1935-05-06 — Page 7

LITERARY NOTES

A TALE OF BLACK MAGIC

Occultism Mixed With Romance

DIFFICULT TASK CLEVERLY CARRIED OUT.

ME Dennis Wheatley's book, The Devil Rides Out" (Hutchin-| son, London. 7/6), which is de scribed on the cover

as a "Great

new thrilling romance." is con- cerned mainly with "Black Magic" and may appear to most readers as somewhat fantastic.

AN OUTSTANDING NOVELIST

Best English Author Of His Generation

R. C. HUTCHINSON'S LATEST WORLD REVIEWED

(By Compton Mackenzie)

Ins

THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, MAY 6, 1935

RUDYARD KIPLING AND H. G. WELLS

French Admirer Who Published Them

DIFFICULTY OF MAKING FRANCE READ THEM

The dificulty of popularising the works of Kipling and H. G. Wells in France was revealed by M. Henry D.. Davray at the Kipling Society meeting in London recently.

He said that in 1894, Pierre Mile, who had since been sometimes call"} fed "The French Kipling." was ini London, and turned over the pages Unforgotten Prisoner," was a mag-of Kipling was 'unknown to him.

Mr. Hutchinson's, luat book, "The of "Many Inventions." The names nicent romance, but it was mance which caught, hold popular fancy and therefore

a ro- of, the

He dipped into the volume and enjoy-trains went by before he realed he was carried away. Half a dozen.

Light Mille forthwith translated some of had an appointment to keep. 31.

but France did not react to this oft

In 1938 I was bold enough to call Mr. R. C. Hutchinson's novel "The The majority of ordinary people Unforgotten Prisoner" one of the know little or nething of occultism, half-dozen best though it would seem there is a vast written since the war.

English novels deal to be known, and the author's After reading his new book, "One est material success. word must, therefore, be taken that Light Burning" (Cassell, 7s. 6d.). I. 1-se ne reason why "One no pains have been spared to secure shall be bold enough to claim that Burning" should not enjoy a com-the stories which were published, accuracy of detail in his descrip- Mr. R. C. Hutchinson is the best parable material success. tions of magical rites and formulas male novelist his generation for protection against evil.

It is a tale of noble adventure. It fensive.. There is little doubt that "Black him, beside Mr. Francis Stuart, of self-sacrifice. It carries the produced in England, and I put is a tale of a great love. It is a tale Magie" is to greater or less de Ireland, as a genuine creative ar reader, with a conviction that he is that France was finally conquered, gree actually practised to some exist..

It was through the Jungle stories tent all over the world and even in It is an immense relief to find from a seaport in Wales up the Bal-publisher.

undergoing an actual experience, but even these long failed to find a London and other big cities, but it young writer who is not completelytic ports to reach Siberia. is to be hoped that the degree is preoccupied with less rather than greater, as if Mr.ters that have been so fashionably credible portraits. Above all its lection of foreign authors. He mat-fera a gallery of strange but alwaya Kipling and Wells stories in a col- M. Davray decided to publish Wheatley's description is a portrayal of the, practice, it's most every young writer of promise lishes a great deal of contemporary pose from an old maidan aunt, and true the wearisome preoccupation of extends the imagination and demo-obtained the capital for the pur devilish business.

during the last fiften years, and yet futility..

the sex

at the same fimè capable of irrad- Jating his work with an almost e static passion.

man

A Difficult Task In introducing the "Black Magic" theme into a romance.or, perhaps to put it better, constructing a ro

Mr. Hutchinson is essentially a mance in a setting of "Bluck romantic, and nowadays a Magic," the author has attempted a must be endowed with the courage difficult task and one cannot help that only a consciousness of his feeling that either subject treated own originality can give, if he is, alone, in the very lever and in- to be a successful romantic. teresting manner of which Mr.

Imagination Held

It' of

* Success At Last

"at, the age of 24 found myself in charge of an enterprise from which the biggest people of the publish Ing trade in Paris recoiled in tre-

GREAT SCIENTIST'Spidation

CONVICTIONS

Professor Einstein's. Religious Belief

IDEALS THAT HAVE LIGHTED

HIS WAY

:

"I had a bit of trouble with pub- lishers myself," said M. Davray, with a smile. "I translated Wells Time Machine' and "The War of the Worlds, but I could not find a publisher. They wrote back that

gination,'" the stories were lacking in im-

TALE OF HORROR Psychological Study Of

Gripping Power

Wheatley is enpable, would have Ry a successful 'rumante, I menn proved more satisfactory.

a writer who can. compel a large Nevertheless it must be said number of readers to accept the that the book is arresting, whether reality of his created world, even if looked at as a treatles on "magic" to accept that world should involve or as a "romance" but the very in-them in surrendering some of their Professor Einstein, the authority cidence of the "Black Magic" sur-own common sense in the process relativity, has just published roundings has tended to introduce characters and situations which can such a really artful story teller See It."

Fortunately, Mr. Hutchinson is book, entitled "in the World as I only be designated as fantastic and that even the reader who is always that he is deeply religious. He de He confesses in the book out of proportion.

There is no Intention

suspicious of any attempt upon hisfelares that a man who regards his "I AM YOUR BROTHER” in this imagination will find his Imagina-own life as meaningless is almost criticism of "damning with faint tion enthralled before he is aware disqualified for a life of case and praise" and it can fairly he said) of it.

Some weeks ago I read in pruof that Mr. Wheatley has succeeded

happiness, as these ends in" them-"I Am Your Brother," by G. S. Mar- admirably in what he set himself to rescue

The expedition of Andrew Wild selves form an ethical base proper lowe (Collins. 78. Od.) It then out to do, though, to use

the theologian Grund- to a herd of swine. vulmann somewhere in the heart of

made' a deep impression on me an a garity, the book is "not everyone's Asintic Russia would be no better my way," he says, "have been truth, tolerable horror, for I took tho "The ideals which have lighted work of occasionally almost in- ment. R.F.C.M..

than an ex-asperatingly improbable goodness, and beauty. The fairest story literally, as tale unless it were related in the thing a man can experience is the who is driven mad by the respon- that of a man way Mr. Hutchinson has chosen to mysterious. He who cannot won-sibility of a brother who is a phy-i release it.

der is as good as dead; he is a seal monster. Now I find that the Nobody has yet supplied a satis-muffed-out.candle." factory definition for what we call noelry or for what we call genius,

LITERARY CHATTER

Happenings In The

Book World

DEATH OF PROTOTYPE OF

SHERLOCK HOLMES

Mr.

but we know what we mean by poe- try and by genius, und find au- thentic evidence of both in "One Light Burning."

The

[monster is a symbol of the artist's, other self, and re-reading the book with this information at my dis posal on the publisher's jacket, I find that the power of it to horrify me has been much weakened.

Poe Recalled

REAL-LIFE STORY OF SOUTH SEAS

Should Command Success

Solomon Islands And

There remains an astonishing technical interest of Mr. Richard Washburn Child, Hutchinson's narrative style is ex-

New Hebrides presentation of modern London who died recently was not an im treme, but the most stolid reader "JOCK OF THE ISLANDS”.

which recalls sometimes the vision pressive talker. but he

had a will have little difficulty in adjust-

of Edgar Allan Poe, sometimes shrewd group of politics and was ating half to it.

Thomson's "The City of Dreadfu) he time the highest-paid, short There is a detestable superstition Cromar (Faber and Faber, Ba. Ed.). will depend on the importance you "Jock of the Islands," by John Night." How far you will grant story writer in the world., At the that the best work is debarred from is an admirable areont in the Solo-

the book psychological profundity, height of the boom he received winning any considerable measure mon Islands and New Hebrides are prepared to attach to a night;| $3,600 for a 2,000-word story, and of popular appreciation, and this during the 'olghtles. his novels had a large sale in superstition is deliberately exploit- America.

ed by self-conscious intellectuals.

Of late years books about the too much affected by one's personal Judgment of a book like this is South Seas have lacked the quality susceptibility to the phantas-

A London publisher is offering a) prize for the best drawing of Poirot, that famous detecive of fiction,

#

WELL-WRITTEN AND AMUSING

"Sally To Oblige”

·

mare.

THIRTY YEARS

OF

SUPREMACY ON THE HIGH SEAS

OF

EFFICIENCY, · ECONOMY AND

SATISFACTION

12

155

THE STEAM LAUNDRY COY. Head Office & Works, Mong Kok, Tel. 57032.

ANIMALS AND MEN

Elephant Memory Of Kindness

VIVID TALE OF LIFE

IN KENYA

of earlier travels and adventures, magoria through which the author but "Jock of the Islands" has the relentlessly whirls ha reader for s right bouquet.

eritic to feel confidence In his We are free from any suspicion opinion.

Mr. C. T. Stoneham has written that Mr. Cromar has an eye on the

another fine tale in "Elephant Bro- "I Am Your Brother" may be the ther" (Hutchinson, London 7/6).. films, and for the first time in first novel of an original mind, or Once again he has chosen Kenya many months I shall end a volume may be merely a successful

Colony for his stage and as his and humans. In

Recently there died the model of the original pictures of Sherlock Holmes. He was Mr. Walter Paget, The artist who illustrated

to join these crowded shefves of neurotic experiment. However, no Conan Doyle's stories was brother, Sidney Pagel. His con-written a most engaging and amusthor can hold his own in really good ignore his dark, disquieting book, pears a little far-fetched that a his Mr. W. H. Lane Crauford has brary, with a feeling that the au- of the English novel can afford to cold black and white print it ap

South Sea reminiscences in my body interested in the development players animals ception of Sherlock Holmes im-ing novel "Sally to Oblige", {Ward, pressed the man on the mind almost Lock, London, 3/6),

company C.M.

as much as Doyle's stories.

*.

and 'written it well. He has an Baroness Katharina Dombrowski, irresistible Author of "Land of Women," the of humour, which sense epfe novel of Paraguay announced will be appreciated. by Putnam, lived for many years in by all who read his that country where her husband books and his next held a diplomatic post. During story is always that time she acquired an intimate) awalted within- knowledge of the people and their torest. history.

Lard Hallsham,

Tony Fenley, com- panion of Lord Secretary of Shepperton, Ande a

State for War, has written an in-¡ beautiful stranger in troduction to Mr. Hampden Gor his car. How can don's volume on the "War Office," he prevent her from to be published shortly. It is the kissing him? How

latest addition to Putnam's "White- bo stop her from in- hall Scrios."

#

*

viting him to marry her?

Tony's

answer

Richard Bermann's "The Mahdi of Allah" is one of the best recent makes a delightful books on General Gordon's last story, full of the months in Khartoum, half cen- flowing mirth and tury ago. Mr. Winston Churchill, spontaneity which is who was himself present at the so attractive a fet- battle of Omdurman, contributed ture of Mr. Crau can, Introduction to the book

ford's style.

Compton Mackenzie.

Mr. & Mrs. Lalchand Wainmal arrived in the Colony on Saturday the a. Conte Rosso, and were cordially received by the members of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and the Hindu Association of Hong Kong. Mr. Lalchand, who is an' [lonorary Magia. trate" and Municipal Councillor of Hyderabad, Bind, is also the head of the well-known firm of Menara Watanmal Boolchand of this Colony, China, Japan, and India. Ho and his wife are now on a pleasure trip-round the worki,

man could ever win the affection of a.wild elephant-even though the animal was a captive in its youth- but Mr. Stoneham gives good res sons to show that these animals are not, in ordinary chcumstances, the enemy of man...

"Animals it has often been said, do not forget a kindness and therefor if one can credit the tale of Andro- Jeles and the Lion there is no reason

for doubting why an should not befriend a man,

lephant who

does it a kindness by removing a

[native, spear head embedded in the pad of its foot.

Mr. Stoncham has again given a fine description of the open life led in Kenya. Those who do not know it will learn amething of the wonders of the country; and those that do, will happily recall the mystia charma of a beautifull lände

YOUR LAST OPPORTUNITY OF SEEING

FOX NOEL COWARD'S

FOX

"CAVALCADE"

BOOK IT DOWN IN YOUR DATE BOOK

MAY 8th Ar

AT THE STAR

PHOTO SUPPLIES

Cameras Film, Plates, Papers, etc. Developing Printing and -

Entarging.

AT 24 HOURS' SERVICE.

PHOTO TAKEN DAY & NIGHT.

THE KWONG KWUI CO., LTD.

Photographers.

157, Des Voeux Rd, C., let Beer, Hong Kong

MAN LOONG Preserved Ginger and Fruit Manufacturers.

Tel. 22170

NEW SEASON PRESERVED GINGER Best Quality Prompt attention to Exporters.. Office and factory-Bedford Rd, Tai Kok Teul, Kowloon

Tel. No. 57088.9