Our Fortnightly Book Review

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 31, 12 February 1932, Unnumbered Page

Our Fortnightly Book Review

BLOW BUGLES BLOW An English Odyssey . |

By

EDWARD

MOUSLEY

[UIS is a remarkable novel, though not for those who reiterate with smug and tiresome emphasis that they are weary of all things connected with the Great War.. Its author, Captain Mousley, R.F.A., is a London parrister and an accomplished literateur. In "Blow, Bugles Blow," are narrated with meticulous accuracy, great spiritual comprehension and artistie sincerity, the searing ‘experiences following in the wake of the War, its strange rapprochements, and imperishable communion between the quick and. the dead. This story begins with last night at Cambridge of John Sparrow, typical of his class and country. We meet his friends, in particular Danny, handsome Rugger blue, heir to many acres, whom the high gods have marked down for heroic death in the desert, brought down by a Turkish gun, "They left Danny beside a patch of wild mustard, his broken engine eloquent of the good fight and dauntless soul of man, while John saw, as in a mirage, the spires of Cambridge... ." There are some excellent pen-portraits. Rivers, who leaned to Quakerism, loathed strife, and had written a book called "Quiet Moments." Him the War caught up, tortured and flung to the void. And the temperamental Acchy, in his Chelsea studio, where on the eve of departure to the War, John meets the German Gretchen, a fair, sweet saint, and loves her with the love. that endures. She plays to him "celestial music which, in a moment of miracle, the. ear of Beethoven caught as it flowed through a casement of heaven left open-beauty surpassing anything less than God, revealing God-the second movement of the Sonata in I’ minor, Andante con moto. He turned to look upon her while she wove round herself a white flame of light of sacredest purity through which, more magical than Brunhilde’s ring of. fire, none but he who loved her might pass." Truly a lovely of man’s worshipful regard. There are unforgettable impressions of the campaign in France and in the East, and extraordinarily vivid presentation of juxtaposition of beauty and horror, carnality, spirituality efful gent, sacrificial love, great heart of man and overwhelming longing for. the Divine. Vitriolic descriptive power is shown in hatred of war’s cruelty-and horror, but there is insistent: faith in soul of man triumphant over tragedy of the flesh. A wise student of individual and mass psychology, Mr. Mousley’s characterisation is strong and subtle. With unerring touch he sets before us saint and sinner, sad crusader and happy warrior, the untouched loveliness of Gretchen’s. soul. and body contrasted with the wiles of Avril the harlot. All pass under destiny’s lash, many are broken on the wheel, Llewelyn the fanatical priest, is a memorable study, recognising as he did the tragedy of suffering unspeakable, but when he saw men driving their bodies forward into the fire, as they did at Gheluvelt, saw "the divinity of Christ on earth’: and one remembers "poets lifting their eyes above the (lesert of inescapability and horrific filth to the beauty. of some quiet autumn dawn." ‘ And through: it all is Gretchen in London, shunned, friendless, alone in her attic writing letters to John at the War, clinging to courage and a faroff hope. But a German bomb crashes, and the: conclusion of the matter is that on Armistice Day John finds her lying upon the iron bed, her light gone out for ever. "He had nothing more to ask of God. Before ‘Life. unmasked he stood amid the ruins of a shattered world, except the service he had shared with his dead love, his dead comrades." Mr. Mousley can be bitter. "Hats off, ye sleek-souled and fat-gutted-profiting from, yet shirking war-that in limousines, decked out, as

the French say, like whores’ boudoirs, shall come to pass by stone memorials that stand for long in English villages or throw a shadow on Scotland’s lochs. Down on your knees to the Spirit of the Army, that through that awful ordeal shone resplendent until (leath, seeking no material gain, but dying for those things that endure." I close with the lines written to the British Army by the great-hearted padre before Loos, on the eve of ‘his extinction: Drive on! Let the foes of your God be the course of you On, on in he fight; ° : Dealing death to the idols, that at the Christ in youDrive on through the Night. Pass on! Peace falls in the stilt ad iwcake of you, Red, ved is the corn : Where the shapes of false gods lie stil by the hand of you-. Pass on-to the Morn

Wiss ETHEL MANNIN has published recently a book of short stories entitled "Green Figs." © Some of the tales in this entertaining volume are printed for the first time,- the whole being a mosaic consisting of a series of sketches of episodes in the life of childhood. Though'slight in plot almost to elusiveness, excellent use is made of somewhat flimsy material, certain of the tales introducing a strong element of the dramatic, and all of them furnishing further © eyidence of versatility of talent of their young and extremely modern author. * x i ® MONG contemporary Norwegian writers Johan Bejer takes prominent place. Playwright and novelist, his output has been considerable, beginning in 1896 with a novel of Norwegian peasant life. His .war books were deservedly acclaimed, and now in "Folk by, the Sea" he again introduces his readers to his own countrymen, imparting to his deseriptions an amazing verisimilitude which transports one, With effect of strange actuality, to the scenes in which his. homeloving, poverty-stricken villagers: play out their allotted parts. Such living as is theirs, from birth to death, is wrested by their own efforts from un- productive earth and _ treacherous ocean, ‘There is no repining, no girding against a grim destiny which is faced with inarticulate courage and endurance; the- humble and heroic history of these dwellers in earth’s hard places, being envisaged with a nartative power and comprehending sympathy that invite admiration.