Books Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 363, 25 May 1928, Page 14

Books Reviewed

OLD BRIGHTON BEACH Mrs Henry Dudeney comes cordially recommended by her publishers “for a breath of Sunny Sussex.” But her latest book, “Brighton Beach,” though skilfully and pleasantly written, tells rather of the sighs of gloomy Sussex. The ending is tragic and pathetic: and if only it came at the end, one could enjoy the story well enough. But Mrs Dudeney has adopted the original scheme of writing the ending at the beginning, to be precise, at the end of Chapter 4; and thereafter, not

only does the plot move backward instead of forward, but it is completely overshadowed by the tragedy of the ending. One would be interested to read what Penelope made of her life after 40; but when the truth is already out, and one has patiently to follow her career from the age of eight, the story loses much of its power. As a character Penelope Wilson is less convincing than some of the others, particularly aunts and elderly women, who are excellently portrayed. The writing is good throughout, though a little apt to suggest that people talk in epigrams, which they seldom do. “Brighton Beach.” Mrs Henry Dudeney. Wm. Collins Sons and Co., Ltd. Our copy from the publishers. Missed Fire The setting Ireland; the subject a disputed will. Surely there is the material for a typically amusing novel of Irish life. But no. John Mackay has missed fire in “Kilrinka.” There is nothing, or very little, typical of Ireland, and little or nothing which is humorous unless our sense of humour has suddenly deserted us. And yet there should be something diverting in “Kilrinka.” Briefly, the story tells of a wealthy and mysterious benefactor who leaves a fortune to the town of Kilrinka for the benefit of the townspeople. Two opposing factors engage in a deal of intrigue as to who shall control the fortune. After a great deal of pother, in which nobody gets anywhere, the will proves to be a fake. That is the most amusing thing about the book. “Kilrinka.” Our copy comes direct from the publishers, Methuen and Co., Ltd., London. A New Zealander’s Poems Here, in a little blue-bound book of 80 pages, poems written during the past six or seven years by Walter D’Arcy Cresswell, a New Zealander, now in England. There is poetry in this small book, honest and sharp and individual. It ebbs and flows; it falters and miscarries and is marred, the worst jarring sometimes against the

best; it is rarely sustained, clear and strong, through the length of a poem, and. then only in short ones; but the accent of poetry is not to be mistaken. There is more meaning in that common phrase than it sometimes bears. Mr. Cresswell is shaping for himself a poetic style, an idiom in which the words guarantee the integrity of the thought, the thought must clothe itself in those words to be the

poet’s own, and no other. As we see it, in those most successful passages which prophesy future mastery of it, it is an idiom spare and supple, strong in its perpetual direct touch with the rich, beautiful earth through old, sensitive, simple English words; and—let us run the risk of being misunderstood and thought to say more than we mean—it seems as if some few strands from the myriad rainbow strands of Shakespeare, as if some strands of Keats and of W. H. Davies, were giving it colour. Poems (1921-1927 L Walter D'Arcy Cresswell. Wells, Gardner, Darton, and don EC 4 3 Paternoster Buildings, LonPoignant War Diary Out of the Great War has grown a vast library of literature, most of which, particularly the dry and often dismal array of facts and events, is soon forgotten. Some day historians and seekers for the real truth of the war and its effect on the young men who went into its maelstrom will turn to the soldier’s diary. One of these volumes will be Hugh Quigley’s “Passchendaele and the Somme,” which Is perhaps the most sincere and beautiful thing which has grown from the horror and desolation of war. Quigley is both artist and writer. His poignantly written letters, unaltered since the days of the Somme, have still the feeling of war about them. This diary is no marshalling of facts, weary repetition of the areas won and lost or of the number of killed and wounded. It is the emotional side of war the effect of horror and waste and fear through the eyes and mind of a sensitive human being. Quigley gives us war’s beautiful side too, in glowing pages written when nerves had almost reached breaking point. Behind the lines in rest billets among quiet orchards and old farmhouses he found the beauty which restored him to a reasonable level again. Here is a paragraph, chosen at random, from his living record of an artist-soldier. He is on his way to the trenches: Dusk came suddenly and darkness so clear against the horizon that a near hill seemed to lead to a great sea of mystery, immaterial as a dream. Behind us the road was a winding snake of many jewels, buses succeeding one another at regular intervals; occasionally we passed an obscurely lighted chateau or estaminet, the walls and facades vaguely splendid in the uncertain light. I don’t know how long we travelled thus, but it stirred all the most romantic imaginings, this journey across a desert country once inhabited and cultivated, now a wilderness starred with holes or crowned with lonely groups of white crosses and strewn with the ruins of houses. Bapaume was a gaping wreck, not a house but lay open to the winds; yet in the orchard were apples and pears; flowers hung over the deserted and desecrated garden. In the grey dawning we came, spent and weary, to this village abandoned by the Germans in March to the flames. But memory will cleave to that vision of serpent-lik.e road coming through a grey monotone of desert country, memory of beauty seen in a finer rebirth. “Passchendaele and the Somme, a diary of 1917.” Our copy comes direct from the publishers, Methuen and Co., Ltd., London. Rustling Rustlers We are Introduced to the hero as he stops a runaway coach in which is the heroine. The ranch of the heroine’s father Is being “rustled” by a gang attached to the adjoining property, owned by a typical villain. The hero, with the aid of a Greaser “pard,” sets to work rustling the rustlers, and with increasing success, though he is in considerable danger, an accusation of murder having been levelled against him. To the thrill of gallops and gunshots, the reader is whirled through this exciting Western romance; that is, provided he allows himself to be so treated. “The Boss of the Tumbling H,” by Frank C. .Robertson; W. Collins, Sons and Co., Ltd. Our copy from the Auckland house, Wyndham Street. A Queen of Clubs Another thriller comes from the pen of Hulbert Footner, who tells of an heiress, too carefully guarded, who, on the day she attains her majority, dismisses her attorney, her servants and her relatives, and runs her New York mansion on ideas that have run to riot as the result of years of sup-

pression. One of her investments is a night club, which, as the “Millionaire Baby,’* she makes notorious. Under the guidance of a “kindly,” paternal friend, who is in reality a scheming old rascal, Carola makes life a ceaseless jazz, angrily deaf to the warnings of a Senator cousin. She falls in love with an Adonis-like person, who has been thrown across her path in accordance with a scheme to exploit her wealth; but this adventurer reforms himself (it plainly pays him to do so!) and after the murder of the cousin and the suicide of the elderly villain: “Come up to my own room,” she said. She led the way to the charming sitting room in front of the building. Flowers filled it, as usual ,and there was a leaping fire in the grate. As he had just left a prison cell, after narrowly escaping the electric chair, on the false charge of having murdered Carola’s cousin, the invitation must have been most acceptable.

“Queen of Clubs,” by Hulbert Footner; W. Collins, Sons and Co., Ltd. Our copy from the Auckland house, Wyndham St.