The publishers of this very long novel of some 670 pages claim it as one of major importance, and that is the impression which has been formed on the reviewers mind.
Approximately 200000 words in length, the work is a trilogy in one volume, telling the story of a man's life from the beginning of the century until the present day. It takes him through all the difüculties of school, the perplexities of adolescence, the achievement of his manhood, and eventually his death before a firing squad in the Spanish rebellion. The man is an Australian and the author has succeeded very clearly in giving a description of life on that continent which is impressive by reason of the manner in which his outlines are so clearly cut.
The Ultimate Meaning The hero's own spiritual struggle is the very fine cord along which a great deal of interesting writing has been strung, and many of the incidents with which the book is replete deserve even to stand by themselves. The action throughout is full-blooded, with plenty of adventure in Australia, Gallipoli, back in Australia, and eventually, in the closing scenes, in Spain. But together with these physical adventures there is the hero's adventure of his own mind, in which he seeks the ultimate meaning and justification of life...He asks, as so many ask, why desires attained should be turned to dust and ashes; and in his endeavour to wrest the essential meaning from such words as "death" and "friendship," "life" and "fortitude," in seeking to reconcile the responsibilities of civilization with primitive passions and reactions that cannot be denied, Mr. Lowe has succeeded in giving the world a book which should do as much for Australia as Stuart Cloete did for the Boers of South Africa in the last century.
Salute to Freedom" by all indications is a first novel, but if the author has much more of such stuff A China Review Tx Hsia Monty October, 400 Ferry Road, Shanghai. $1 Per Annum $9.
"When Shanghai residents shrink with "disgust from the many and various beggars that infest the streets of the Settlement let them remember Wun Shiunn, "the great beggar and promoter of free education" whose story is told by Hsu Ti-shan in the pages of the current "T'ien Hsia Monthly." Born in 1838, in Shantung, his father died without leaving any means of support for his widow and her two children, and in the end little Wun Shiunn had to beg:
.In his early life as a child-beggar, he recognized by the community as a "filial son." He looked after his mother, devotedly and re-Verently, and whom he received alms good enough to exchange for delicious food for his mother, he would not mind walking for many miles to get He never ate anything before his nor did he enjoy n what his mother face as yellow as as thin as a dri handicapped with feeble physique, Wun often. suffered "from treat ment at the hands of his fellow beggars and other villains. He never thought of avenging himself.
And so the simple and virtuous story is told, and in time this self-denying beggar, inspired by the ideal of free education for the poor, had sayed enough cash to materialize his dream. The story ends:
Many boys from his schools now hold good. social positions. Among his three schools, the one in Lin-ching is the most progressive. It is known as Wun Shiunn Shean-shteug, or Wun Shiunn Memorial Primary' School. The Shantung Government and the Chinese Ministry of Education will stage a celebration in the coming year in commemoration of the hund-Tedth anniversary of Wun Shiunn's birthday.
Father Henri Bernard, S.J., contributes an informative article on "Christian Humanism during the late Ming Dynasty"; "Whither China?" is by M. G. Shippe, and a "Letter to Henry Miller on Goethe" by Alfred Perle is very readable. Tu Hong has compiled a "Cinema Chronicle" illustrated by scenes from "The Lone Battalion" and "Fight to the Last." The short story this month is "Hsiao-Hsiao" by Shen Ch'ung-wen, translated by Lee Yi-hsieh—the story of a domestic problem happily solved—and there are some interesting book reviews.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.