Evening star., 1924-03-29
The Library Table
BY THE BOOKLovER

The chilling realism Of Johan Bojers
novel, Tho Last OF the Vikings" is
attested by the comment of a recent
reader: II folt cold all the week that
/ was reading II. and at night /
dreamed Of clustering winds and
driven snow, of gray seas with icc
floating about and of drowning men,"
This chief work cf one of the fore
most present-da Norwegian writer's
is a tale of the last of the Norwegian
fishermen who sailed in their own
boats, similar in type to those used
by the Vikings to the ISofoten fish,
cries in the Arctic ocean. Kristaver
Myran. the last of the Vikings, after
years as one of a crew, finally sails
to Lofoten as proud head man on his
own boat, the Seal. His crew are all
men from his own district With well
provided sea chests, they sail out of
the fjord which shelters their cot
tageS toward the open sea-and cold
storms, hardship and probable death
for some of them but also toward ad-
venture and possible good fishing.
Year after year the perilous voyage is
made to the northern seas, while the
anxious wives and the hopeful chill
dren at home watch eagerly for
I,ofoten letters II the fishing IS good
poor the women and children have to
get on as best they can. Nearly every
year when the boats come back some
fisherman is brought home in his
coffin.
Marya, the wife of Kristaver, hates
the sea and the fishing and longs for
her husband to sell his boat and move
inland to a little valley farm. The
sea, with Its terrible, bowling storms
that ragged all through the winter. the
waves that day and night thundered
and loaned upon the sand and sea-
weed, foamed, too, in her mind and
made her sleepless, and would one
cay she felt. rob her of her reason.
Every winter he risked his
life upon the I.ofoten sea. and If one
year the fishing was good, it was
eaten up by the seven bad years, and
they were always in poverty. But to
nope to draw him from the sea to
the land was like trying to change
hsh into a bird, and he turned the
children's minds in his direction"
The end of the fishing comes
through the changes Of time. When
Marya's oldest son comes back to visit
his native village, there was not a
sail to be seen on the ford There
were steamers. and the 'doonk-doonk'
or motor boats could be heard The
gray lighthouses were still standing
but no Lofoten boats protruded from
them, and no sailing vessels were an
chored near the shore. The day of
sailing boats had gone by; the Lofoten
voyage of hundreds of miles was a
thing OF the past. The men who
sailed them were dead or aged, and
the boats were broken up. The mod
ern motor fisherman is an industrial
workman on the sea, who smokes
cigarettes and is a member of a
trade union"
All readers of Mrs. Gaskelrs "rife
of Charlotte Bronte" remember the
bleak moors as the dominating in
fuence in the lives of the three
Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and
Anne. A recent book by Elizabeth
Southwark is entirely devoted to the
| native moorlands of the Brontes-
1Bronte -rs Moors and villages From
wart says: "The Bronte country from
/ Thornton to Haworth is a stretch Of
wild hills and rocks and yawning
quarries: of harshly outlined fields.
with the relentless moors creeping
up to their black waliS-a country of
whistling heather and slapping. howl
ing winds--a merciless country that
takes its toll of life on snowbound
moor, the pit and the quarry" From
this environment Emily Bronte drew
the inspiratio- for her wild and
gloomy novel, "Wuthering Heights"
and Anne for her weaker novel. The
Tenant of Wildfen Hall" Charlotte.
the most gifted writer of the three,
was also deeply affected by the moors
among which she passed her life.
Both Jane Eyre" and shirley" not
only have the moors for settings, but
in their emotional morbidness also
show the sonber influence of the moors
on their authors mind.
Having made a success OF his jest
ing satire on books of South Sea travel,
THE Cruise of the kawa," and a little
less of a success of his satire on polar
voyages. My Northern Exposure
Walter E. Traprock has tried the same
sort of thing again in Sarah of the
Sahara" This last extravaganza tells
of the authors desert meeting with
Lady Sarah wimpole. tall, 1.-the and
romantic. by moonlight. Roaming
about the same desert are also Lady
Sarah's husband, Lord Wimpole, and
an evil Arab named AZad, whom Trap
rock vanQuishes. Incidentally to the
story the author contributes "a wealth
| of Information about the flora and
fauna of north Africa, as reliable and
scien tific as the similar information
lin The Cruise of the Kawa,' and no
jmore so. Accompanied by his faithful
| servant Ab-Domen and with camels
having an excellent mileage per gal
lion of water. Traprock courses about
the desert having many adventures
and visiting the tomb of the great
Egyptian king Dimitrino 1. Alto
gether the fun is very good.
= =
A real romance is to be found in
the biography Pierre Curie," by his
| widow, Marie Curie-a romance of
marriage and of science. The Polish
girl Marie Sklodowska, student of
mathematics and physics at Warsaw
and abettor of rebellious activities for
| free Poland, met in 1894 Pierre
| Curie, a poor instructor. in physics,
| They found common interests in sci
| ence and plans for the betterment OF
! humanity Finally Pierre proposed
that they unite their lives. "It would
be a lovely thing" he said, ''in which
| j hardly dare believe, to pass through
dreams; your dream for your country
our dream for humanity; our dream
| for science. or all these dreams,
| believe the last alone is legitimate
At least, it was the last dream which
the two followed through their life
| together, and fortunate was it for the
world that this was so. For several
years they struggled along on SOC
| francs a month, combining domestic
drudgery at home with scientific ex-
| periments in an old shed converted
| into a laboratory. The discovery OF
| radium was announced in 1898 and ir