RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22836, 21 March 1936, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

"I'reedom, Farewell 1" By Phyllis Bentley (Gollancz). 10s. _ . " Christina." By Claude Houghton (Helne"""silas Crockett." By Mary Ellen Chase (Collins). .. _ _ , " Gretchea Discovers America." By Helenc "Miss Tiverton's Shipwreck." By Rosemary Rces (Chapman and Hall). • -.,.„, "Down the Sky." By Margaret D Arcy ""crime Counter Crime." By B. C. R. Lorac (C « The C House that Chak Built." By Keith West (Jenkins). , , .. (Each 7s, unless otherwise stated.) Animated History Misa Phyllis Bentley has one of the first qualifications of the historical novelist—an ability to extract a lively narrative out of the dry bones of the past. S'he achieves it admirably in "Freedom, Farewell! " and without doing too much violence to the facts which still linger in the minds of those of her readers whose familiarity with the classics lies behind them. It is not always easy to take from the past—even the eventuful days oi Cfesar and the Senate, Pompey, Brutus, Cato, Cassius, and Anthony—characters in whose personal fortunes the modern reader can feel a genuine interest, but this also Miss Bentley has contrived to do. There will be those who will knit their brows over Miss Bentley's Cffisar, but after all she is just as entitled to her interpretation of this rather illusory character as many a more authoritative scribe. At least she scores with her women. Cresar's mistress and his daughter are characters who will electrify the attention. If we are to believe Miss Bentley, " cherchez la femme " was nearer the solution of the great man's strange fortunes than history seems to wot ot. For animated reading, improved, perhaps, by the transmutation of the dialogue from the past to the present, one can safely recommend "Freedom, Farewell." The Author Phyllis Eleanor Bentley was born in Halifax, Yorks, in 1894, the only daughter of a cloth manufacturer, and educated at Cheltenham College, taking a degree at London University in 1914. During the war she was first an infant teacher, then did secretarial work in the Ministry of Munitions. Her first writings, which appeared at this time, she describes as "better forgotten." After some years of library work and journalism she wrote "The Spinner of the Years," the first of a series of West Riding novels, which made her reputation. She still lives in Yorkshire. Her recreations are badminton, tennis, and walking. " Christina "

Mr Houghton's novel depends on suspense for its effectiveness. In so far as the author fails, in a work of this sort, to keep the reader irresistibly conjecturing upon the outcome, he fails of his purpose. And the inherent weakness of " Christina" i s that any normally astute reader will know the outcome of the story before he has read thirty pages—or wiU know, at least, what Peter Brand spends 260 pages of the reader's time trying to find out. Brand's wife has died, and he is desolated by grief. Then he finds some love letters which she had locked in a drawer. He is half demented _ by the discovery, and sets out among his wife's Bohemian friends, whom he had always refused to meet, to track her lover. The author makes of Brand's search among an unusual and neurotic section of London society an interesting tale. He is, ii readers of other« among his novels will know, a writer of no mean ability. But " Christina " has that flaw, an anticipated climax, which goes very far to limit appreciation of scenes well done in themselves. Four Generations "Silas Crockett" may hardly satisfy those who demand a well-laid plot, carefully brought to an exciting climax, in their novels. Of plot there is really none, and continuity exists only in the relationships, traced through four generations, of the characters who at varying periods occupy the front of the stage. Rather does the story set out to portray life in succeeding generations, over the course of a century, on the Maine waterfront. The rise of the shipping industry, its proud eminence as an integral part of commerce, its decline through the fierceness of competition both from within and without, are traced with an intimacy which gives evidence of painstaking, research. The people, whose lives, ashore and afloat, are filled with colourful incidents, are pictured with a kindliness that is both rare and informative. Discovering America Gretchen explains the charm of her own impressions of the United States when she writes to her friend Mitzi, "I do not touch any liquor here. It is far too bad. I brought my own intoxication with me.. They call it sentiment here, but they do not know how to enjoy it." There is the mild exhilaration which some people obtain from light wine, others from impressions of new places and faces, in the page a of "Gretchen Discovers America." The author, a young Austrian writer of some reputation, visited the United States on a lecture tour, which seems to have taken her through many of the colleges in the length and breadth of the land. Reading the letters that comprise her book, one must conclude, without undue curiosity, that they are her letters and her experiences first, and those of the "Gretchen" of her tale second. They have a vivacity and spontaneity which cannot fail to attract many readers. By Rosemary Rees It was undoubtedly "Miss Tiverton's Shipwreck." True, there were other survivors from the rather second-class steamer that broke a tail-shaft and had to be abandoned, and nine of them landed with Lucy Tiverton on an island in the Marquesas group. But it was Miss Tiverton, no longer young, and not romantic (in appearance at least), who carried off most of the honours when the strangely-assorted little company found itself forced to live off the land, and evolve its own workable social code. It would be difficult to write with great originality about the situation Miss Rees has visualised for her new novel. The theme is time-honoured and even stale, but Miss Rees gives it a few new twists. and. emphasises the feminine view of castaway life. Her writing is smooth and spiced with humour, and her dialogue is ever sprightly. As for Miss Tiverton, even those who are not natuially attracted by spinster ladies will make an exception in her case, and rejoice in her rewards. Lover* Miss Margaret D'Arcy does very well to make such a readable book out of her first novel. "Down the Sky." Invention rather than imagination has helped her to conceive this story of a middleaged widow who falls in love with a man very much younger than herself—-

almost young enough, in fact, to be her son. The trouble is that neither the woman nor her callous lover sustains coherence for more than a chapter at a time, and in the hesitating uncertainty of the end of their grand passion, there ig more than a suggestion that the whole affair was a good deal more evanescent than the author intended at the outset. It is the old quarrel of invention versus experience. Imagination might have been expected to do better, but even such a virtue needs a bulwark of experiment.

Murder and Politics "Crime Counter Crime" is a mystery story with a political background. Although this background is essential to the tale, it is not very useful to the development of interest, nor especially interesting in itself—perhaps because the murder of an extreme radical on the eye of an election is so rare an event in British politics as to seem beyond the bounds of credibility. But E. C. R. Lorac's story lias other unacceptable features. The attempt to dispose of the dead man's car was amateurish, the drugging of a watchman and burial of a body in a roadway in the course of reconstruction would have been, to say the ienst, difficult and risky. The romantic element is quite unconvincing, and the London scenes approach the fantastic. The book is a mediocre performance, if not without ingenuity.

Chinese Mystery " The House that Chak Built " does not satisfy one. The book possesses an involved enough plot, an amount of jejune romance, a modicum of excitement — basis enough for an acceptable novel—but no vigour, vivacity, or compulsion. The threads are slowly woven in a village of the interior of modern China.. A young man. Chak Shao, builds there a mansion, amid the gossipings and prattle of the natives; a murder takes place, and Kung. local poet and litterateur, assumes the role of detective, aided bv the apophthegms of Confucius and his irrepressible step-son, Ming So. In conjunction with the wideawake police of the new China. Kung travels to the city, and there unravels the mystery of the murder. Incidentally he uncovers many intrigues which, for the good of China, were best brought to light. V. V. L.