THOSE OLD SHADES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 937, 26 July 1957, Page 13

THOSE OLD SHADES

THE LAST CRUSADER, by Louis de Wohl; Victor Gollancz, English price 16/-. REMEMBER ME? by David Stacton; Faber and Faber, English price 15/-. ‘THAT same Philip of Spain who, in 1554, married Mary Tudor, had a young half-brother, natural son of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. The boy, later known as Don John of: Austria, became one of the most dashing and heroic figures those stirring times had seen. His popularity and early military successes led the cautious Philip to put continual disappointments in the way of his personal ambitions. At first, however, these ambitions were dedicated to a nobler cause-the expulsion of the Turks from Christendom-and in this book we follow-Don John to the highest crowning of those efforts. In 1571, when still only 24 years of age, he led a huge Christian fleet to defeat the Turks at -the battle of Lepanto, so royally described in Chesterton’s. poem. Louis de Wohl’s skilful handling of fact and fiction has produced a spirited and credible story of palace personalities and intrigues. But apart from King Philip the characters have been given a little too much sweetness and light, so that the violent nature of the times scarcely, emerges--a regretful comment (continued on next page)

BOOKS

(continued from previous page) has to suffice for the Duke of Alba’s ruthless wars in the Netherlands and for the horrors of the Holy Inquisition. Few of us know anything about the old ruling house of Bavaria or of Ludwig the Second, one of the last kings to reign before Bavaria was swallowed up by Bismarck and the German Empire. Of a highly eccentric family, Ludwig was given to sordid habits and formidable manias-for excessive solitude, for re-living the old legends in Wagnerian operas, for the building of vast and useless palaces. Yet, driven by loneliness and the fear of madness, he commands our pity rather than our disgust. Though David Stacton re-creates the unhappy king’s thoughts and emotions with remarkable perception and sympathy, his almost morbid thoroughness of detail and irritating metaphysical outbursts tend to leave the reader

in an unrewarding state of Germanic gloom. History can tell us all we need to know-better to let Ludwig rest in

decent oblivion.

K.

C.