Page
MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1933.
LITERARY NOTES
Guide to New Books
By HOWARD SPRING
CHINESE POLITICS Humour And Pathos In A
PUZZLE
A Clear And Well- Balanced Review.
"TINDER-BOX OF ASIA”
net.)
Novel About Jews
THE CHINA MAIL.
COULD NOT ENJOY. HIS SUCCESS.
Death Of Novelist Who Wrote "Red Ike."
"Jacob Across Jabbok." By Gert-thos; its drama is implemented by Cumberland novelist and poet, and
crosa
rude and M. J. Landa. (Denis the clash of human beings.. Archer, 78. 6d.}
*
Mr. Jonathan M. Denwood, the
author of "Red Ike," has died at the age of 63. But success came too late for him. By the time his literary fame was established and
Spying Becoming A Dead Letter
Exciting Incidents In "Traitors Within.”
MUCH LEFT UNSAID
London. There is no doubt that the
think much of either of them. Disguised as a waiter, he was! in cursed by Lenin in a public house]
Islington "Clumsy fool!" hissed Lenin as Mr. Fitch "acci- dentally knocked some of the future Red Dictator's papers on to the floor. He took one away -under his napkin.
We
HOW TO WRITE A THRILLER
Finding Where Murder Fits In.
FAMOUS NOVELIST'S ADVICE
A
The Tinder Box of Asia by G. S. Jews are being shot at, literally and
This book is opportune. The Impeached!. By. Bruce. Graeme
London. Sokolsky (Allen & Unwin 10/6 figuratively, in many parts of Eu
(Hutchinson, 7s. 6d.)
was described by an expert
Just how to write a thriller.. Falke Collingwood, clerk, loved Chinese politics are a puzzle, and rope; and to those of us who would a Cabinet Minister's daughter; and his income was such that he could
like to knew how the Jews feel when he asked her hand in mar afford medical treatment he was ill official Secrets Acts must spoil
Mr. Freeman Wills Croft - in It is practically impossible for any about it all this book may well riage the Minister picked him UP, beyond medical aid.
Arcos Raid Facts.
an address to the fellowship of one in Europe or even in China to supply an answer.
Literature. know what is happening between
jhurled him through the front door,
read with increasing the Amur and the Si Kiang. Newsgandist. Our instruction is by in-
Not that its intention is propa- and thought that that was that.
"Red Ike" was chosen in June, many a good story.
The Method of the Murder astonishment of the audacity and that is the very heart of the 1931, by the Book Society as the But Fulke, having voyaged round best book of the month and within paper reports and magazine arti-ference. The theme of the novel the world to recruit his manhood, three months 30,000 copies of it Blackkett, 18/-) by ex-Detective of all kinds of "bad men." We hatred, love, greed or fear.
ingenuity of Mr. Fitch and his book, he said. Then the writer "Traitors Within" (Hurst and colleagues in thwarting the plans must select the motive, usually cles, though interesting and often is the attitude of two Jewish fami- came back and took the leadership were sold. It had been rejected Inspector Herbert T. Fitch, for hear that the Zinovieff_letter suggestive, do not help greatly to lies to the alien civilisation of Eng-of a secret party, whose members by nine publishing firms. elucidate matters and most of the land. The Brocklowitzs, in books on China's chaos are either West End, become the Brocklows codgers, drilled with dummy rifies, was expressed, in a letter he wrote not for the existence of the Off-
If one followed the murdered the were tired of constitutional old.
instance, would be positively was genuine, We learn the man through the day, explained His bitterness at his late success! literary earthquake prejudiced or written by authore and treat their Jewish origin as and advocated a
-were it facts of the dramatic Arcos raid Mr. Crofts brightly, one would whose knowledge is superficial. Mr. stigma that must be eradicated. on London. Their slogan was sim said "I am now so ill that I cannot
Fascist march to a literary group in London. He cial Secrets Acts.
Ku Klux Klan men come to find a time and place in which Sokolsky, who has lived for years The Feldmans, in the East End, ple: "Britain first, the Empire ae-enjoy the luck or success that has able Scotland Yard sleuth bris-discreetly sensational writer.
England. That is another bomb he could be murdered. The mur- in China and worked for American cling tenaciously to Jewry.
This biography of a remark-exploded in our faces by this der could then be fixed up as one Russian, Chinese, Japanese and
cond-and the rest of the world to come so suddenly. Fate has a way tles with exciting incident; but English newspapers, makes a her
The strands of the two families hell"
chose and the murderer "fitted Mr. Fitch lets himself go per-Jin' ole attempt to illumine what is through intellectual brilliance, and many years since anyone was Im-
when
Feldman, young
Fulke
of making sport of us all and suc-time after time we feel that the haps a trifle too energetically on! was impeached. It is cess is ashes in the mouth."
Great care must be exercised dark, and in the "Tinder Box off
author pulls himself up-clamp-the subject of murder. "If the in building up the synopsis with young Brocklow, Asia" gives us an imposing array father's chequebook, meet at Cam Graeme, whose legal knowledge is night. "Red Ike" is the life story Secrets Acts warns him not to would be full of heavily armed details.
through his peached in England; and Mr. tailor who
Mr. Denwood was a working ing tight those discreet lips as death penalty were removed to its facts, scenes, chronology, per- of facts concerning the deeds and bridge: and Brocklow's love
was a poacher by the whisper of the Official morrow," he writes, "London sonalities, suspects and other aspirations of Chinese generals Feldman's sister ends bis parents' full.
for impeccable, has given us the trial in of his father. and politicians since the fail of the dream that the third generation Manchu Dynasty.
I should not have thought that a would complete the climb from gut-detailed account After describing Chinese family ter-trading to a marriage into De- before the bar of the Lords, with of an appearance life how China is a mighty ag-brett. glomeration of families, grains of
LACK OF AN INDEX IN the Commons as prosecutors, could eand rather than a solid mase of their way from school to universi-intensely dramatic. It is a grand The Feldmau twins, slashing be made so dramatic. But it is-
"CHAMBERLAIN” · cement the clash between Cora-ty, are munism and Nationalism, how time young Brocklow, feeling his blood has squeezed out every ounce
an attractive pair; and idea for a book and Mr. Graeme
to elucidate those words. Sir Fabian Ware, writing in The I imagine, the Official Secrets war has become almost a dead "BURKE'S LANDED GENTRY."”' Ninteenth Century of J. L. Gar Acts registered at the and again since the Boxer Rising turn back to his origins and China has been saved humiliation temptuous of his parents' prudent ly. from beginning to end; and its lack of an index
con-effect. The thing goes breathless. vin's "Chamberlain," complains of reading stage.
Thinking the mat- proof- ter well over, I should say that only by the jealousies and mutual sterilities, is a character seen in Fulke, I am glad to say, married
The last complete edition of mistrust of the Great Powers, our the round.
"To a reviewer," he says, "the
His memoirs are divided up of bows and arrows.".
spying is rapidly going the way "Burke's Landed Gentry" appear- author goes on to tell how the pro-
the Foreign Secretary's daughter. mission is frankly unpardonable; under Anarchism, Espionage and
ed in 1921. vinces of Mongolia, Turkestan, Thi-
"Traitors Within" is the record after the trouble it has caused me, Reflections.
It is significant that the new bet and Manchuria have slipped travail agonising and long. The Sabatini. (Hutchinson, 78: 68.)
The Stalking, Horse. By Rafael and the evasions by means of gen-
of an exceptionally eventful and edition, now in course of prepara- Lenin and Trotsky were two interesting career. But most of tion, will contain a special section from Chinese suzerainty. In this, author who seems to have mixed
eralizations it has forced on me. I of the pre-War personalities upon it is written between the lines for families who were perhaps the beat written part of with many of the "Big Guns," in-ribly over-written time
This is another novel of that ter-am inclined to regard it as a dis-whom the authors had to keep a in invisible ink perhaps. classified as "landed" but who have formerly the book, we were surprised to lcluding our 1925 friend, Borodin, Jacobites were plotting for the re-!
when the courtesy.” learn that Thibet is now a Britishise-ms to regard Chiang Kai Shek turn of the Stuarts.
He did not Reuter..
now parted with their estates.. Protectorate. Such a statement as the most hopeful, or, may we makes us somewhat sceptical re-jsay, least hopeless solution to the novel could bring back any enthu garding other statements and con-present desperate situation, clusions in this book.
but sfasm for "The King across the very wisely he, the author, refrains water," the "Glen o' weeping," the Nevertheless the book is a clearly from forecasting. written and fairly well balanced "The Finder Box of Asia" pre-splendour of the MacDonalds. And perfidy of the Campbells and the Survey of the trials of
a mighty sents China's position in an able Mr. Sabatini is not a supremely nation which has conie to the par-and unbiassed way, and we recom- good novelist.. ting of the ways, a nation whose mend it to anyone who takes more very size and diversity make her than a passing interest in China.
The book has humour and
pa
Something to remember
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of
Nothing but a supremely good
In this present book he shows all
This old dexterity with situation. cleverness in the tying of knots-and boldness in their unravelling; but
his men and women are stocks and stones without breath or brain. Quick Work. By Edgar Holt.
(Eldon Press, 78. 6d.)
A girl who wins five thousand pounds on a horse and proceeds to, finance a play in which she is due
AN
to appear is as good a story any press agent can reasonably hope to discover," says Mr. Holt
It certainly is; and Mr. Holt has made good use of the plot which he has thus chosen to outline for him-i self.
This is his first novel. It is brisk and competent, full of a modern self-reliant cheekiness. It develops a Wodehouse situation without the Wodehouse genius for apt asininity. But that may come.
English Leaves, By E. V. Lucas.
(Methuen, 58.)
These are Mr.. Lucas's musings on odds and ends of English life: cricket and cathedrals, and all that sort of thing.
He is very good at being mellow. His mood is so richly autumnal that I imagine his end will be burial by robins, with red and yellow leaves for winding sheet.
But may that be deferred for a long time, and may he go on, Bei tween now and then, in unimpeded mist and mellow fruitfulness. Line Drawings for Reproduction.
By 'Ashley. (Studio, 7s. Gd.). This is one of the Studio.series of books on "How to do it.".
"Ashley," who is Mr. Ashley Havinden, has written primarily for those who hope to make a live- Bhood out of commercial drawing; but no one will find the book unin- teresting, who has the customary human curiously about how other man does his job.
ди
It is profusely illustrated with drawings by masters of the black-i and-white medium, Mr. Havin den's remarks on a drawing by Low-on its "simplicity evolved through complex thought and ex- periment"make an opportune re- ply to those who have lately been overcome by some doubt concerning Low, It is a doubt unshared by those who know how to do it." ~":
COMPLETE LIFE OF “MOWGLI"..
The complete life of Mowgli, as told by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, has. not, so far, been presented in a Kingle volume. This is now to be done by Macmillans and we shall have "All the Mowgli Stories" in the autumn. da
Mr. Stuart Trasilian, whose ani- mal pictures are well known, has done ilustrations for the volume,
explain that very thing which gangsters a week later, and prob- Once he wrote a detective we should so much like to know. ably half the Cabinet would be story that depended on the sink-
One chapter head informs us lying dead in the streets." ing of a crate, he confessed. "I am
Referring to the case of the reader pointed out to him that promised the Iron Officer in the Tower," it is in-the crate would not have sunk at Cross; a bitter failure" but teresting to read that in Mr. all!-- inside that chapter I defy you Fitch's opinion, "spying since the
law-abiding eye.
Here,
letter
Reuter...
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