BOOKS AND WRITERS

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19890, 20 May 1936, Page 12

BOOKS AND WRITERS

f COMMENTS AND EXTRACTS. 41 r believe that that’s what’s the trouble with England. Masses or little things piling up and piling up till everything that matters ts smothered and flattened out under them, and all the live ideas and ideals are squashed into the native mud. Talk, talk, talk and nobody doing anything. Caw-caw-cawing of the rooks in the immemorial elms, drowning the music of the spheres.”—From “Over the Garden Wall,” by Patry Williams.

NOVEL BY NEW ZEALANDER. PET IN THE WAIKATO. 1 .-TORY WITH POWERFUL PLOT. The setting of “Show Down,” by M. Escott, is Auckland and the Waikato. In the life of the hero, and heroine the good ships Aorangi. Maunganui and Rangitata play important parts. The main tragedy is, however, enacted on a farm in the Waikato to which David Hawkes brings Anna Trove, fresh from England. This is not a pretty -story, but it has undeniable power- There is a ruthless economy of words in the development of the plot and nothing impossible in the Incidents which lead to the climax of the novel. The background of New Zealand farming life is skilfully sketched, and in Phyllis, the Maori servant, and Ray, the farmhand, we have two of the most pleasant characters in the book. The author should certainly be heard of Show Down - ’ was given first place in the Spectator’s fiction review on March 6, and the reviewer, though inadvertently placing Ihe scene in South Africa, gives it high praise: It has certainlv so much of Hemingway in it that Hemingway might well have written il ; but though I do feel that Farewell to Arms’ i> one of the grand books of our time, its granducss is essentially romantic, and there is nothing romantic about ‘Show Down’; it is more sincere, I think, than Hemingway ever is.”

THE BEST SELLERS. WHAT DOES VIENNA READ? NOT FOLLOWING BERLIN'S LEAD. Three years ago the question “What is Vienna reading?” could havebeen answered: “She reads what Berlin reads," and most of the books of Austrian writers were printed and published in Berlin or Leipzig. The National Socialist regime has brought a division not only in the taste but in the possibilities of publishing the works of certain authors, writes the Vienna correspondent of the Observer. Many of the books which to-day are the favourites in Vienna cannot be sold in Berlin. Best sellers in Vienna include Stephan Zweig’s “Maria Stuart” (Mary Queen of Scots), Count Corti’s bioigraphy of the Empress Elizabeth, Ernst. Benedikt’s biography of the Prince de Ligne, and Gina Kaus’s book on the Empress Catherine II- of Russia. Among novelists and playwrights. Franz Werfel and Rudolf Lot.har are popular, and the books of the exiled German writers, such as Thomas Mann and Arnold Zweig, are in demand. A Record Sale. A book which is having a record sale in Vienna is Conrad Heiden’s brilliant biography of Adolf Hitler. Heiden was a Nazi, and is not only an able historian but also a first-class interpreter of the character and mentality of the Fuhrer. Rudolf Olden’s fine biography of Hitler was banned in Austria because of its adverse

criticism of Lueger, Hie founder of a social movement. A few year sago John Galsworthy was the most popular author in Vienna. At present one finds only a few translations of English, but I lie books of Sinclair Lewis and of Mrs Pearl Buck are extremely popular.