Day. Foreword by Sir Malcolm Campbell. itutehinson, London. 1/6.
The widespread sympathy with Kaye Don aroused by his recent convietion in the Isle of Man following motor accident gives a special interest to this absorbing narrative his experiences as a "speed merchant." [Those who are inclined to imagine that the breaking of world speed records is just a matter of getting into specially prepared vehicle and "stepping on the gas" will be greatly surprised if they read this story of }Kaye Don's trials and tribulations in connection with "his attempts to achieve for Great Britain the world record on land and water. His ea triumphs were obtained as a motor-loydist, but later he became a wel known and often successful competi-for in motor races at Brooklands. His heroic failure at Daytona Beach in a four-thousand horse-power Sunbeam will be remembered as the occasion when he was nearly burnt alive, but his greatest claim to distinction is undevbtedly in connection with his struggle with the American, Commodore Gar Wood, for. the Harms worth Trophy and the world water speed record. The detailed record of these contests, and the account of the many dificuities and dangers encountered and overcome, make most interesting reading, and the book to be heartily commended: to those who appreciate a story of real adventure and hairbreadth eccapes—
Mr. Lindsay has written an interesting historical novel, the second of trilogy which commenced 71th "Rome For Sale." Nevertheless, the book stands by itself as an entity and can be read without reference to the first work.
Although the historical background and detail is good, the book is rathe:
novel than historical. It Is Gerned with the happenings in Rome during 44-43 B.C, the year during which Caesar was' murdered, and the empire suffered from violent interned cine conflicts. The author has tried to make the work panoramic, by tell-ug not only the main story of the conspirators and Marcus Antonius, but by introducing the domestic details of the latter's home life with his two brothers and his somewhat over= intense wife Fulvia, and by relating two separate stories, connected with the main plot by the slenderest of threads, concerning the poet Gallus and his mistress Cytheris, and of the: young Jew Amos and his Kam, Cleopatra also enters upon the scene, the young Cleopatra of Caesar's day. come to Rome to try to obtain the legalization of Caesarion and to pick up any other plums which may lying about within reach. The effect all these plots and counterplots is to make the texture of the work Jsomewhat patchy and lacking in unity. 'The author tries to correct at lew the latter defect by having a unitying theme underlying the plot, that of the traditional "scapegoat," the victim whose death will expiate the sins of others' The conspirators are con ined, more or less firmly, that only by Caesar's removal will the days of Republican freedom be restored. They are his close friends, but are willing to offer him up as a sacrifice for the glory and safely of Rome. The populace, on the other hand, guided to certain extent by the cunning hand of Antonius, see the sacrifice from another angie, and look upon Caesar a hero and a martyr, whose death in some mysterious fashion is. aa oblation offered up for their sins They turn savagely upon the con-spiraters whose wavering spirits are further depressed by this unexpected opposition, and chaos descends upon Rome whose stability had come to depend more and more upon its deas dictator. Antonius would like to be the "strong man who steps in and takes over the helm: but even hie devotion to Caesar cannot inspire genius where it is lacking, and Mr. Lindsay has drawn a very different rian from Shakespeare's "The triple pillar of the world"
Caesar was becoming more and more radical in his politics and most. fof his opponents were drawn from the propertied classes, 'The clash between the. proletariat and the autocracy was as acute as itis to-day and in many ways the situation was much the same. Mr. Lindsay heightens the similarity' by. putting contemporary colloquialisms Into the mouths of his [characters, a device which it is easy to quarrel with but which makes the characters far more realistic to Us fandshows how much closer was the spirit of Rome to our modern spirit than that of the fifteen hundred or 30 years which followed the birth of Christ.
Mr. Lindsay has just missed writing a first-class novel, and has not been completely convincing in his historical thesis, nevertheless the bool: is one which will interest not only
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.