Books Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 731, 2 August 1929, Page 16

Books Reviewed

WAR—AMERICAN VERSION. FIRST of the many authors who will certainly try to beat Remarque at his own war game. James B. Wharton has w-ritten a story of greater merit than most of the new war books will have. He was four years older than Remarque when he went to fight, and he was impressed by different things. He could watch the reactions of different types, varied in any army, bjR in tlie American Army more than

any others, and he could remember jjs impressions.

His book takes an American infantry squad—what we call a section—from its arrival in France, eight strong, to the Armistice, when in some way or other, each member of the section has been “washed out.” Mr Wharton’s description is good. One feels the intensity of the barrage, the squad’s awful feeling of nakedness in No Man’s Land when suddenly machine-guns open fire. But it is in the members of the squad that the real interest lies. Mr Wharton shows no favours to three real Americans of the squad. They are all better educated than the five others, and one, Gray, a youngster fresh from high school, is a sound man. The other two are weaklings. Gray is a very good N.C.O. and his men appreciate the fact. He is drawn well; but the others, a Swedish rancher, a Serbian miner, a Jewish clothier, Dovelli, the “wop,” and O’Connors, the “tough” labourer, are all worth meeting. “Squad.” James B. Wharton. John bane,' The Bodley Head. Our copy from the publishers. O’Neill. Eugene O’Neill is about as big a name as American drama has given us. It is an excellent thing to have “The Moon of the Caribbees” and six other short plays of his—“ln the Zone” and the terrible “He” may be mentioned —presented to us again in the Cape Travellers’ Library series, with an introduction by St. John Ervine for extra good measure. “The Moon of the Caribbees, and Ollier Plays of the Seal” Eugene O’Neill, Travellers’ Library. Jonathan Cape. Our copy from the publishers. A Lyon At Large. As light relief from county cricket, M. D. Lyon, Somerset wicketkeeper, has written a humorous novel. The hero is of the middleaged type of player, a “rabbit.” The story starts with a village cricket match, continues with comedy love-scenes, and the theft and recovery of a racehorse, and has a burlesque detective theme running through it to a sportive finish. Walter R. Hammond, famous batsman, contributes an introduction, and Aubrey Hammond embellishes it with appropriate illustrations. Amusing. “A Village Match and After.” M. D. Lyon. Nash and Grayson, London. Our copy through Whitccmbe and Tombs, Ltd. A New Vachell Collection. The author of “Quinneys” has published still another volume of short stories, the first of which, “The Enchanted Garden” (incidentally the best of the collection) gives the book its name. Mr Vachell’s touch is not less sure in this collection. One could almost say that he has created new characters to rival the old in the affection of a very wide public. Some of these tales strike a familiar note, as though inspiration has been found in im idea earlier employed, but not exhausted. There is the usual delightful mixture of mystery and romance. Mr Vachell is never dull. “Tile Enchanted Garden, and Other Stories.” Horace Annesley \achell. Cassell. Our copy through Whitcombe and Tombs. Tetri. Australia In The Raw. The “Bulletin’s” 1928 £SOO prize was won by Katharine Susannah Prichard; and the winning novel is as typically Australian as the blue-gum or the platypus. Miss Prichard’s Australia is outback Australia, where ground is measured by the hundreds of thousands of acres, where one man may scratch a bare living—though he sometimes makes a fortune —from a farm as big as a European principality. She knows the country she writes of, her writing is entirely convincing. She knows the men and women whose lives are long battles against drought and mortgage; and especially she knows the blacks of the country. One of these is Coonardoo. When she was a child, she played with Hugh Watt, son of the plucky little Mrs Bes-

sle who owned and managed Wytaliba station. And when Mrs Bessie dies, md Hugh, now grown up, is left broken-hearted to realise how much he depended on her, it is Coonardoo who solaces him. Hugh is an idealist, ant refuses to take a gin, in the fashioi of Sam Geary, the old libertine win owns the next station. He marries and Mollie, though she promised ai first to be a second Mrs Bessie, is beaten by the country, and leaves him, taking her daughters with her Still Hugh will not take Coonardoo. who loves him, and whose husband, the native foreman, Warieda, has died. For a while Hugh almost forget* her. when Phyliss, who has the blood of Mrs Bessie, returns; but of course she marries. Grown old, still poor. Hugh sticks to his ideals. The climax comes when he learns that Coonardoo has been unfaithful to him, and with the loathed Geary. It is then and then only that the action seems a little strained, but the tragic ending fits the book. Without a story at all the book w ould be a very good one. It is when she is telling of the fight with Nature that Miss Prichard excels, and Coonardoo will be a monument to the people who tackled the outback. “Cqonardoo: The Well in the Shadow.*' Katherine Susannah Prichard. Jonathan Cape. Our copy from the publishers.

Marquesan Days—And Nights fpHERE is one thing certain in the uncertain world of publishers, and that is the lure of the South Seas. A spate of novels with colourful island settings has issued from the presses, but the demand is still insistent. Mr. Frederick O’Brien comes under a different category to the island romancers. He writes of glowing lands, first hand, but succeeds in capturing as much romance as any novelist. Mr. O’Brien won himself many admirers with “Mystic Isles of the South Seas,” chiefly concerning the delights of Tahiti. This time in “White Shadows of the South Seas” he takes us to the Marquesas and paints a picture that makes an interesting comparison with that so vividly drawn, so many years ago, by Herman Melville in “Typee.” There is melancholy underlying the beauty of this later work, for the magnificent Marquesan—the very Apollo of the Pacific—has degenerated sadlv since European influence made itself felt in his little group, and he is now imbued with a fatalism that has its foundation in the spread of ruthless disease which has wiped out whole communities. The author lived among the gentle Marques-ans and scared their daily life. There will be many who envy him those carefree days spent idling in the shadow of the palm-boles or bathing naked in limpid

waters set in an exuberant riot of tropical foliage. All who know the islands have heard of the famous Marquesan dances which are not exactly noted for the restraint of their performers. Mr. O’Brien gives us some lively descriptions of these events, of kava-drinking parties, native feasts and receptions given by the French Governor, whose paternal addresses were received with as much interest “as if he spoke of someone in Tibet who wanted to sell a green elephant.” He describes, incidentally, a visit to the grave of Gauguin, who, except for his abnormal thirst for absinthe, lived the life of the Marquesan: The grave was unmarked. If a board had been placed at its head when Gauguin was buried it had rolled away and nothing was left to indicate where he was lying. The hibiscus was blood-red on the sunken graves and coconuts sprouted in the tangled grass. Palms, shut out from the half-acre, had dropped their nuts within it and the soil, rich in the ashes of man, was endeavouring to bring forth fairer fruit than headstones and iron crosses . . . The flowers of the papue, like morning glories, hung their purple bells on the humbler spots that no hand had sought to clear. Here is an Island book that positively “drips colour.” Those who prefer to absorb the beauty of the South Seas in a vicarious fashion could not do so more agreeably than by reading “White Shadows of the South Seas.” “White Shadows of the South Seas.” Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., London and Sydney. Our copy from the publishers’ Sydney representative. An Anthology Misty memories of school days will be revived for many through the publication of a slim anthology of verse chosen from the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School Magazine. The period covered is 1910-28, and during that time some promising work was written. The pamphlet is interesting, but it provokes the melancholy thought that many who wrote with promise years ago have now forsworn allegiance to the Muse, and talent that once was a bud has, for excellent reasons, no doubt, not bloomed Into a flower. Possibly the cramming educational system, that leaves so little time for “standing and staring,” is at fault; but then, again, what was done years ago may have been little more than precocity. These are the thoughts that flow through the mind after the perusal of a little volume which has at least sentimental interest to commend it. The variety of the verse in the anthology is interesting. It shows how the differing temperaments of youth respond to poetic Inspiration. There is an authentic inspirational force In some of the poems, and others, as may be expected, are no more than verse exercises, correct for the most part so far as scansion goes, but quite lacking in the essential fire that transmutes verse into poetry. The themes of the best are concerned principally with sombre little spiritual experiences, and there are others directly inspired by the obvious beauties of nature. Altogether, one cannot help feeling that some of these writers would have accomplished a great deal had commerce with the world refrained from send- ; ln £ the Muse about her business. The : anthology will be appreciated by old | Grammar girls for sentimental reasons, but the promise shown should ! win it other friends. All Unquiet on the Western Front In “The Silver Hawk,” by William Byron Mowery, one James Dorn, cartographer, attached to the Canadian Air Force, rescues a girl who drops like a bolt from the blue into his austere life at a wilderness station in the j mountains where he is posted. Ciri cumstances "which force the man and the girl to take each other on trust | develop into a story of political in- ! trigue, swift action, primitive revenge, aerial battles, and love. Without knowing the secret of Aurore Me-

Nain’s trouble, Dorn falls in love wit! her, protects her against her enemies, flies with her to an island in an o: charted lake on the old “carrier trail, only to find that she is another mac s wife. The story, which is full of dramatic action, ends with an intense air battle in which the Silver Hawk at James Dorn prove their mettle, tit latter’s right to the love of Anrors McNain, and the downfall of their enemies. "The Silver Hawk,” by William ByrcMowery. Our copy direct from the polishers, Angus and Rob-rtson, 89 Cast!-., reagh Street, Sydney.

Poets’ Comer

MITIGATION (Written for THE SUE) Oh far beyond the fiercest prayer Is this that sweeps her on.' The green wood sulks upon the fat, But soon its fret is gone. Forego, forego, your censure hen: And lend to her your ruth! She. is the hostage of her age, The servant of her youth. From quiet into wildness swung She dares not blame nor bide. Do flying leaves resent the Kind. Do ships rebuke the tide! EILEEN DUGGAN Wellington. THE HOMECOMING (Written for THE SUE) All the summer's gathered gold. All the winter’s whipping white. Every song of every bird Thronged my heart with do' delight. When I heard you turn the key. In the dusk that croicned the *(«-■ And the lamplight cut the shaiov that half wrapped you, stand*! there. . . . O, the fire of every autumn T urned to spring's wild magic th( ” Though you only closed the door, Since you had come home again UNA CURRIE Auckland.

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