NEW BOOKS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 689, 15 November 1933, Page 6

NEW BOOKS

EARLY VICTQRIANISM IN A MODERN NOVEL TRUMPETER, "SOUND ! In Trumpeter, Sound! (Hodder and Stoughton). Mr. D. L. Murr/ y takes us a long way back in more than one sense. The period is the for ies and fifties of the last century, but that means little ; early VictoFar ism has becomc more 01* less fashionsoie lately, and several noveiists have gone to it for their storios. What is most remarkable about Mr. Murray 's story is that it is Victorian in tradition as well as in periou — rich dark plumcake by comparison with the "patisserie," dainty and attr a ctive-1 0 ok in ■ perhaps, but too often filled with white of egg masquerading as cream, wbich is commonly servtd to-uay. There is a- crowded stage, an exciting sub-plot, any amount of incident, an element of melodrama bandled with remarkable skill, a heroine from tbe ballet and a seducer from the peerage, a series of episodes from tbe particular "Great War" of the period which are really splendid, and some authentic Dickensian characters. Indeed, "Dickensiam" is tbe most suitable ad- ; jective to apply to tbe hook. The mixture of tenderness and humour in the treatment of O. Fawkes recalls the great Victorian at once. And the I opening characters are set in a London that Dickens would feel at home j in, and in which we do not think he • would find a single anachronism. That j brings us to another merit; it is rare to" find a novelist so steeped in the 1 ^tpiosphere pf his period. Mr, Mwr»

•;ay's London streets and theatres and ehop-houses, the barracks of the Mermries at Ranalow, and the battlefields of the Crimea are all equally convincing. The sordidness and squalor of the lives of tbe poor, and the solid comfort of these raised even a iitt'le above the level of poverty, are axcellently bvought out,. Mr. Murray has a very large share of one of Dicken's gifts; he can make one smack ono's lips over a clerk's steak at Frost's or a small shopkeeper's muffi1.-.- in the parlour over tbe sbop. Through these scenes move Mark Woodrofe and Fancy Fawkes, as harmiiig a hero and heroine as we could wish for, though Mr. Murray has been ungallant enough to make the lady the senior by seven years. Mark was supposed to be the son of the keeper at Crockett's but, as we discover early, was in fact the illegicimate son of the keeper's late master, Lord Blackwater. Fancy was the daug'hter of a deligbtful seller of toy theatres, with whom Mark, when brought up to London to earn his living, was sent to lodge. How Mark took tbe shilling and enlisted in the Mercuries, in which his half-brother Lord Blackwater chanced to be an officer, how chance drew Blackwater and Fancy together, and how the two men fared in the Crimea is the main plot. But there is another and a very exciting one in which the chief parts are played by Blackwater and Colonel Pauloff", secretary to the Russian Embassy. It is concerned with the "Apparition of the Unknown Mounted j Officer" at the Alma to which Kinglako devotes an appendix, and provides a solution to the riddle of those orders which were born by Captain Kolan to General Lord Lucan, and which resulted in the charge of the Light Brigade. Mr. Murray is to be congratulated on his achievement, a hook which marries literary distinction and enough excitement for three ordinary novels.