A Literary Log

Southland Times, Issue 21091, 24 May 1930, Page 13

A Literary Log

ROLLED BY lOTA.

THE REAL SOLDIER. When “Her Privates We” first appeared, it was generally believed that the author, who hid his identity under the mystic Private 19022, was Sir Siegfried Sassoon, but it has been revealed since that this powerful story of warfare from the point of view of the man in the ranks of the British Army has come from the pen of Frederick Manning, who has five others of distinguished quality to his credit (though I confess I know none of them). Manning served with the Shropshires and since the war has been living in Austria. Colonel T. E. Lawrence, of “The Revolt In The Desert,” was the first to discover the identity of the writer whose work he had always admired. Manning declined to let Davies publish this book until Davies had agreed to issue a private unexpurgated edition. The need for this is apparent, but where practically id! the impolite vulgarities of the language are used badly, where the indecencies of expression are set out unblushingly and obscenities are hinted at so blatantly', it is furprising that the publisher should find it necessary to use straight lines and collections of asterisks to hide words that are in the dictionary, and while extremely offensive are not within the limits of the section dealing -with obscene language. Why all this "bad language” is necessary in war books I do not know. Shakespeare has spoken of the soldier filled with strange oaths, but it is not correct to say that (he habit of ornamenting speech with these restricted words is confined to fighting men. Go anywhere where common men are gathered together for periods without any restraining influence and you will hear this language. Perhaps the chasms dividing the social strata of England have been so wide that writers meet their brother Englishmen for the first time in khaki. The war undoubtedly protects the author who introduces these bits of realism from the storm of condemnation which will overwhelm him if they appear in a book dealing with peaceful industrial life, and yet this strong language is as true of peace as it is of war. Manning has turned out a book worth a dozen “AH Quiets.” One may be unjust to Remarque in not understanding the psychology of the German soldier, but I am convinced from other books I have read and from a general impression of Germans and of warfare that Remarque’s book, though an honest attempt, was not true. “Her Privates We” on the other hand rings true in every detail. Written in the third person and using Bourne, an educated man ■who has elected to refuse a commission and fight in the ranks, as the central figure, it reveals the British fighting man as no other book I know of has done. Here is a revelation of that new world, built in the fiery spaces of conflict, essentially a man’s world for in it women are incidents, ministering angels if you like, but things to be set aside when the real business of this world is taken in hand. The comradeship of the company, the jealousy, the little spitefulnesses that arise out of clashing ambitions, the companionship of complaint, the brotherhood of simple pleasure, that loyalty which assists men to dodge work when they can, these are all part of the life in the battle zone. But they change, they are refined though not entirely lost when Ihe companv goes into the line. One sees too something of the terrible ravages of war and the extraordinary recuperative powers of men who are physically fit. Manning too, shows the bewilderment, the mental unbalancing of modern warfare • under the persistent pressure of danger, but more so under the continual shocks of noise, eruptions of earth, and the swift apparition of death. At the same time one sees the extraordinary results of training, the steadving effects of responsibility. Non coms retain their senses, their grip of order much longer than the private who has been taught to rely on his senior man. And in this whirling tumult the ranks, though widely separated, remain cohesive because there are individual islands of discipline about which the other elements gather. Manning is superior to Remaroue because the artist in him is never obtrusive. Remarque gave the impression always of writing for effect, of writing with a purpose—to pile up the horrors and explain the effects of modern warfare on man. If Manning was guided by a similar project he has hidden it. This book is a plain, searching, convincing picture of a slice of the war beginning with the remnants of a company coming out. of the opening stages of the Somme offensive and going back into the cauldron of the muddy fighting about the Ancre. The book opens with a vivid picture of exhausted men marching from the fight: As they were approaching the tents a crump dropped by the mule lines. That set them swaying a little but not much. ’ Captain Malet called them to attention a little later; and from the tents camp details, cooks, snobs and a few unfit men gathered in groups to watch them with a sympathy, genuine enough but tactfully aloof; for there is a gulf between men just returned from action and those that have not been in the show as unbridgable as that between the sober and the drunk. Captain Malet Jialted his men. by the orderly room tent. There was even a pretence to dress the ranks. Then he looked at them and they at him for a few seconds which seemed long. They were only shadowy in the. darkness. “Dismiss!”

His voice was still pitched low, but they" turned with almost the precision of troops on the square, each rifle was struck smartly, the officer saluting; and then the will which bound them together dissolved, the enervated muscles relaxed and they lurched off to their tents as silent and dispirited as broken men.

In .a few days they are restored and with the new drafts corning Jn, the work of refitting is taken in hand. The gossip of the army, heavily laden with rumour, and the continual appraisement of officers, become the features of life behind the lines. About Bourne are grouped a series of portraits so vivid as to leave one astonished at the uncanny power of the author. He has drawn from life of course but he has transferred living men to his pages hot sketchy shadows of them. In this , tremendous welter of detail there is nothing obscure, nothing fanciful, nothing artificial. Manning has written the finest war book yet produced from the British side and those who want to understand something of modern warfare when civilians are drafted into the army and made into fighting men, should read 'it.. “Her Privates We” is published by Peter Davies, London.

STAGE FOLK. The universality of the theatre is revealed in Jo van Ammers-Kuller’s story of the stage in Holland. A serious constructional weakness of this extremely interesting study is that it sets out with the obvious intention of revealing Jenny Hey-, sten, the youthful daughter of an im-' poverished but severely aristocratic family, and ends by being a merciless exposition of life behind the footlights. If the theatre in Holland is regarded as the principal theme of this novel, the long introduction of Jenny Heysten and her family tree is unnecessary; and if Jenny' is the chief subject she fails to hold the author’s interest/ to the end. Apart from this, however, “The House of Joy” is a book written with biting frankrtess, distinguished by a knowledge of stage life only to be gained by first-hand experience. Eliminating the Dutch names, and the heavy emphasis put on the opposition of antagonism separating the aristocratic families and the theatre people, "The House of Joy” might be a study of stage life in Britain, in the United States, or in the dominions. There is the same peculiar admixture of comradeship and bitter jealousies, the high-spirited service to the profession and the blatant insincerity born of consummate egotism, the subordination of self in artistic endeavour and the calculating pursuits for the satisfaction of lust. The children of the theatre are the same the world over, and in these pages they' are displayed with a naturalism that is astonishingly consistent. Van AmmersKuller is a dispassionate writer, although she presents her story through the partial eyes of a woman who, first as an amateur and then as a professional, suffers the pangs of disillusionment. Greet Schepp as a young woman had come under the influence of Lucas Veraart, an actor whose ambitions run to the service of Art and not to the winning of popular acclaim at the hands of susceptible audiences; but she was one of those unfortunates who possess all the equipment of great histrionism without the capacity' to project her powers across the footlights. Her discovery of Jenny Heysten, therefore, opened a new opportunity for her and largely through her encouragement this daughter of the Heysten’s went to the theatre, first under a popular player and then as one of the company the great Veraart organized on democratic lines to present plays in accord with the noblest conceptions of dramatic art. lie accept Miss Schepp’s estimate that Jenny Heysten is - a great actress in the making, an artist of proved virtue and mighty promise, in whom Veraart' has unmitigated confidence. About him he has gathered players who, believing in him implicitly, willingly abandon the commercial theatre for service in this evangel. But it all fails. Veraart falls in love with Jenny, and loses all sense of loyalty to his fellows, and they,’ riddled by jealousies, embittered by thwarted ambitions, finally dethrone him and accept as leader the scion of an aristocratic house who can obtain financial backing. Jenny is a hard, ambitious creature, who is prepared to use anybody as a ladder. There is instability among them. Veraart’s love for Jenny is a temporary affair and his grief when he learns that she worships the artist, and not the man in him, is really histrionism, so acutely realistic that it deceives and pleases him. • Greet Schepp is ’the victim of this failure, but even mhe recognizes that! another call from' Veraart will carry her back to the falsities of "The House of Joy” again. This book abounds in shewd studies, which gain in strength from the reticence of the author, and though one may single out Jenny as a brilliant characterization, actually every figure in the book is a complete picture. "The House of Joy” :is s published by E. P. Dutton and Co., New T ork. INDIA. Richard Dangerfield was visiting southern India with his wife, Elaine, when he met Daphne. Fernandez, the daughter of a plantation overseer, and fell under the spell of her power. This is the opening of Mrs F. E. .Penny’s strange story of superstition, and mysticism, “The Wishing Stone.” The incidents of the story are centred on a queer bottle green stone in which red lights appear. It is a stone believed by the Indians to have wonderful properties in helping people to attain their wishes. After he has received it from Singara, Dangerfield passes through strange adventures and is brought in contact with awful ceremonies associated with the mystic beliefs of that India which remains beyond the ken of most Europeans. Mrs Penny’s aim is to picture the tremendous power of superstition among the Hindus and the effect it has on Europeans who fall under its spell. Dangerfield emerges from his experiences a little bewildered, but back in England they fade into memories, and he begins to wonder whether they were not dreams after all. This story could be written convincingly only by someone who understands India, and this Mrs Penny does. It is one of the most effective of her novels of life in India, and it has a more powerful grip than her “The Swami’s Curse,” which I still remember as a story which left a marked impression of her exextraordinary knowledge of the native. "The Wishing Stone” comes to me from the publishers, Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, London. A WOMAN IN LOVE. I think I have remarked before that it is a pity Miss Georgette Heyer has transferred the settings of her latest novels to modern times, because, while these are certainly psychologically interesting and could never be classified amongst the average, this writer first earned notice through her “costume” novels, which have won for her a large following. There is a freshness and lightness of touch in her earlier works which seem to forsake her as soon as-she dips into modern times. “Helen,” “Georgette,” “Pastel” and “Instead of the Thorn” presented more significant problems; but then how many of the modern novels are doing that! It is not everyone, however, who can write of powdered wigs and adventure and laces and r.uffles as charmingly as the author of ‘"These Old Shades,” for instance, or “The Masquerader.” , This customary protest over, I am obliged to confess that "Barren Corn” (taken from the same lines of Swinburne, by the way, that prompted the title of Tennyson Jesse’s “Bitter Bread”) is a disappointing novel in more than one way. Its major characters are not convincing, and even us psychological studies seem to lack truth. It is the story of a meeting on the Riviera between

Laura Burton and Hugh Salinger, .the beautiful shop-girl and a scion of a noble family with an eye for beauty —but not in a shop girl. His hesitancy is finally overcome, however, and he persuades her, much against her prudence but in accord with her heart, to marry him. The qualms he ha* about her middle-class gentility are not serious during the months they remain in Italy; but when he is recalled to England the gulf between her people at Brixton and his own, country born, becomes m6re apparent. To. Hugh it becomes a matter of making ■the best of an awkward situation; but Laura’s love is made of finer stuff than that, and she takes the. only way out. This is a depressing book, similar in many ways to fits predecessor, “Instead of the Thorn.” Its author does succeed in making . one very sympathetic for woman’s lot, and perhaps that was what she wanted. My copy from Longman’s, Green and Co., the publishers. SAWDUST. There are no more picturesque a community than the fisher folk of the East Coast of Scotland, looking out on the cold North Sea. Peter F. Anson, a member of the English, family with seafaring traditions, has a book about them appearing with Dent. He is both author and illustrator, and it is the outcome of many years of observation and work. He deals with the history .and methods of Scottish fishing, from the primitive Fair-Isle skiff to the up-to-date Aberdeen trawler. Lady Cecile Goff has edited the letters of "A Woman of the Tudor Age,” for publication by John- Murrav. The woman is Katherine Willoughby, who, at the age of 14, was married, as his fourth wife, to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. When she became a widow at 26 she showed sympathy for many of the leading reformers, notably Latimer. During the Marian persecutions she and her second husband, Richard Bertie, were" forced to flee lb the Continent. Some of her leters are dated from there, and they all give an interesting picture of life in Tudor times with its lights and shades, .