NO BOREDOM, PLEASE!
Autobiogtaphy and Political Survey Answet Modern Demands
» OOKS, more than any other artistic product, reflect the times in which they are written. To-day we are educated to require information with our reading; we are realistic enough to spurn the gilded novels and verse of our fathers; but we are still superficial enough to demand that at all costs we must not be bored. Hence the two neat, compact little volumes which I am going to recommend now. In both cases the books can be read fn an hour or so, they are reasonably well-written, and they do not require overmuch from the reader. Thus the yolume entitled ". . . And Nothing Tong" is the autobiography of a pleasant Englishman who in turn has been a bank-clerk, a tea-planter, an oil company official in Moscow, a British Vice-Consul, a Foreign Office expert, a reporter qu "The Daily Express," 2 grocer, a garage proprietor, and the diplomatic correspondent of- "The Morning Post." He has some amusing stories of his late Victorian childhood in Kensington, some startling accounts of wartime intrigue in Baku; but perhaps he jis most acceptable for his humorous, nonchalant attitude toward international upsets and private pitfalls. His
final recipe for happiness. strikes home at us all: "So if you want to like life, like people. Some of us become disappointed in them; that, I usually find, is our own fault..." HAVE mentioned Mr. MacDonell first because really he is the most entertaining. Senor Vilaplana, ably translated by Mr. Horsfall Carter, the new editor of "The Fortnightly," describes his experiences in Nationalist Spain while he unwillingly held the position of Commissioner of Justice at fatal Burgos. It is an eminently readable but extremely harrowing record. While Senor Vilaplana was originally partisan of neither side in Spain he has, like so many others, © been forced into the Government camp by the sheer, brutal stupidity of the Nationalists. He reveals that, in the first place, a plot was hatching to overthrow the Republic long before Sotelo was killed. But this was not Fascist in origin. It was essentially a revoit of the tuling classes with the army aguzainst the rising strength of Labour. ‘Then a weak-willed, colourless Franco was made the tool of unscrupulous foreign interventionists, The author’s terse descriptions of shootings and burials of political opponents should be avoided by sadists, but the book as a whole makes easy, modern reading. «,. And Nothing Long," by Ranald MacDonell. (Constable, London. Our copy from the publishers.) "Burgos Justice," by Antonio Ruiz Vilaplana, (Constable, London. Our eopy from the publishers). oe ali
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RADREC19380819.2.52.1
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Radio Record, 19 August 1938, Page 40
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429NO BOREDOM, PLEASE! Radio Record, 19 August 1938, Page 40
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