IBOOKS AND WRITERS

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20820, 2 June 1939, Page 5

IBOOKS AND WRITERS

THE WAR IN SPAIN BITTER INTERNECINE STRUGGLE FRANCO PUPPET OF POWERS Somewhat startling is the central thesis of “I Helped to Build an Army,’’ by a Spanish staff officer. The former Spanish Government discovering that a large percentage of the people were deserting orderly life and the church, and harkening to Communism. set the stage for the revolution which provided the opportunity to harry the common people by fire and sword into virtual slavery. The old Hapsburg policy of encircling France was revived, and the author, maintains that Franco could not have won if France, under pressure of England, had not suddenly reversed its first policy and declared itself neutral, from which moment the revolutionist army was cut off essential supplies. Franco is. he asserts, “but a mediocre general and a little man . . . and not a free agent, the puppet of Italy, Germany and his frivolous entourage .... who had been badly worsted by the native tribes in Morocco.” But be had the advantage of possessing the nucleus of a fighting force whpn he opened his campaign. “We,” says the author, “had no General Staff Officer, no arms, and no ammunition. All we had was courage.” Vividly he describes the bitter internecine war which cost Spain 1.500,000 of the flower of her population PROMINENT PEOPLE SOME AMERICAN PORTRAIT^ " A FASCINATING BOOK In “Remembering,” Mrs Nathalie S. Colby, wife of Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State in Woodrow Wilson’s second Administration, has written a fascinating book on American people. Mark Twain: White-haired, he wore his suits down Fifth Avenue even in winter. There he goes, the great American people cried- Spot-lighted man, clown and artist. Norman Davis: World-wandering negotiator-Ambassador. A nursery of six children taught him diplomacy. Mrs Davis was intimate Greek, ashblonde hair, petal-white skin. President Wilson: Was an artist. There was identification in his smile It was with you. not at you. A second critical self in him went on refining him. day and night, so every speech grew sharper, pierced deeper.. Attractive President Roosevelt President Franklin Roosevelt: Doesnot select facts. Facts are forerunners to life for him. They change his chemistry, synthesise into phrases The handsomest, most attractive man in Washington. President Harding: Handsome joshei occupied the White House with a hostess on tiptoe.Mrs Sinclair Lewis: Mrs Lewis, the usher announced. She corrected him. “Call me ‘Mrs Main Street,’ it's so much better known.” Prince Gargarine and his Princess (Russian): One could study them for years and still not be up to their breedingChief Justice Hughes: All Supreme Court Judges are darlings at dinner. After a whole day with the Constitution they re-act only to chiffon, like the soldiers who come out of the trenches. Princess Elizabeth Bibesco: A short stocky girl with a round face. Her speech was staccato sophistication. Baron Shidehara: Showed me how to commit hara-kiri right down the middle, across, down to the right, and back to the left. Had a twinkle. “DYNASTY OF DEATH” SUCCESS OF FIRST NOVEL THE GODS OF WAR “Dynasty of Death,” by Taylor Caldwell, a first novel, which has rocketed to best-sellerdom in America, is described as the story of a family of armaments manufacturers, wholesalers in destruction, a dynasty dedicated to the gods of war, who not only made armaments but made the wars for which they were designed. Taylor Caldwell is of Scottish ancestry and was born in Reddish, near

COMMENTS AND EXTRACTS

FOREIGN WRITERS REFUGEES IN ENGLAND AN APPEAL FOR HELP The following letter, signed Storm Jameson, president of the English P.E.N. Club, was received this week: “The English P.E.N. Club, as the representative body of EngLish writers, appeals to New Zealand writers, and to every reader of this letter, for help iu the “work we have been doing since last October. There is a large and growing number of exiled writers in England, many of them men who had considerable reputation In their own countries. They are condemned to know great hardship, if not to starve, because in being driven out of their country they have lost the only language in which they can work. The English P.E.N. Club collected £IOOO from writers, and has been handing this out in very small weekly grants to these exiles. In spite of the parsimony with which we have spent it. our fund is almost at an end. “I appeal to you to come to our help and to send us what you can afford. The whole of the money we get is handed out among these exiled writers. We do not give without making certain that the person we are helping had a standing as a writer in his own country, and we do not spend money on organisation. We do the work ourselves, giving time as well as money.

“Money can be sent to the P.E.N., addressed to me at the P.E.N. Club, 11 Gower Street, London, England.”

“EPIC FAILURF” STALKING WITH A CAMERA ENTERTAINING FIRST BiOOK In explanation of the title of “Epic Failure” (Blackwood), an interesting and amusing account of an unusual sort of safari, the author, Lavender Dower, says:— “I have ahvays been in favour of original achievement; my ambitions have lain away from beaten tracks, and, if nothing else, I thought despairingly, it is undoubtedly original to go on a six-weeks’ safari, covering five thousand miles of bush, with the prime object of taking photographs and to come back at the end of'it with rolls and rolls of blank film. Such monumental inefficiency must surely stand alone, unique and unsurpassed—an epic failure.” That, anyway, an odd snap or two of film escaped, is evidenced by the illustrations which show incidents concerning lions, elephants, rhinos, and a I variety of other beasts. “Epic Failure,” which as the author j confesses is a first book with inconsequence as its keynote. Reading it, one is surprised that the travellers ever returned to civilisation and safety! They left behind an assortment of articles such as the proper tools for motor repairs, and appear to have taken with them such a strangely inefficient band of guides and helpers, that any catastrophe seemed possible. Things Go Wrong Naturally, in tales of stalking wild beasts, whether with gun or camera, one cannot expect a mild narrative, but when this party sets out, apparently on serious business, the reader, from repeated experience, knows that something ridiculous, disastrous, and certainly unheroic, is sure to happen. Miles and miles will be walked in the wrong direction, formidable-looking herds of buffalo will turn out to be donkeys, overfed lions will refuse to look fierce, or else they will perform at the wrong moment, and exciting native dances arranged for the strangers’ benefit will consist of endless and monotonous repetition. All this adds immensely to the 1 humour and entertainment of “Epic Failure. ’ The fact remains that the party did return with several of the ! trophies which it set out to bag. There are vivid pictures of the hin- j terland of Tanganyika and Kenya, and the writer misses nothing of the beauty of colour and form, or the interest of the teeming life of a notably prolific stretch of little-known country.

Manchester, where “Dynasty of Death’ begins. “All This and Heaven Too,” by Rachel Field, has been at the head of the American best-seller list since publication over there-