Books Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 369, 1 June 1928, Page 14

Books Reviewed

SUSAN GLASPELL There is something of the same compelling power about the work of Miss Susan Glaspell that one finds in the novels of the Dutch master, Louis Couperus. In “Brook Evans,” produced by the new publishing house, Victor Gollancz, Ltd., -we glimpse four generations. Miss Glaspell handles a difficult task with consummate ease and commendable frankness. Several unusual phases of life occupy her attention. One of them, indeed, we do not recollect having met before in a modern novel. Brook Evans, who was what an older generation delighted to term a love-child —her father being killed before her birth—was reared by her mother and adoptive father in Colorado, where she spent her rather dull girlhood, ultimately fleeing from a situation, brought about by her mother, which might have ended in a similar fashion to the attachment which had brought her into being. Later we meet Brook, widowed and with one son, and follow with interest a lightning courtship which spell 3 the end of widowhood. The novel is original in treatment, revealing a full and sympathetic understanding of men and women and completely free from mawkishness, clichds and the irritating features that one finds in far too many of the hast-ily-written modern works of fiction. Miss Glaspell's studies of Caleb Evans, the Calvinistic father, Naomi his wife—potentially a great lover and an utterly tragic figure—and Brook Evans on whom the story pivots, are vital and powerful. No puppets here. Brook Evans’s emotion on hearing of her rather forbidding step-father’s abnegation is one of the fine moments in a book that is full of good things. “Brook Evans.” Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. “Nonsericks”

Derek McCulloch, who, Mr. A. P. Herbert informs us, is “Uncle Mac” of the British Broadcasting Company, has, with Mr. Ernest Noble, produced a volume of Nonsericks and Colourlarfs. The Nonserick may he a nonsense limerick (Mr. McCulloch is good with these) or it may be a verbal ollapodrida which starts off with a discussion on pork pies, leads abruptly into the higher realms oi mathematics and dallies a moment or so with the finer points of a blood-sausage before dashing off at a tangent into a tabloid essay on the advantages of silk stockings for charladirs or the excitements of the chase for three-headed niblickbirds. [Very rare in this state!] Mr. McCulloch (or Uncle Mac) has been very fortunate in his illustrator. Mr. Noble (or is it Uncle Ernest?) has a glorious sense of the ridiculous. “Nonsericks.” Methuen and Co., Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers. Wonderful Burglars Further exploits of The Crimson Clown are related by Johnston MeCulley, who sets the stage for several scenes of ingenious burglary. The Crimson Clown is a master of swift skill in relieving other people of their valuables —but he robs only criminals and gives half the proceeds to charity, so that even the goodly may approve of his cleverness. He is most amazing when he works with a detective at his elbow, as it were, his red cloak of disguise being assumed in a second and destroyed in less. These exploits place a heavy burden on credulity, but their telling -is of interest none the less. Stories of an almost identical type are those relating to the burglarious exploits of “The Picaroon.” Ihis gentleman also works under the noses of detectives, and “gets away with it.” He differs from the gentleman of the red cloak only in his method of disguise and in a slight modification in the disposal of stolen property —the goods being returned to owners upon their paying 10 per cent of value to “the Society for the Protection of Animals.” “The Crimson Clown Again,” by Johnston McCuiley; “The Picaroon Does Justice,” by Herman Landon; Cassell and Company. Our copies from the Sydney agents. The Communist Schoolboy If New Zealand schools were run on the lines of those in Soviet Russia, with children’s mass meetings every few hours of the day. we can imagine Euclid being declared “black,” Shakespeare being execrated as a bourgeois, and the hours, 9.30 to 3.30, being set aside exclusively for football practice. Mr. N. Ognyor, who is also known as Mikhail Grigoryevitch Rozanov, has written “The Diary of a Communist: Schoolboy.” We are not told whether the work is satirical and intended for circulation outside Russia or serious and intended to show the muchvaunted development of the individual about which we read so much in Soviet literature. To the eyes of the general reading public the book must appear as an amusing, if grim, commentary on the Communist regime The idiocy and futility of it all, with teachers and children interminably ar-

guing points of procedure—like village councillors discussing the idiosyncrasies of the traditional pump—make one wonder if it is possible that human beings can be so preposterously, grotesquely childish; so smugly illogical. The diary is an unusual book. Let us take one extract. A group-meet-ing has been called in the lecture room: We had a talk about nicknames. Some of the girls have several nicknames. There is one girl with four: Dog, Gut, Veteran and Cabbage. We had a long discussion

and finally decided to stop using any nicknames if the owner objected to it. . .

It was all taken down in writing. Now I think this is all intellectualism. They call me Goat, but I don’t care in the least. “Veteran-called-Cabbage” would be pleased, at all events! “The Diary of a Communist Schoolboy.” Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 14 Henrietta Street, London. Our . copy from the publishers. Real Japan. Ellen Forrest, a Dutchwoman, has written a book in which she tries to tell her readers something of the real Japan, not the picturesque land of many writers, but Japan as it really is: civilised on top, but underneath, ages behind the West. There is not much cherry blossom in this translation, but the reader feels that there is probably a good deal of truV'i. Yuki San is a- most convincing character, doing her best to be modern, but quite unable to rebel against the traditions of her country. Her brother, the young Japanese who has visited Europe, and has seen that the impenetrable selfsatisfaction of the Japanese is not justified by fact or history, is also well-drawn. The large number of Japanese words, complete with asterisks, scattered through the book, compel a rather fatiguing attention to the footnotes. But this is a small price to pay for an unusual degree of satisfaction. “Yuki San.” Kllen Forrest. Jonathan Cape, Ltd. Our copy from the publishers. An Unusual Novel. It is a strange story that is told in “All or Nothing,” the latest of the long list of novels by Mr J. D. Beresford. It is the story of the regeneration of a millionaire who, apparently, had not a single besetting sin! James Bledloe, born to wealth and high social position, did not gamble, or drink, or frequent night-clubs; he did not interest himself in sport, literature, or politics; in short, he did not do anything that a man of leisure might be expected to do. He married a distant relative whose character was not untarnished, and who was afterwards unfaithful to him; and at last, in his middle-age, he realised the ideal which he had been vaguely pursuing

most of his life: the necessity of leading, instead of his colourless, negative life, a life of preparation for the life beyond. He made over his property to the tenants from whom his income was drawn, and became a cobbler in Camden Town, that in his poverty he might use the spiritual force he had discovered within him to fit himself and others for Eternity. His greatest triumph, of course, was the conversion of his wife. This peculiar story, unmarked by high lights, or by any swift flow of action, is evidently the outcome of a deep study of psychology, which has led the author to relate humanity to the spiritual influence behind mortal life. Not by any means light reading. “All or Nothing.” J. D. Beresford. Wm. Collins Sons and Co., Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers. An Epic Poem The new publishing house of Gollancz has announced that it will issue each year a few volumes of poety; that the standard it has imposed on itself is a high one and that from that standard it will not depart. If “Tris-

tram,” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, is an indication of what Messrs. Gollancz have in store for us, we have reason to rejoice. It is an heroic poem recording the ageless story of Tristram and Isolt in lines that for their simplicity and beauty can only be described as masterly. This narrative poem is long, and past experience of the narrative poem has taught us that it frequently causeth the bones to dry. Not so here. The skill and splendid technique of Mr. Robinson, and his unerring sense of wordvalues, make the reading of “Tristram” a joy.. A poem that should be in every verse-lover’s collection. “Tristram.” Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London.