BOOKS REVIEWED.

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 205, 18 November 1927, Page 14

BOOKS REVIEWED.

BEVERLEY NICHOLS REVELS IN IT. PAGE 123 of “Are They- the Same at Home?”, Mr Beverley Nichols’s wide-awake book of personal studies: “I have no false modesty about asking obvious questions. If I had ever encountered M-s Beeton, I should have asked her if she suffered from indigestion.” Perhaps the quotation might just as well have stopped after the first five words; but in either form it is pleasantly revealing. It helps us to 3ee Mr Nichols as a young man who will not

b° «at on. wlio cannot be sat on. to whom people give in, resignedly, amusedly . . . And then, of course, he has them. He warms resignation into pleasure, and turns amused toleration into cheerful acceptance; for it is quite clear that he Is a very ready, perceptive, and engaging young man indeed. Tou imagine him—not exactly bowling up to men and women worth talking to, but “encountering” them, holding them (this attractive Young Marinere) with his bright eye and persuasive hand; and then they talk. They talk of exactly the things we want to hear about, and the Young Marinere knows exactly how to supplement what they say with little pointed, appetising bits of comment and information. How lucky we are! And how lucky Mr Nichols is, too— George Moore even writes him a free advertisement of his hook. “Dear Mr Beverley Nichols, —I would have written to you yesterday to thank you for your exquisitely-written article .... I do not remember any article that gave me the same aesthetic pleasure as yours. I hope that if you write any more of these articles you will publish them in a book.” This from 121 Ebury Street, that Olympian address! Here is the book. And here they are, his sixty men and women Here Mr Arlen. here is Senorita de Alvarez, here is Mr C. B. Cochran, or a Big Noise, here is Rose Macaulay, or a Cave Woman, here is Osbert Sitwell, or Poetry and Pose, here is Edgar Wallace, or the Burglar’s Friend. . . . Go on, read the book yourself. Qh, but on no account miss pp. J2l-325, where Rebecca West—in a film—“looked like a negro chief eating spaghetti against time,” where Mr Nichols called her a liar (he couldn’t think of anything else to say), and where the opening quotation is charmingly verified: About four years ago there appeared in a dull but very influential paper a review of a book which I had written about post-war Oxford. The review consisted chiefly of quotations from the more lurid parts of the work, but there was a pure gem of criticism at the end. As far as T remember, it read: “We are more than ever regretful, after studying this book, that corporal punishment has ceased to be fashionable in Oxford. It would probably have been Mr Nichols’s salvation.” The review was signed—"Rebecca West.” Bless her! “Are They the Same at Home?” Beverley Nichols. Jonathan Cape. Our copy from the publisher. Mind and Body From the learned pen of Hans Driesch, a German doctor of philosophy, comes “Mind and Body.” For Dr. Driesch it is claimed that he has played a leading part in the guiding of modern thought away from the accepted materialistic doctrines of the last three centuries, and this his teachings are based on a long period of brilliant biological study and experiment. Chiefly the work seeks to explain the relationship between mind and body, and' in a way that the author claims should enable every educated reader to follow his arguments. The translation is by Theodore Besterman. “Mind and Body: a Criticism of Psychophysical Parallelism,” by Hans Driesch, D.Phil.: Methuen and Co., Ltd., London. 'Our copy direct from the publishers. “Home” “He came in a receptive and an affectionate frame of mind, prepared to abnegate his prepossessions and postpone all his criticisms until he had made his observations; and he saw truths which many intelligent men never approach.” Thus Mr. J. C. Squire In a prefatory note to Mr. Alan Mulgan’s “Home: A New Zealander’s Adventure.” The adventure was a trip to England; an adventure made by many New Zealanders, but one not always so fruitful of experience and pleasure. The author tells in his opening chapter of the England he had pictured in his dreams since childhood and subsequent essays tell of the satisfaction of dreams-come-true. The New Zealander in London for the first time and seeing in grimy brick and stone all the history that has haunted his imagination at the other end of the world is seized with a sense of unreality. Surely some giant hand will close the book with these fascinating pictures and make an end to dreaming! Mr. Mulgan’s impressions of his first glimpses of London awaken old thrills. He paints glowing pictures, too, of Alfred’s Winchester, of Oxford and dreamy Cambridge, of Clovelly and Bideford, Devonshire jewels, of cricket at Lord’s—of all those places and things that mean so much to us who hold a share in British traditions. These slight essays are imbued with a quiet charm. Mr. Mulgan might, with good reason, lay claim to the invocation of Wilfrid Thorley’s conductor: Come board my speeding chariot that bears you for a brown or two From shire to shire , by bridge and spirCj from Lee to Muswell Hill. 1 pass by ancient palaces , I sweep across a doivn or wto: You’ll swear it’s worth a crown or two Before its wheels are still. A pleasant record, excellently produced and illustrated with five woodcuts by Clare Leighton. “Home: A New Zealander’s Adventure.’’ Our copy from the publishers, Longman’s Longmans, Green and and Co., Ltd., 39, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.4.

A “Sexophone” Player “Sex flowed all around her . . . sex unchecked . . . sex elemental . . . sex as free as the pollination of the fruit blossoms. ...” And so on for 278 pages of “Wild Orchard” which, for calling a spade a spade and discussing primitive passions has the candent romances of Spain, Sicily, Italy, France and Russia “beaten a mile.” The life story of the tempestuous Trina is red-blooded enough to suit the most modern of modern requirements. Ourselves, we are content with a little less truth in our fiction. “Wild Orchard,” by Dan Totheroh. Methuen and Co., Ltd., London.