he •writes, “as the result of my Soundings, I think the greatest thing in modern Amerioa, I should say without hesitation—the splendid and growing manifestations of the University spirit. . . . America (he adds), as a nation, has not onlv seen in the abstract that the great, the consuming want of the world is knowledge, but has achieved a practical application of her vision.” Xowhere in this work does Mr Strachey impress more than in the sections devoted to the university spirit. His dissertations on American literature, national prejudices, the American newspapers, and the “average American” are not startingly illuminating, but we are in cordial agreement with the author in his estimate of Mencken’s “Americana,” which, Being interpreted, means the washing of “dirty linen.” Those clippings from smalltown journals are, as Mr Strachey rightly puts'it, “no more ‘representative American’ ” than a dirty and neglected dust-bin in Chester Square is representative t>f the architectural charm of Belgravia.”

A FASCINATING FANTASY Those of the elect who enjoyed Ronild Fraser’s curious story, “The Flying Draper,” will surely be as interested in ins latest fantasy, “Flower Phantoms” (Jonathan tape, per WMiitcombe and Tombs). . Therein the author exploits with unusual skill the experiences of a superimaginative girl, a botanical student, in Kew Gardens. The girl’s insight opens gradually for her the secret world of the plants: a “mysterious region of ferqs, water-lilies and orchids, of moist warmth and scented silence.” Flowers and people change like dream- symbols until the climax is reached with an incursion into darkness, and Judy’s emergence in the body and experience of a plant. Mr Fraser has managed to make the incredible seemingly credible, and that in prose which is rarely other than vivid and colourful. “Flower Phantoms” is, indeed, extraordinarily clever.

ROSALIE EVANS The murder of Mrs hlvans on her Mexican farm attracted considerable public attention a few years ago. The circumstances that led to the tragedy are set forth in the “Letters of Rosalie Evans” (Hodder and Stoughton, London), in a book edited by Mrs Perms. At her husband’s death —not without suspicious circumstances—the farm became the property of Mrs Evans. By that time Mexico had passed through a radical revolution, one outcome of which was the passing of a law confiscating landed property. It was the revolutionary result of the all-world struggle against land monopoly. Confiscation, according to this law, involved the payment of confiscation to the expropriated owners. But the compensation was never given. Mrs Evans stuck to her property, therefore, demanding justice, while all the other “haciendados” submitted to the inevitable. With rare and most extraordinary courage, she took on a fight against all Mexico. Her appeals to the British and American Government* failed—the one through the dislike of interfering with a foreign Government, and both through the machinations of concession seekers, who desired to avoid offending the Government of Mexico. Left to her own. resources, this brave and clever woman protracted tho struggle for her property for six long years. She battled with committees, generals, colonels, Indians, revolutionists, peasants—every sort of opposition. Promises were made to her in plenty, and never kept. Attempts were made on her life without making her swerve

from her determination to get justice. What fears she had, what panics, what discouragements, and how through ah she nursed her hope and held on to her farm—all this is told in straightforward language in these letters. Greater injustice, more insujting treatment, and,finer courage it would he difficult, to find in any other story. At last, as sho was taking home the pay for the workpeople on her place, she was waylaid and shot from the shelter of bushes by the wayside. The story is a good sidelight on tho ways of th©!'Mexicans now in power. It is admirably told, .and there is a fine portrait of the ill-used lady. ANNOTATIONS

“Hillsboro’ People” is the title of a yolutno of short stories by the talented Dorothy Canfield which was reviewed and commended in these columns a year or two ago. The publishers arc Jonathan Cope. Our copy comes through Whiteombe and Tombs.

Direct from the publishers, Harrop and Co., Ltd., come two additions to their natty tittle series, “Essays of To-

day and Yesterday.” The authors are the academic yet human Augustine Birrell and that uncompromising Radical A. G. Gardiner. Both writers are well worth reading. Most of us ure musical amateurs; that is to say, concert-goers and listeners. Here, for our further enlightenment, then, is "A First Glimpse of Great Music,” which, in a non-technical, straightforward and concise form, provides us with an introduction to a singularly delectable domain wlltcli so many regard' with awe. The author is J. H. Elliot, the publishers Blackio and Son, Ltd.

A characteristic example of the enterprise of tho Bodley Head house is a handsome volume embodying the stories, of “The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor,” retold and illustrated by S. G. Hulmo Bemnan. The format is seductive, the pictures, in especial the colour plates, calculated to stir the most sluggish imagination. It is a work on which- publishers and artist are entitled to congratulations.

“Crook Janes” (Stanley Paul) is the vulgar title of a string of yarns by Netlev Lucas dealing with the women of the underworld of various Continental capitals and elsewhere. Every female Raffles m this book (we arc assured) is living. That’s interesting—if true.