Books Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 447, 31 August 1928, Page 14

Books Reviewed

A TALE OF RHODESIA A/TARGARET VENNING is a Rhodesian whom everyone will like. She is the heroine of Sheila Macdonald’s latest, story. We find her at the beginning, contentedly performing her tasks on the prosperous farm which she and her husband have developed. Along the road is “Three Kopjes,” the home of Mainwaring, a man detested in the district, which accounts him responsible for a girl’s disgrace and subsequent suicide. Tragedy comes to the Vennings’ doorway when it is revealed that the man of that house is the scoundrel for whose act Mainwaring has been blamed. The story goes on, a tale of vital interest to the end, when Venning makes the supreme sacrifice. With deft colourtouches, Mrs. Macdonald—as one would expect from her previous delightful books —gives the story a very real background of Rhodesia. It should not be necessary to point out, after the publicity that has been

given to the author of “Sally in Rhodesia,” that Mrs. Macdonald is a New Zealander. She lived for many years in Dunedin. “Margaret Venning, Rhodesian,” by Sheila Macdonald. Cassels. Our copy from Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., Auckland.

CONDEMNED. IN THE WHOLE RANGE of human emotions there is none so unfathomable as the misery of the convict condemned to penal servitude in French Guiana. Probably Mrs Blaire Niles has got nearer to plumbing those depths than anyone but convicts themselves. She went to French Guiana specially to study the most notorious penal settlement in the world, and the book which resulted from her visit is a terrible indictment of the penal system in French Guiana. Ever since the Dreyfus case the world has had some Ideas of the horrors of “Devil’s Island,” but it has not been realised widely that “Devil’s Island” is but one of a cycle of prisons in French Guiana, with much the same conditions pertaining in all of them. There has been, too, some assumption that after the Dreyfus case the lot of the prisoners there was Improved. If there has been an improvement, and if the picture drawn by Mrs Niles is true, the old conditions must have been ghastly indeed. Mrs Niles, who saw all the prisons in Guiana, and who seepis to have made a very careful Investigation, assures us that the picture is true, and here and there she gives references to the published findings of French investigators, to corroborate some of her details. Indeed, there is no reason to doubt her accuracy. The French treatment of convicts is essentially punishment, not an attempt at reformation —punishment so severe that a man who seeks a second dose, if he be still alive, is utterly without feeling.

To let her typical convict—a young burglar condemned to seven years o£ penal servitude —speak for himself, Mrs Niles has presented his story in the manner of fiction, but he is still, she insists, a fact. The story is so terrifyingly realistic that only a remarkably stolid and enduring man could read it without several halts. There are many graphic illustrations, in black and white, by Beth Krebs Morris, who has had the assistance of photographs by Mr Robert Niles in gaining authenticity of detail. “Condemned to Devil’s Island: The Biography of an Unknown Convict.” Blair Niles. Jonathan Cape, London. Our copy direct from the publisher. Doctor Dolittle Again. No recently invented character in children’s fiction has so generally endeared himself as Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle; and here he is again in "Doctor Dolittle’s Garden.” Hugh Lofting’s drawings, the essence of simplicity, are thoroughly delightful, too—far better than the too elaborate and decorative pictures which please grown-ups more than they do children. The insect and other creatures in Doctor Dolittle’s garden are perfectly at home there and with him, and confide in him in the most engaging manner. And every nice child will love being at Doctor Dolittle’s elbow and overhearing it all. “Doctor Dolittle’s Garden.” Hugh Lofting. Jonathan Cape. Our copy from the publishers.

No Heroine Here Four heroes In a headlong hunt for a treasure hidden in a shaft driven from the foot of a huge well in Carinthia; a band of bold bandits with the same idea kept steadily in view; and no woman to interfere with the giddy progress of tile adventure. In “Blind Corner,” Dornford Yates has given his admirers a good thriller. There is a breathless race for the hoard of old Axel the Red, notorious 18th century count, one party seeking the treasure down the well, the other burrowing feverishly through the earth. Interest is kept up when first one band and then the other takes the lead. In this yarn there is plenty of amusement, no dullness and no heroine. “Blind Corner," by Dornford Yates. Hodder and Stoughton. Our copy from W. S. Smart, Sydney.

A Giant of Finance. The uniform Constable edition of Theodore Dreiser’s novels has already made four of them available, and now a fifth follows, “The Titan.” It carries on the story of Frank Cowperwood, the chief figure in “The Financier,” which it is an advantage but not a necessity, to have read first. Cowperwood moves from Philadelphia, the scene of his disaster and imprisonment, to Chicago, ■where by sheer force of personality and financial genius he breaks into the ring of the city’s leaders and shows them his mastery by organising great coups in the city’s gas supply and street railway systems. What is most astounding in Dreiser’s achievement is the illusion of actuality he creates, and this is so whether he is describing Cowperwood’s financial and political scheming or his successive love-affairs. What Dreiser writes does not read like fiction, it has not the realism of

realistic fiction: it has the crude, solid, sharp-edged actuality of history. Has anybody ever got such “atmosphere” by seeming to scorn it? Never for a paragraph, even, does he appear to be trying to create the state of mind to which his invention will be credible, or propping up his narrative with the detail upon which it might appropriately rest. He goes on laying down fact after fact, as methodically as a brick-layer; and the facts grow together and thrill with life. Call it anything you like; but it’s wonderful. There’s gawkiness in it; but there’s genius. “The Titan. 53 Theodore Dreiser. Constable and Co. Our copy from the publishers. Romance in Armour. In the welcome revival of the historical romance, which almost died after Hewlett’s “The Forest Lovers,” Mrs H. F. M. Prescott takes a distinguished, if not a leading, place. She prefers to build her own characters against a vivid, firmly drawn background, rather than take them ready-

made from the conventional gallery of historical figures. Her latest novel, which should draw readers who do not know it to her first, “The Unhurrying Chase,” is called "Til. Lost Fight.” It is set In 13th century France, and tells of the wanderings, loves and adventures of Sir Adam of Morteigne, a typical feudal baron of the times. He leaves his baronial castle, journeys to Italy, visits the Pope at Rome, and eventually joins in the Crusades. There is no definite plot in the story, which is concerned rather with the spiritual development of its hero. Miss Prescott writes excellently, and, using the plainest of modern language, she has a way of conveying a genuine historical atmosphere. Her figures, armour-en-crusted though they are, live and move. “The Lost Fight.” H. F. M. Prescott. Constable and Co., Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers.