Book Notes

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 34, 4 March 1932, Unnumbered Page

Book Notes

BATILE, murder and sudden death are outstanding features in ""Unrecorded," by Mrs. R, S. Garnett, Piled with horrors is this book concerning victorious Lancastrians sacking and looting an English town. The unhappy heroine runs the gamut of woe, witnesses destruction of home, her parents are murdered, and she herself handed over to the infamy of Lord Vauncey and his men. As a portrayal of rough and brutal times in English history, the novel has something to recommend it. There is a flicker of possible romance of the more comfortable kind, when a brother of the infamous Vauncey enters upon the stage; but it is merely a passing ray amid the gloom, and the story leaves the impression that some at least of the "good old days" were periods of unrelieved tragedy and tergeur. "Sor" is written by Leonid Leonovy, who is acclaimed as a Russiav genius in literature. Ingenious!v translated, the novel has a foreword by Maxim Gorky, and an appendix crammed with essential information. without which study of the book would make heavier weather than it actually does. To English tastes the style is diffuse and overcrowded with detail, its interest lying in presentment of certain aspects of new Russia and the never-ending effort to co-ordinate with overwhelming organisation of the Five-Year Plan, The book takes its title from a river upon the banks of which, in place of a monastery, 4 paper factory is in course of erection, bringing in its train an army of workers With thousands of huts in which to camp, This part of the country, like the rest of Russia, has been reyvolutionised in its mode of life, but it would seem the worker is still entirely under the heel of his masters, and the world awaits the conclusion of the whole matter. Meantime, as a bright light on present-day conditions, the book by the Russian novelist is of considerable interest. A NEW book by Virginia Woolf is eagerly welcomed by literary elect, and in "The Waves," which was published recently, her widening circle of disciples will find much pabulum with which to nourish admiration for bepedestalled idol, In this latest excursion into fiction there are six characters, three of whom are men and three women. The method of disclosing plot, if it can be so designated, is that of soliloquy by each protagonist in turn. There is a writer, a meticulousminded man of commerce who, strange ly, is a poet at heart, Neville’ the sclglar; while Eve’s daughters are represented by the acutedly-observed Susan, an example of age-old courtesan trpe, and Rhoda who suffers torture by fate’s juggernaut until endurance is aft an end. Mrs. Woolf’s literary method is detached as of yore and often of exceeding beauty, her style in its metier being unrivalled, —