1934-04-13 — Page 7

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1934.

LITERARY NOTES

"RASPUTIN

FORETOLD

OUR DEATH”

Kerensky's Tribute

to "Holy Devil"

CURIOUS MIXTURE IN

NEW BOOK

COMMERCIAL PRESS

ACHIEVEMENT

Szu K'u Ch'uan Shu" First Series Published.

2,000 VOLUMES WITH 111,000 PAGES

After many years delay the Chin- ese reading public are at last to be; afforded the opportunity of reading

The Crucifixion of Liberty, By A. that massive work "Szu K'u Ch'uan

Kerensky. (Barker. 15s).

Shu". the first series of which, in

If Rasputin had not been injur-2,000 volumes totalling 111,000 ed by being stabbed by a peasant pages, has just been published by girl on the eve of the outbreak of the Commercial Press.

the Great War, he might have been Written by the Hanlin acholars able to avert it. This is a theory during Emperor Ch'ien Lung's formed by Kerensky, who personal-reign over 140 years ago, the work ly knew his views and his power. [has never been printed before. Last Had he been in Tsarskoe Selo and year permission for its publication well, it is doubtful whether 'Ni-was granted by the Minister of «Cholashka' and Sazonov would Education to the Commercial Press. have obtained the signature they

We are in receipt of two index wanted under the mobilisation or volumes of the "Szu K'u Ch'uan

|Sho" ($600), and "Szu Pu Tsung) Elsewhere Kerensky pays rean", the second series of the first markable tribute to the "Holy De vila" strunge prescience.

der."

collection of 500 volumes ($150). As an encyclopedia for China's his- tory, philosophy, science, and litera- be desired. ture these volumes leave nothing to]

"Before ever the war was de clared, Rasputin had foretold its unfortunate denouement; he had predicted a political up- The publication of "Szu K'u

heaval during the war, as well

Chuan Shu" marks a stage in as the death of the Royal fam- ily, following his own death by China's literary history and a mile- vlulence and the barnng of his stone in the growth of the Commer-

jcial Press, who are to be congrutu-j body

"Rasputin's life was one con-lated. As these comprise only the tinuous miracle-perhaps a dia.first series, Chinese students will -bolical one, but, nevertheless, ahok forward to the publication of

miracle."

[the remaining volumes of this long- Could the Bolsheviks have been hidden treasure.-P. W.

'baulked of their coup of October,

19177. Kerensky, who bux been blamed for vacillation and weak-

mess in failing to prevent it. be- BOOM IN

pu-

NOVELS ABOUT NATIVES

Theme of Slavery in "Black God”

THE CHINA MAIL.

Relics of Belgian King's Tragic Death,

Here are the first actual pictures of the scene where King Albert of Belgium met his tragic drath. At left is shown the 9-foot crag from which the monarch felt while mountain climbing. In circle, sorrowing Belgians at the spot where their king's body was found; at right is King Albert's cap, marked by a small flag, and, below, his staff and knapsack, found at the foot of the crag near the sovereign's body.

EXPLOITS OF AN

INDIAN REBEL

Written By Journalist Who Shared His Camp.

EMILIANO ZAPATA'S LIFE

The Crimson Jester. By H. H. Dunn. (Harrrap, 8s. 6d.)

FROM POLITICS TO JOURNALISM

Vivid Book On T. P. O'Connor.

thought of him as a journalist first und a politician a long way after.

"T. P.'s Weekly”

BOOK ON CHINA FOR EUROPEANS

A NIGHTMARE IN MOSCOW

Too Berserk To Be Convincing.

COMMENT AND FICTION

Winter in Moscow. By Malcolm Muggeridge. (Eyre and Spot- tiswoode, 7s. 6d.)

"Chinese Gordon's" War On Taiping Rebels.

HISTORIC QUARREL WITH LI HUNG CHANG

GORDON IN CHINA-By Dr. Bernard Allen. · [Macmillan 7/6) In those days of marathon

Mr. Muggeridge spent a winter in novels of eight or nine hundred Moscow, and writes of it like a man pages one often hears the critic-recording what he recollects of an ism that the author could have unpleasant nightmare. "What & told his story much better in promised land it was! Horror piled four hundred pages. Such a re- on horror. Abomination of desola- mark cannot be applied to this tion. Jerry-built immensity made account of "Chinese Gordon's" and inhabited by slaves.

Every- amazing campaign against the thing most bestial and most vulgar Taiping rebels: on the contrary-barbarian arrogance and sules- Dr. Allen has erred on the tacit man servility; humanitarian senti- side.

mentality and hypocrisy; Rotarian

Ilitherto a cloud of doubt and Big Business and Prosperity; wacht mystery has shrouded this chapter lected into a

kultur and pretentious lechery-col

heap-an enormous

of Gordon's extraordinary

career

owing to conflicting accounts, rival Pyramid of filth, in honour of Ous- interpretations and general ignor-Penski and the Dictatorship of the ance of the destructive Taiping Re-Proletariat." bellion. Dr. Allen, who is more or

less a Gordon worshipper, has left IMPETUOUS WOMAN no stone unturned and no drawer! unopened in his search for data to unravel these obscurities.

He has

WRITER.

nlmost succeeded. To use a focal Lady Eleanor Smith's

simile it might be said that he managed to lift the fog from May Rond to above Lugard Road level.

New Novel.

Lady Eleanor Smith's new novel This very condensed book may be is called "Christmas Tree.". We are divided into two parts, the first tell-shown a shop girl selling Christmas ing of Gordon's heroism, Integrity, trees in a big store; we hear her brilliant strategy, Spartan mode of commenta that evening concerning life and hairbreadth escapes; and the people who had bought them; the second dealing with the eternal and then, in a series of short stories,

cruelty in victory.

trees and how wide of the mark the

A daily paper was financed for Chinese chicenery, subterfuge and we discover what happened to the

him and he gathered about him a

shop girl's supposition had been.

The stories are bright and easy

A FORGOTTEN MAN

Mr. Hamilton Fyfe in "T. Pstaff of men whom he saw to be in Execution of Wangs. Heves that the triumph of Lenin

O'Connor" has given us a remark-the running for the greatness which The historic quarrel between to read, concerned with surface im- and Trotsky was "un accident."

ably vivid and readable book. It is many of them have since achieved. Gordon and Li Hung Chang, then a pressions of types familiar in He asserts that when the first Bolshevik revolt occurred in July.

Mr. Dunn is an American journo disparagement of O'Connor to But it was not the daily paper. It district governor, over the

execu-fiction: a fading dance atar like the was his famous "T. P.'s Weekly"tion of the Wangs is described in one we met in "Grand Hotel"; the 1917, the Government possessed

nalist who was sent to write about say that the present generation which was destined to make his more detail, and many of the stories successful, brutal business man; the full evidence of Lenin's trenson.

the exploits of Emiliano Zapata, the knows little or nothing about him, name known in every corner of the of Gordon's berserker rage and his poor but loving young couple; the The Minister for Justice, before

Indian rebel who, to quote the jac-writes Howard Spring in making any arrest, sought to in EXILES IN LITTLE BELGIUM ket, "controlled three Presidents and

the country.

pursuing Li with a loaded revolver "gold-digger" of the films; the fluence political opinion hy

It met a real need. Men who had are flatly denied. But it is uncon- spinster longing for love; and so Ja region larger than the Aztec Em-"Evening Standard." His achieve- blishing part of the evidence. Len-

been denied much schooling but had vincing. Gordon was nearly, but forth. in and Zinovjef, realising their There has Intely been

a small pire.

He 'married' 26 women and ment, like most men's, was epbe some regard for the things of the not quite, a Sir Galahad.

Lady Eleanor Smith is an im "natives of put to death with his own hands meral; and no reason whatever re-mind, eagerly pecked at the crumbs. This book, which is very interest-petuous writer, concerned danger, went into hiding, and no boom in novels about

He mixed tor-

with further opportunity occurred

to Asia or Africa not of European nearly 250 people.

mains why the young men and wo-of culture which the journal soing and illuminating, should be broad brushwork rather than min- suppress their activities.

purentage," as the university stature with generosity, and practicall

generalship and men of to-day should know a name nicely packed and potted for easy specially interesting to Europeans ute nicety. She allows herself to Kerensky adduces considerable tute quaintly specifies, and it is jokes with sane

consumption. To readers in thou-living in China as it tells of a perfod speak of a "decapitated head," a which, so short a time ago, was as sands up and down the land T. P.in Celestial History not unlike the thing I have often read about but evidence to show that Lenin and piquant to reflect how few of these brilliant strategy." his confederates were in receipt stories would have found favour Knowing this man as intimately familiar as any in the land. became an instructed but never present Chinese Imbroglie. The cannot enviange; she says "anyone

as he did, sharing his camps and of money from Ludendorff, for the with Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.

That makes this book but the overbearing or bumptious uncle, student of history will also find it likely to disgrace themselves"; and of inducing by. Yet, though the angle of sym-campaigns, Mr. Dunn could hardly more opportune, for if O'Connor's anxious to give them the best they a useful antidote to the late Lytton altogether covers her pages at a propaganda a separate peace on pathy has changed, the theme of fuil to find material for a thrilling achievement WRB fugitive, the could stand at the moment and to Strachey's Iconoclastic essay on the breakneck pace that is not profit- terms disadvantageous to Russia.luvery still holds a vast interest, book. The material could have pre-

Sharp criticism is levelled at and is perhaps more tempting to sented much better; but, in itself, things which that achievement in- the Allies for opening secret peace the novelist now that it is of his-it gives to this narrative unusual fuenced are living on amongst us, nepoliations with Austria, for toric rather than political import-movement and colour. Moments of

O'Connor was the Bon of very alleged complicity in the

crude comedy follow on episodes of

poor people who screwed and stint- nilov rebellion, and for failing to| "Black God," by Miss Manners equally crude barbarity,

ed to give him a sound education. plare confidence in the failing Sutton, begins with it, for her Zapata, with his army that total- Provisional Government, in view central character is a Zulu, M'Kato,led at last 20,000 men and 10,000 He worked as a reporter in Dublin, of ita re-declaration of war alms mutilated as a youth whilst working women, entrenched in the most pro-came to London, and, after endur- redeclaration which, he de- under virtually slave conditions for ductive parts of Mexico, having the ing great privations, wrote a book clares, WOH casential 31 the an English planter in Northern support of an Indian population about Disraeli for which he receiv Russian army was to be induced to Rhodesia. Escoping afterwards, numbering 4,000,000, fighting ironi-

M'Kato at length settled down on cally under a banner that combined ed £100, He sent £35 resume fighting at all.

After the Kornilov failure the banks of the Little River, in the emblem of the Virgin with the parents, and, though his shoes were drastic ultimatum was presented į Belgian Congo, there to wait for a skull and crossbones, justifies Mr.leaky and his belly unlined, decided to Kerensky by the Allied Ambar-revenge that came ultimately and Dunn's grim verdict: "He was the that he could carry on on what was sadors. He blames himself for unexpectedly.

most bloodstained $gure of more left.

express purpose

Kor-ance.

Political Path

J'

10 ha

not washing his hands of Russin's Miss Manners-Sutton, after her than a century of recurring revolu- alliances at that point.

one grim scene, gives us few fur-tions through which the nations Meanwhile the Kornilor affair ther horrors, but goes on to describe from the Rio Grande to Tierra del sane gesture. It saveurs equally of That was a magnificent but in- was used by the Leninists to dis-the small community that gathered Fuego have passed." credit Kerensky.

about the river as commercial pros-

These are the main theses of a perity increased; the rival Roman book which is a curious melange and Baptist missions, trader and

generosity and braggadocio; and it was this same magnificent insanity Jabout money, which caused O'Connor all through ble life to be the

of history, politice and personal tavern-keeper, river-boat captain WIRELESS TALKS IN harassed victim of financial shifts reminiscence,

and magistrate's clerk-the entire xociety

FROM A RUSSIAN POINT OF VIEW.

Boring Characters In New Novel.

Its Silly Face. By Nibolai Gubaky,

(Heinemann, 7s, Úd.).

This is the story of a man named Goring. He was born in St. Petera burg of an English father and Russian mother; he married a Rus-

of exiles in this remote |Little Belgium. The picture makes,

BOOK FORM

in the main, an attractive showing; Thumbnail Sketches of

for inter-racial

relations

were

friendly, times passed comfortably

yet not without occasional excite-

Famous Figures

and stratagems, although he earned considerable suma.

It was the book on Diersc)!— plece of back-work -- that put| O'Connor, on the political path. It] happened, with out intention, to

ments, and there was always the People Worth Talking About, come at a moment when the Liberal

It was stuffed with matter that

| black magic of the jungle to match By Cosme Hamilton. (Hutchin-cohorts were after Disraeli's scalp.

the white magic of the new electric lights and motor-cars.

stan; and most of the action-such quence

as it la—takes place in a northern

few but

zon, 12s. 6d.). These

Back To Journalism

Just as the book on Disraeli al- Kipling, Wells, Shaw, Coward, most accidentally turned O'Connor

are thumbnail sketches, sounded good on Radical platforms, and O'Connor's name was swiftly in "Black God" is a valuable collec-(mostly of authors. There are a tion of Africans, but it has more few actors and actresses, too, and men's mouth. As he himself had Icharm of manner and considerable' remarkable qualities also; its here and there a soldier or a episodes of native and settlement politician. No

one, apparently, gifts of speech, he presently found life are told with an air of delicious thinks

himself, almost to his own astonish-; that bricklayers the (and sometimes malicious) inconcolliers and trawlermen are worthment, in the Imperial Parliament. while a characters cometalking about. Anyway, those are Mr. Fyfe's chapters on the associa alive after English town where they are living strokes. The word for all this is listeners want to hear about. And excellent.

very exact not the kind of people wireless tion of O'Connor and Parnell are in the time of the great "slump." "charm," and. Mies Manners-this book is made up of wireless: One feels that the author's firat Sutton's book has it, despite a dire talks, delivered from New York. intention was not so much to write ful opening, a tragic finale, and a a novel as to comment, from his sambre background of necromancy. Whistler. Roosevelt. Haig: these from journalism to politics, so cir- Russian point of view, on English Concerning this the author says (in are the sort of people hers potted cumstances almost as casual now ways; and to contrast English ways a passage typical of her style and like the Lord's Prayer on a three-turned him back to journalism,

attitude);

penny bit. "I did my best,” says though he went back not as a dog in "Their magic told them of the Mr. Hamilton, "to show; the the machine, but as a formative coming decadence of their land, achievements of these people, as force. Mrs. O'Connor liked all the and they were sorrowful, for they wel as, in almost every case, the good things that money could' buy, loved their land and all things in struggle, bardahip and heartbreak and one day when Mrs. Lalouchere it: flowers and animals, birds and which dogged their heels to fame." asked her: "Is T. P. always going| trees, the fish is the rivers and That tells you the scope and inten-to be as poor as he is now?" she the croaking frogs in the muddy tion of the work well enough; and, answered fervently; I hope not. I pools. They felt no superiority considering the sparseness of his think he would make a very good to the other His about them, only space, Mr. Hamilton must be held editor." And from that moment the rich wonder of someone to have aucceeded; The illustra-O'Connor's destiny was fixed: partaiding in an amazing adventions are, by a clever Cuban cari Even before he died indeed, a turo.

caturist Mesanguer.

long time before he dled-one

and Russian ways.

It is a pity that this is done, not so much by things that happen as by arid, tracts of talk and by not very exciting extracts from a work -on the subject which the "hero" is

writing.

He is a rather superior person. this hero, and noems to have found "most of those with whom he came ¡in contact pretty dull, soulless doga, "They seem to have bored him about

as much as he bored me.

point them on to something better. "Hero, of Khartoum."

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