Books

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 9, 14 September 1928, Page 14

Books

Etehed in Moonlight.

James

Stephens

ERE is a handful of studies in unhappiness, some few short stories told with a distinctive art of expression and suppression, as devotees of Mr. James Stephens do not need to be assured. Of a rare imaginative insight, combined with the power of conveying the pathos and the horror of life as we know it, the wonder and wistfulness of a world beyond our ken, a sensing of forces around us and about, discernible to an ear attuned but imperceptible to dimmer awareness and grosser susceptibility, this exponent of the fey and the occult holds his audience enthralled, and lures it to fresh literary fields and pastures new indeed. Not a large audience, be it noted: for the subtlety of Mr. Stephens’s method, his prescience and genius of portrayal of a life of the spirit, are caviare to the masses. Wonderful stories, and of a class apart, but leaving one sad of heart, the bubble of bravery pricked, and with a dulled apprehension of the vision splendid. Not for those who turn to a book for amusement, the relaxation of an idle hour; for to be appreciated, this poetic dreamer and stark realist demands concentration and a spark of his own fire of the spirit. First in the book comes "Desire," the story of a strange dream within that other "dream of life," the awakening being stark tragedy of bereavement. ‘Tis told with a fanciful and curiously haunting quality; while for pitilessly realistic presentment of an unhappy marriage, in which poor, pathetic little Four-Eyes is done to death by the clacking of a shrew’s tongue, the ironically-titled "Darling" is wonderful in its genre. In our own Dominion at the present time stalks the spectre of poverty, honest men walk the streets in search of a job; and to some of us the story ealled "Hunger," visualising the same conditions in an older land than ours, is unbearable in its sheer tragedy of pathos. But it makes sad reading. For instance :- "What could she eliminate, who had come to the bare bone and shank of life? The necessity for the loaf comes daily, recurs pitilessly from digestion to digestion, and with the inexorable promptitude of the moon the rent collector wanes and waxes." And again: "They did not complain, for those who are down do not complain. Or, knowing it, they do not admit their downness. For to front so final a fact is to face with naked hands a lion; and to admit is to give in. To be lost and drowned, to be anonymous, unhelpable; debris, a. straw which the wind takes and frets and tears, or rots to powder and forgetfulness." It is wonderful, but it does not add a chapter or a line to the Gospel of

Gaiety.-

R.U.

R.