1937-12-14 — Page 8

THE

WORLD GOES BY

By "ULYSSES

You know as well as I do that we a million wings" (News Reel Commen-

British are the salt of the earth tary.) and a thundering fine lot of chaps.

You know as well as I co that for eigners are more to be pined than blamed, poor skunks After all, they couldn't help being born abroad.

But you know as well as I do that a book has appeared in which our nation- al character is reflected by a painstak ing which has carefully

ed the best and samest styings of the year and has now published them at the price of one shilling?

Not as a Serious. Contribution to Mo- dern Thought, but as a funny book for the long winter evenings.

It isn't cricket, y'know.

Just to make public this betrayal of our finer side, I fearlessly reprint some of the remarks.

"Hunting is really kindness to the fox. Instead of being the scum of the earth-as low in the opinion of man as a rat he has become almost a king respected by nearly everyone." (A pozy club speaker.)

THE CHINA MAIL

EMBER 14, 1937

THREE NOTABLE NOVELS

Imperial City Gollancz. 10s. 6d.

Father Coldstream. Duguid Cape. 78. 6d.

Elmer

"Quite plainly, in my view as a law yer upon the evidence in this case, I cannot find it very difficult to see how A Stranger and a Sojourner.

you can fail to find that this woman is

Julian

ow and when to lighten the shade of his important nov

"Far Away and Long Ago." That title is Hudson's who, with Cunning- hame Graham, created in me a pre- By judice favourable to books dealing

I

not guilty of manslaughter (Mr. Jus Nora K. Smith Hodder and Stough with South America. Last year tice Humphreys reported in the Daily ton. 88. 6d. Telegraph.)

greatly admired Mr. Duguid's "Cloak of Monkey Fur" and I have

Colds VOLA wrote "Paris," Mr. Rice has enjoyed reading “Father

the oised and beautifully emasculated, terperial City" which is tream," a tale of action in the the fire of the peasant Garbo." ("Pic- New York. This novel is written Paraguay of the eighteenth century taregoer")

for the most part in the suave, calm which opens in Scotland after Cullo I could go on for ever with quota-manner of an impartial observer den. Stevenson, with his boyish z

for action, would have, tions, but will content myself with a But playgoers who recall "Stre

romance of two brothers by the Tests-

final small batch..

Scene.

spine of the novel. But if Broad-

a priest and the other, revoluti against: discipline, the leader of

up

"When our Sovereign was born he. The Adding Machine, and was given, among other qualities,, the Counseller-at-Law" will not expect rare boon of you." (Sunday Times.) from Mr. Rice, nor do they here re-

Jis first rate, and I accept the pay- "For light relief the lunches at the ceive, aloof impartiality Calmnly but band of buccaneers. The narrative Athenaeum, but his heart is in the firmly Mr. Rice is of the Left And chology. For the purposes at any

if by training a lawyer, he is by rate, of a novel of this descriptio Church." ("Sunday Times")

habit a man of the theatre. Pungen-Me Duguid's treatment And so on. It really is rather cad-tly he emphasises that Broadway is

tives of the Jesuits, the colonel dish, don't you think? F mean to say, a fellow's got to say something some not. New York, yet Broadway, main

Dragoons, the outlaws, and the "In- time, and of course he doesn't always street of a city of pleasure, is the dians and "wild, is adequate, and know it's going to be printed and all

much better than adequate are his British to the backbone, that remark that sort of rot.

way spins the plot there is iramense-dealings with

the half-breed girl rebelling against the Ana, humanly Or again: "It would be an unhappy Dash it all, how would you like every-ly more in the book than the New day for the future of the Senior Ser-thing you said to come jumpin out at York of pleasure and of the minions chastity imposed upon her by Father vice if the beagles failed to function. you from a printed page

of pleasure it is a sociological Gaudrand. There was a high no- Hunting taught sound sporting quali- ties, and enabled cadets to go forth to Even I am quoted in this shillings novel, and by giving his chief bility of spiritual pride in Gaudrand brothers, and a higher nobility when that all parts of the world as ambassadors worth A pretty pass things are com characters, the Coleman for their country" (Speaker at a Hunting to when a chap, gets quoted all over different interests and an anxiety as pride was humbled, there is drama breakfast)

the place without warning.

a family to hide from the world the

of violence in this book and drama

mother a variousness is legitimately other romantic novelists of the bet- attained. Chris Coleman, capableiter sort, seems imaginatively to

Considering that that was said breakfast time, I call it a jolly sentence.

at

fine!

*

Here are other splendid English say- ings of the year.

".

The book is called "This England"upsomania: of their once brilliant also of faith; and Mr. Duguid, like

Illustrated by Low.

I hope the deuce it doesn't get into and ruthless, is head of 2 large have been alive in the period of which the hands of any of these dashed for-!, financial house hence boardroom he writes.

“Thirty thousand pigeons, were re-i But perhaps they won't leased, filling the air with the flatter of it.

SHAMPOO

RUG Cleaning

"I have a perfect terror of the aboli-eigners or other queer folk, though.

You know what wops are: absolutely discussions illuminate the intransi tion of the arms industry." (Sir Man-

After these tales of other coun- rice Hankey before the Arms Commis-no sense of humour at all. Practically gency of Big Business towards trade

illiterate. sion.)

junionism and a bill to secure fairtries Miss Smith's novel is a home- understand wages for shop assistants is balked. coming. Her book, which won a Greg Coleman, sportsman and play competition: open to members of the boy, falls victim to Baby, the flashy teaching profession, is strong in the Isint ambitious to be a Broadway simple directness of distinctively star Coringe, the sister, is un Northern narrative- and unmistak- guided by taste, a patroness of pain-ably gives an intimately true picture ters Gay Coleman is a professor of of life in the small hillside farms of sociology and an active social e Derbyshire. It was the misjudging former; hence riot in Harlem, the of her mother that committed. Zil- Negro problem, and a mayoral elec-lah to the guardianship of Zack Bow- tion with Gay as candidate for alker, and all her life she was not to minor post. And a word must be escape the Bowkers She spent a said of the Rev. Ellery Oliver, 50- hard childhood on Zack's farm, and cial crusader and a rich man who when she went as servant to the literally sold all and gave unto the kindly Lords at Windy Knoll she poor. Implacable in realism. Mr. had for the first time enough to eat. Rice describes Ellery's spiritual Yet it was not John Lord but Joel collapse after his one minute's loss Bowker whom she married, and of self-control in a saintly life. Zack, a drunken cripple in old ag Thus Mr. Rice surveys New York, was her burden; and when both Jo always with the vanity and the cor and Zack were dead and wh ruption of riches in mind, and char-for her children were a acter is created Ruby, cheap little she could not even then esca gold-digger to the uttermost, is Bowkers. "FI lay me down,” she mercilessly complete, and the com-said, "with the moor about me, with petent actress Alma, a failure of the cotton-grass-a-blowing, and mere competence, is tenderly studied above me the lone sound of th But there is a weakness in Mr. lews crying and the quietness Rice's characterisation: his "best the grey sky.” That, perhaps, is s people" fail to give the impression little literary for Zillah, standing which Mr. Hergesheimer gives and out only because in general Miss Miss Wharton gave, that American Smith adds no flourish to the aristocrats are authentically aris-natural speech of her dalestoli tocratic. As a result the fall of the outline it is a and story house of Coleman interests where it mitable worker to whor might have moved the reader, and means came too. the rich vitality of many minor a solicitor. characters is either compensation or diy lost sight distraction. But I was moved by rdianship: the story of Alma by the love warmth affair of Judy and Gay. Let it be

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the hear remembered that besides the so-and the ciological dramas Mr. Rice wrote the light comedy "See Naples and Die." fighters toget He can, as well as another, repro-

duce the sort of wit that comes out have

when the cocktails are - in- mo

significantly, he

love-talk of two educated