THE OBSERVER, SUNDAY, MAtGIH 5, 1941 3 The of the USA. By V. SACKVILLE. WEST Patmx r.htf.lln Cornish. Bv A.
L. TEACH YOURSELF 1 HISTORY Child of my Sorrow NEIL BELL 'One of the lesser exquisites of Regency days tells his curious story. We have a picturesque panorama of the times, in which historical personages abound ralph straus in the Sunday Times ios. 6d. COLLINS Rowse.
(Faber and Faber.l.ts.Y -'The Inward Animal. By Terence Tiller. Hogprth Press, of Leaf. By ursuux wooa. iBasil BlachoeU: As.
6d.) Beautvt and the Bv John Heath-Stubbs. (RouUedge. ls.) The Cruel Solstice. Bv Sidney Keyes. (Routledgc.
6.) astonishing maturity of bis mind. the intense seriousness of hia, and his innaterpreoccupation with -major here notentiallv was the war-noet or whom England has been wait-; ing. tie is ri.aireaay a man oi speaking with strong voice. There is a sculptural In his poetry una Bumeiimes; it seems as tnougn it were stamped but of bronze; but wnetner stone or metal, there is always the isame firmness; the same the same grand eur. He thought, on grand though never turgid yet real, splendour 'of bis conceptions, ine magic is tnere aiso, Buaaeniy, in the single line or in the flash of imagery.
What Syrian Veronica abooe you Stooped with her flaxen cloth at yet unsigned? or The planet pain rising acron your sky. Quotation Is unsatisfactory, where the whole body of the work is impressive; as though by breaking off a finger-tip you could cohvevi the" muscularity of the Perhaps' tne. nnest poem in tne dook, Rome, remember," is too long to quote, in full, but a couple of stanzas may stand: Rome remember, remember the leaowls sermon That followed the beaked Ihipt westward to their triumph. Rome, you city of soldiers, remember, the singers That cry with dead Doices along the African shore. Rome remember, the courts of learning are tiled With figures from the east like running nooses.
The desolate bodies of boys in the blue otare Of ailing torches cannot stir your passion. Remember the Greeks mho measured out your doom. Remember the soft funereal Etruscans. I know very little about Sidney Keyes. I believe that his home was in the north country; I know ne was educated at Tonbridse, went to Oxford, joined the -Army during his second year there, and was an officer in the Royal West Kent Regiment when he was Kiiiea.
tie naa puonsned one book. The Iron Laurel the present volume is, of course, posthumous. I feel convinced that here is ho example of a surprising precocity. out tne nrst-irutt or a tree which would have grown both strong and beautiful. Untimely lopped, he has gone to join, in his own words, the Young men -who lie in the carven oeax of aeatn.
By J. C. TREWIN Britain at War. An Anthology selected, by Arthur Stanley, Eyre ana apomswooae. ius.
wu away. Down its sound-track we hear the singing of English arrows. the sweep of the Channel tides when the Armada surged towards Britain and a later fleet sailed to Dunkirk, the mutter of cannon outside beleaguered Oxford, the noise oi rouna-snot ana mustcetry, the plaintive Diners of romantic war, the clamour of the cavalrv charges at Balaclava and Omdurman (the last a description signed by Winston Churchill), the discords of the twentieth century, a Zeppelin's menace over juinaon twenty-eignt years ago, and roaring of to-night's gun- storm above those same London roofs, when the air Is indeed full of fiery shapes and burning cressets. Readers will make their own choice: to the present reviewer nothing is at once more haunting and austere than the passage from G. M.
Trevelvan's "Clio." in which we watch Charles the First's fated courtiers at St. Johns, Oxford men and women who "strolled through the garden, as the hopeless evenings xeii, at the end of all, while the siege-guns broke the silence with ominous iteration. A. L. ROWSE Fallow of All Soul Celiac.
Oxford 2if" ISf wlttan Th Spirit of ndtab History- Canoral Editor of an Important naw sarin ofTaach History boolu which tha Enallih UnlvanltlM Press has In actira preparation. Mr. ROWSE Is now wrltlnf tn Introductory Volume THE USE OF HISTORY and 27 vol mas have already bean commlsslanad. PUBLISHED FOR THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES PRESS LIMITED BY HODDEM AND TOUCH TON IN THE CITT Of LONDON HERBt-ltt JENKINS Coming Shortly The Ark by PHYLLIS KELWAY Illustrated with 33 half-tone plates. A wholly delightful and most beautifully illustrated volume about a small-holding In a-lovely part of the country.
I 8- net Wild MAfe in Autopaia by CECIL HUNT Illustrated by Kerr. Hilarious and good-humoured satire by a national humorist and novelist. 76 net HERBERT JENKINS LTD a Jane's Fighting Ships Ml EDITION Edited by FRANCIS E. McMURTRIE 3 3 0 net The Naval Encyclopaedia Merchant Ships 193 EDITION Edited by E. L.
TALBOT-BOOTH 3 3 0 net With over 5.600 illustrations, com- prising 900' hall-tones, 2.400 line el drawings oj snips, tsw rtagt of Companies, and 520 line drawings 07 funnels for recognition 'BHMilllJilillCBIMlllillTilllllliniCIIINBINIilfilirraiiirilil'riiiril SAMPSON LOW 'yilll i Author of "Home Fires Burning" etc BARBARA KAYE FOLLY'S FABRIC A faicinating new romance with unuiual cKmax, with teme scenes and aharpjy defined characters a story that the reader will not easiJy forget Author of 44 The Ancestor" ELISSA LANDI WOMEN and PETER EUsa Lndi, lovely motion picture star and author of several successful light novels, it an excellent craftsman In this her latest book her a lory moves at a swift and sure pace with brilliant characterisation 9 6 HURST BLACKETT ltd 47 Princes Gaff, londnn, T'- THE SMITH FAMILY No I The Goldsmith AUATFiin 5 SAIinR 5 by NICHOLAS DREW GERARD HOPKINS Su nday Tunes) This smal 1 essay in autobiography takes high place in the rich tra-dition of our sea-narrations. a There is good reason to a think that it will find appre- a ciative readers long after some of the events which brought it into being have been forgotten Like many amateurs at their best, Mr. Drew has accom- plished something which few professionals could better. The naval war has produced no more satisfying Bsj record.1 'iGonttakle 9. Published Tomorrow DESERT JOURNEY by GEORGE RODGER A new book by the author of Red Moon Rising in which George Rodger recounts his wartime journey from French West Africa through Libya, Egypt, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Syria and Transjordan.
The book is illustrated with 78 magnificent photographs taken by the author. 15s. net CRESSET PRESS BOMBING VINDICATED by J. M. Spaight, c.b., c.b.e.
A survey of recent developments in Air Warfare by this expert. Just published. As. net. BLOOD AND BANQUETS by Bella Fromm Of the books that have come out of Germany since the war, this one, by a shrewd and fearless observer, is among the best and most revealing." The Times Lit.
Sup. 2nd edition. 15s. net. 9 The Screwlap Leftri by C.
S. Lewis has Inns irruc passed 100,000. Also his Problmm of Pain (13th larRe impression). Broadcast Talfcs 150.000) and Christian Behivtfour arc being read and discussed everywhere. GEOFFREY BLES LTD.
Was It? Prehistoric Britni-n HatDke. (Pencon' The Proof rice of Mar. Bu DoualasSimpson. Aberdeen Uni- vcrsuy irew. vs.
ByfypR BROWN is very.difflciui to txavel open- Britain withrmt fool ing- archaeological, inclinations. The1- mystery i and' majesty, of the lw-. chit tussj cjutuisiie Slung and shaping of the barrows on the avenues and grass roadsj and, above all, the innumerable IinkB with a-world-raneing megalithic rouse itheHveUest; Moreover, researens rruiuuuy. Within' the. last years advances have, been, made in the charting of British pref history.
There must-' be advances also in, the. public eagerness to get behind the stones to builders; should Pelican Books' rapidly, vlast year's volume a. wincoii) wiw this more richly illustrated. survey; by Mr. and long last, we nave escaped from'the' idiotic notions of iuvAveV bury or.
Stoneh'enge crowd of; hairy apes. The Stone and early "middle1 Bronze Ages' -'sobvlously-, gave Britain its share of 1 a "-springing i "from'. trje Near East, extending to in "navigation, crafts the manipulation of mighty masses of stone. Above all, it does not appear to have been warlike orJ haunted bv fears of war. Avphurv Britain's mighty megalithic js uiueiensirjie, aciuuuy wiur a moat inside the 'pfreular The corruption of life by fear and greed, the building of camps and forts, came later.
This notion a fine culture tunes in with the countless myths. oi man in wmcn a reign oi saturn, golden and Daradisal exist-' ericeare deemed to have occurred and then to have been' lost. It is, in fact, of enormous importance that man's fall into blood' and barbarism- should be attached to changing institutions and not to some inevitable and universal vice' of his nature. By turning the old dust we meet the mysteries of human character and destiny. It is not just sentiment which sees some truth below the legends.
Arcnaeoiogy is at last throwing off the dreary nonsense about Druids wading in human ana tne view ol every-Stone Circle as a Gestapo's playground. Mrs. Hawkes, who wrote most of the" joint volume, though' she occasion ally talks "of savagery 'r without mucn evidence, has realised -that the British Bronze Age (say 18Q0-: innn i i iuw 0.K..1 was mtsriiea dv Hru. and accomplishments alto- geiner incom pan Die wun tne Hairy Ape or uioooy uruia nonons oi tne barrow-builders. Dr.
Simpson iiKewise is a strong aeiender ol primeval Scotland against the: melancholy views of Dr. Childe. The latter's vista of barbaric' squalor" is replaced by a kindlier, and more plausible Dicture of earlv" generations (at least in.N.E. Scot land) peaceably established and mixing craft with taste. Here," again, the Bronze Age settlements and implements were non-militarvr Only- with' the Iron Age and the new invasions came the and the fears that built them.
The long road to our modern hell of war was being paved, by iron- brandishing celts, complete, per haps, witn tnose sinister Druids and pursued by the iron-willed legion's of Rome. The Pelican book covers an astonishing amount of time and ground with admirable clarity and brevity, ranging from ape-men to Anglo-Saxon. Dr. Simpson deals with research onlv in a small area the Province of Mar, which is Aber deenshire between Dee and Don. and the Garioch, the rolling and fertile country to the north.
It is noble country: it is also', archaeo-logically considered, the Wiltshire of Scotland, abounding in. stones, barrows, and the finely wrought relics of a creative people. His fascinating book, with its glorious CS1SU CUUUU3 -fMllUlUlUEJIlJ, IS 11J Aberdonian's bargain. It should also remind Mr. and Mrs.
Hawkes, who, like! -Mr. Wmbolt, pay too little attention to Scottish remains. the' entrancing secrets of Britain's first genuine civilisation mav be as well bv Tav and-Don and Dee as by the Wilt shire Avon and on English Downs. Reviewed by LIONEL HALE The Story of Doctor Wassell. By James Hilton.
iMacmillan. 6s.) We Poor Shadows. By Hermynia zur ISiihlen. Muller. is.
6d.) Faces in a Dusty Picture. By A Man of Character, By D. H. L.anaets. nurse ana atacKett.
Ss. 6d.) Black Dawn. By Shaw Desmond. Hutchinson. 9s Bd.) Polish Short Stories.
Minerva fuoiisntng company. IBs. Bd.) mother: the house falls down without its matriarch; but her story, never, lacks vitality. certainly, does Mr. Gerald Kersh, who is back with the Army in.rAnEs in a uusty i-iciURE, telling Of an attack in the Western No longer the Garden of Allan, tne.
desert will lone be re membered by many Englishmen as the dust-heap of the devil; and Mr: Kersh does it full justice. As a writer, he has the aualitv which General Montgomery demanded of nis desert soldiers: binge. You feel he could run his six chapters of feverish story-telling before breakfast. Sergeant and subalterns, privates and the general Planning uus desperate attack, all ate hard and racy. There is toughness; pace and anger in all Mr.
-Kersh's novels these fighting men are Kt.ts.. ior sound ana rury. The unheroic hero has not gone out of fashion since Dobbin: he is likeable enough in Mr. Landels's A Man of Character. This is a curious mixture of romance, comedy, satire, and warlike adven ture: the army life in barracks, a London-flat in the blitz, bombing raids wun tne- -xiaj) a simple little love story, and escape from France are all cheerfully confused.
If it occasionally fails in taste, it usuauy manes up ior it in flavour. But. I can make verv little of Mr Shaw Desmond's Black' Dawn, a nbvel Of the future, forecagtinr an Anglo-Saxon confederation for the post-war world: its rhetoric swamps it- Finally, Polish Short stories, Dy a variety of hands. give us the widest range of the tragic, and- the gay, with a unifying note of love bf country that sounds Dirge Who's Won the Toss? By E. H.
Sewell. Stanley Paul, By R. C. ROBERTSON-GLASGOW ALWAYS feel that Mr. E.
H. D. Sewell has a rather queer way of showing his undoubted affection for cricket. In brief, the demonstration consists in a sustained whacking of views that are contrary to his own view which, again in brief, is that hardly anyone since 1914 has played or does play cricket as well as it was played before 1914. Of responsible critics who disagree with him, he hints darkly that they have an axe to grind." A thesis so extreme on matters so widely open to debate demands a far subtler and more persuasive method than Mr.
Sewell's, whose practice it is to fire heavy, broadsides at an often imaginary foe, then, before the smoke has cleared, to lumber off to fetch more and heavier ammunition. Yet. both as an annalistic record and as an experiment in selection, hie Wlin'c tup TVc.O a luoai ileus considerable interest. Besides lucid chapters on Cricket Reform, Coach' ins, and Captaincy, he has selected a series of Ideal Elevens iwicitei-Keeper, one all-rounder. v.i KVOUVCCU Class Counties, the six Test Match- tuaviug v-uunmes, T.n.e ueiuiemen and Players match at Lord's, and the Inter-University match.
All these teams are from players of the fifty years from 1890-1939, each player being supposed to be at hi rifalr Tn DTnfaiwinif hit. tions, he draws on a deep mine of uiuwieage ana ODservauon. BUI lias long supped on disapproval. uulc ul iwite tne oeweuian zrown relaxes, as when he mentions the immortal minute or tne Gloucestershire secretary, E. M.
Grace: wuuu.bc UICCL111K 11SZ1U HI WVi i 4 1 1 1 1 T.iii.w iiiui, uii lucauaj, T.T 1 1 Ell. lOO -1 I' liuvauuci liFLSI, 1010, HI U1UCK. Present: E. M. Grace, and that's an.
But he soon returns to his weakness for arguing from the par ticular to the general. For in stance, he sees one day a fastish bowler who is not at his liveliest and best: so he writes, for Derma nency: "Most fast bowlers of today bowl as though they were mooning about in some Palais de Danse, fuddled by the unpleasant noises that emanate from saxo phones." Fuddled criticism. He ex presses scornful condemnation of rubber soles on tne cricKet nela; yet Percy Chapman, only for one, wore them while making many a won derful catch. He rarely mentions a modern star without some ancient and damning comparison Larwood was yards slower than C. J.
Kortright; Hardstaff is not so good a fielder as his father was at the same age. and so on. till the whole thing becomes a thrice-told leoious tale, a Gregorian dirge on a instrument. Almost alone of those under seventy, Mr. B.
H. Valentine comes through the ordeal with total suc cess, ana he goes into is.ent "Best Ever" but, together with the Dratse. comes the inde finable sentence: He suckled this jolly old game of ours at little old Repton." I cannot take Mr. Sewell as gravely as he taKes himseir. EXPERIMENT The Peckham Experiment.
By Innes H. Pearse and Lucy H. Crocker. iAllen and Unwin. 12s.
6d.) By ANNE CARR TNHAPPILY the outbreak of war and the dispersal of families by evacuation compelled the suspension of the social experiment at Peckham Health Centre. The splendid modern building and the well-thought-out equipment which have been studied by architects and sociologists from many countriesi were ready only in 1935 and were designed for the use of 2,000 families. By 1939 1,000 families of all classes, representing 10 per cent, of the neighbourhood served by the Centre, had joined and, most fortunately, the Sir Halley Stewart Trust has fostered the writing by some of the staff of an account of the aims and achievements of the Centre. There were two conditions of membership: every member of the family must join and must agree to a thorough physical overhaul, repeated periodically. These somewhat novel requirements made newcomers hesitant, but they also excluded irresponsible membership.
The physical overhaul and family consultations following it were designed to discover the exact physical condition of each family. This approach has given a most important lead in the field of work now known as Positive Health. All members of a family were free to come and go, to choose their own diversions and occupations. Games equipment and the large swimming pool were paid for by small- charges for adults; debates, dances, plays, and music were among the many activities. The Centre was run entirely on the spontaneous activities of its members.
A farm to supply fresh vegetables and fruit and T.T. milk was acquired at Bromley, together with playing fields, and a holiday camp was opened in Kent. The Peckham Centre could be reproduced only in thickly populated districts, but many of its ideas could be carried into family clubs throughout the country. If this were done many problems would automatically disappear. Where children are given such spontaneous activities young lawbreakers should indeed be rare.
Responsible citizenship follows naturally from the free association of differing personalities respecting each other. It may be said that the Peckham Experiment points the way to free and vital democracy. The report of it is valuable. PROUD ISLAND George Cross was never better bestowed than on Malta. Miss Sybil Dobbie, daughter of the Governor of the island during the worst of the siege, tells the story of its heroism in Grace Under Malta (Lindsay Drummond.
7s. 6d). It is a proud, simple, well balanced record. Young though she is, the writer is able to see her immediate event in relation to wider issues ANNIE S. SWAN deavounncj to make a collection of i her late mother's letters for publication, will be grateful if anyone who possesses letters from Annie S.
Swan I will send them- to Mildred Robertson 1 Nicnll. 2. Fonlhill-terrace, Aberdeen. 1 he will be acknowledged, copied. 1 and returned as soon as possible.
yaad hothingbufihetbrtad an an(KlBgjr poetry by FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT waVell March ijth lot 6d net RBHHB -5--- -ytrm I repHnting i WE FOUGHT IN GUNBOATS LT-COM. ROBERT fUCHENS DS.O R.N.VJL NO NIGHTINGALES CARYL BRAHMS S. J. SIMON COMPANY IN THE EVENING URSULA RANGE THE SNOW CRICHTON PORTEOUS michael joseph; ipiwrritrfr-iiinjicm The Rise and Fall of ithc, House of -TJlisteiii Herman UllBtein The story of Germany in the "present century as seen trureragli the eyes of one of the heads of its greatest publishing house. Ready March 9 106 net Father's Heinkel Bernard Wicksteed DXt A brilliantly homaroos account of a journalist's experiences the VLJlX, Shortly S- net rr England's weather -the past thirty "tea as JobnH.
Willis 9 A fine record, suocrblv illus- Baled. 1 of Enclishman's pen faiisi topic. It enables one 7 loo any dsut or-occasion during the period cbveredi "Glazed with the snows of yester-year, -glistening with van-' fished rains', and -''afire with---ancient sunsets." J.C.iTrtwi in Tie Observer. ys. id.
net Still Available Is Capt. F. IRMGARD LTTTEN )rd impression My Name is Frank FRANK Ceors AHeri ft A BTMV OP KlNO AirtTHUR EDWARD p'SkUlib PETERBOROUGH in THE 'DAILY TELEGRAPH liyt TKS LEQSKrjlBX BSSO, CSSKSTUU a csxTic hp-ro." is rescted raou 'tbs oesteel s0i105s os jild-- Victorian Booiett' ass bbxhusatid Br Dr. Frakklahd." With a Foreword by DAVID LLOYD GEORGE PEN hut in ICS d. iillllllMBssssasarn mm The CamHLYrtf the; OTHHON MAN Here, for she Atrt tim; Mr.
Wallace's id for the future fjdrwn together In one volume This. Boot of Tistoo of -world in which roan. mm. fee proud to live- 5- Author of A vivid by land, ir-jo the Mediterranean theatre of.rnd the flrsl AUIed Invasion of mainland of. Europe u6 1.
The HTRNATIOHAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA Th.l,J:,r',",n anaweri many questions which concent' those In aU countries inter- soiscasn. spe.TOt resources and economic porentfaUties of the par 7j6 -ijSf Co PmklMsl LrJ Largest' bf Book 'Publisher THE STORY OF DOCTOR. WASSELL A novel, not in the ordinary sense, but a narrative based linfBit and told in fiction A true story of an Arrrencannavir doctor who got his wounded men out of Java through the turmoil of the Japanese -invasion, 6- Ltd. Bocft successful books it now in its Printing- THE EDGE of the ABYSS: by. ALFRED NOYES 5..
EDWARD LYTTELTON Cbylh. DEAN OF DURHAM 5i.t CLOUD READING FOR PILOTS With Photographs by A. C. DOUGLAS SAND IN THE GLASS by M. Gl LLEWELYN J2s.6f.
HALF A LIFE by Major C. S. JARVIS i5s. A BOOK ABOUT BOOKS: by Canon' HARRISON 7s. 6d.
GREEN FIRE by P. W. RAINIER lis. 6dl. Prices are ntt DUCK8 AND DUCK BREEDING (iiiush it The WEEK-END GARDENER Gardening Choice if- HOW to MAKE MD MANAGE AN ALLOTMENT IT PAY8 '-T02BE 1WI8E WHEN BABY COSIES (MothsrcrsftlW.
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we shall It is all very ooienant: much of it verv heart-felt, in "the bitter modern way. But have we at any moment felt that sudden lilt of the heart; touch of the wire on; the. nerve, kthat unmistakable recognition, which carry us' straight into the presence of poetry? That is. the test. That is the measuring- rod against which all our standards" must be tried.
such severity. in mina, we snail nna ourselves not easy to please. For sheer accomplishment, the bays must go to Mr. A. L.
Bowse with his Poems Chiefly Cornish. Mr. Rowse is a practised writer, a scholar; a historian; and, apart from his merits as a poet and a man of letters, the subject-matter of his present collection. of verses is likely to make an appeal. There must be many millions of erstwhile holiday-makers in these islands who share Mr.
Bowse's passion for Cornwall, its cliffs and coves, its dragons and Druids, its legends and Lyonesse, even for Its rather unconvincing palm-trees, its grim granite houseB, and its roofs of slate. But, unlike these summer visitors; Mr, Rowse has a real-right to his romantic predilection, for he is Cornish by nirth and never lets you forget it; in fact I saw him quoted somewhere the other day as saying he wasn't an Englishman; he was a Cornlshman. But what I find interesting is not his preoccupation with Cornwall but his ever present sense of mortality and his acceptance of it. Not a Painless acceptance. No.
He has had dragons to fight more authen tic than any Cornish dragon. When he speaks of his spirit's intellectual agony it is no phrase- masung; it is tne pnrase ol a man who has suffered in his soul. It is natural that mortality with its attendant retinue of fear, pain and grief, should figure largely in the pages of the younger poets also. Witness Miss Ursula Wood. Mr.
Heath-Stubbs. and Mr Terence Tiller with his inward animal, which Is to result in the reintegration of the self after the shaking and strangeness consequent upon war. Sorrow and be wilderment leaD at us from everv page; and a disquieting sense also, I think, that the modern idiom has not yet been shaped into quite the rignt tool ior tne joo. 1 suspect that it is altogether too easy in this Idiom to produce a certain effect, looking very like poetrv. and certainly enabling the writer to unload part of his monstrous accumulation of present-day experience and perplexity.
But where is the magic? and where the austerity that craftsmanship in any trade used once to demand? Sidney Keyes, had he lived, might have supplied both. The magic is there already, the crafts manship well on its way. Alas, this boy was killed in Tunisia just before he was twenty-one. The IN THE WARS TR. STANLEY has made a garland of the" wars those from St.
Crispin's Day, 1415, to our own time. Even readers who seek some relief from the flinty and steel couch of battle may And treasure here, possibly this soothing phrase from a letter of John Evelyn: In the mldflt ol disturbances who but Dr. Beale can think of Sardens and Ash ponds and the dices and ornaments of peace and tranquillity? The book opens with the fanfares of the Henry Chorus, mingled with the sturdy prose of Raphael Holinshed. (What a war correspondent he would have been!) One of the last entries is Laurence Binyon's poem, The Burning of the Leaves." which appeared eighteen months ago in The Observer. Between these points Mr.
Stanley calls on ballad-makers and historians, letter-writers, poets, diarists. He is an expert in his class, no jackdaw-hoarder, king of shreds and patches, but an anthologist with a conscience who holds a balance between the familiar and the suddenly surprising. Among his two hundred and more authors are Roger Ascham and Kenneth Grahame, George Gascoigne and Eric Linklater, Priestley and Peele. Deloney, Donne, and Conan Doyle. The book covers all fronts, land and sea and air, home and EXILE James Joyce.
By Harry Levin. (Faber. 8s. 6rl.) By SIMON HARCOURT-SMITH 'T'HE innate tragedy of all liter- ary movements when tainted by nationalism is their inevitable fail into provincialism. Art is a glorious leaner of frontiers and a seedy builder of them.
What better lesson have we than in the Irish literary flowering? Fumes from the parochial teapot killed Synge and James Stephens, almost overcame the genius of Yeats. But as the talent of a Borodin is eventually smothered under a hubbub of black earth folkiness, so a cold Irish stew of leprechauns and quarrels on St. Stephen's Green makes us reject much valuable writing from the Ireland of thirty years ago. James Joyce was the exception the Daedalus, who soared out of Dublin to become a world by him-r self. His exile, both geographical and spiritual, gave to his work a vitality denied to all his Irish contemporaries: Ulysses may fall into that unfortunate category of the no longer fashionable, while lacking enough years to become a classic.
Over Finnigan's Wake we are still arguing. But if for a moment we disregard these later writings of Joyce, all their maddening convolutions, allusive and elusive, their preoccupation with sound rather than meaning, their monumental puns, the Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and The Dubliners must remain supreme landmarks in twentieth-century literature, by European standards. In this brilliant study of Joyce. Mr. Levin, a Harvard critic of that admirable, modern, American tradition formed by M.
Esmond Wilson, rightly stresses the European quality of Joyce's genius. He was Irishman enough always to hark back to that Dublin which for the last thirty years of his life he hardly knew. But like Sterne, he was an Irishman who could only realise his full status in France. Like Sterne, too, he found proper appreciation only on the Continent. With a wealth of gracefully-worn erudition, Mr.
Levin restores this encyclopaedic curiosity to its proper place in the European heritage. Ulysses from Arkansas THESE BOOKS ARE IMPORTANT lYoTiZ Labour. 1918.1939. 76. CRAWFORD.
J. and DAXGLEISR, I Was An Eighth Army Soldier." 4.1b. SEYLER. and HAGGARD. S.
Craft of Comedy. J. E. BUMPUS. 477, OXFORD STREET, W.I.
MR. JAMES HILTON did not invent his new hero. Dr. Wassell: he found him ready-made by the Japanese war. This is the Dr.
Wassell of the U.S. Navy who brought twelve wounded men out of an hospital in Java and arrived in Australia, heureux comme Ulysse, after many trials. Indeed, there is more than a little of Ulysses in Dr. Wassell, who (in Mr. Hilton's story) is wily, energetic and long-suffering.
But Ulysses lacked the Arkansas drawl on which Mr. Hilton, who misses no tricks, insists. The' Story op Dr. Wassell is a novelist's recreation of that long and dangerous journey which won. the doctor his Navy Cross.
The genuine cards are all in the novelist's hands; and yet Mr. Hilton, by the smoothness of his playing of them, gives somehow the impression of having stacked the pack. The tough Navy cook with a heart of gold: the devoted and diminutive Javanese nurse: the self-sacrificing doctor himself, another Chips off the" old block if these had not existed, you feel that Mr. Hilton -would have found it necessary to invent them. His story is moving and picturesque; but, if you called It a moving' picture, you would be dangerously near the mark.
Mr. Hilton, who is an Englishman, has been so long in Hollywood that even the British soldiers- who make an incidental appearance the brave, aloof officer-or -the cheerful little co*ckney are reduced to familiar and unfailing screen types: non Angli sed Los Angeles. But the heroism of the picture is not obscured by the gloss of the varnish. Uncommon in its blend of the solid and the lively. We Poor Shadows is a chronicle of a noble Austrian family in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Ideas, as well as feet, were dancing at the Congress of Vienna; and, though this novel has its fair share of elopements, mesalliances. and waltzes, it faithfully records the growing liberalism of the Its author laus in elementary tact when she permits the death of the honest and tyrannical grand In the lop flight of fine craftsmen, the goldsmith brings to his work a quality and skill which are reflected the beautiful examples of the goldsmith's art which pass through his hands W. H. Smith the First was a goldsmith originally, and when, in 1 8 1 2, he joined his mother in the management of her newsagent 's business at No 4. Little Grosvenor Street, he brought to the task all the attributes of an efficient and conscientious craftsman.
To his enterprise and capacity was due, in no small measure, the development of the W. H. Smith I Kllji Son organization, which to-day plays such an important part in providing the public with newspapers, hooks, library service, stationery, bookbinding, priming and adcmsing 1 H. SMITH SON BRITAIN'S BICGEST BOOKSELLERS 1 l00 Branches Head Office Smitli 4 Son. I Strand Houk, throughout the volume..
