The Icelandic Canadian - 01.10.1942, Blaðsíða 30

26
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
away with it. The book is an interest-
ing study of a period now completely
vanished.
An altogether different type of his-
torical novel is Don Pedro and the Devil,
by Edgar Maas. Here is a impression-
istic canvas covering much of the
known world of the early sixteenth
century. The hero is an impoverished
young Spanish nobleman who accom-
panied Pizarro when he conquered Peru.
There is really quite a striking resem-
blance between the methods of the
Spanish Inquisition and those of the
German Nazis. Even Pizarro felt he
needed to justify himself for his treat-
ment of the Inca and his subjects, and
his arguments are strikingly similar to
those Hitler uses to explain his treat-
ment of “inferior races.” To many of
us the name Conquistadore merely
means some rather boring pages back
in our eighth grade histories. In this
book they really live. DeSoto is a
handsome gentleman who was fastidi-
ous even in the steaming Central
American jungle, Pizarro a rough, hard
soldier who had known great poverty
and had a large family to provide for.
What wonder that the gold of the Inca
dazzled him.
An altogether different type of book
is Leaf in the Storm, by Lin Yu Tan.
The author describes the war with
Japan as a great storm sweeping over
China whirling its numerous inhabi-
tants away from their homes and scat-
tering them about the country, just as
the wind scatters the leaves in autumn.
Malin, a beautiful Chinese girl is the
“Leaf in the Storm,” with whom this
story deals. In the beginning she is
shown as a beautiful self-centred girl
who lives largely for the satisfaction
of her senses and her emotions. In the
end she finds strength and salvation
by giving service to her fellow suffer-
ers. The hero, at least hero in the sense
that he is Malin’s lover and later her
husband, is Poya, a minor character in
Lin Yu Tan’s earlier and much longer
novel, Moment in Pekin. Perhaps the
real hero is Lao, a Buddhist priest. The
background of the war is well done.
The author doesn’t draw a veil over
any of its horrors. Still, while in some
of the recent novels dealing with the
war in China, you remember the horror
more than anything else and come out
simply bathed in blood, here you re-
member the characters, their humanity
and courage. You feel that although
China has been hideously violated, her
soul remains calm and strong and she
can never really know defeat.
News has been received that Edward
George Peterson, son of Gudrun and
Magns Peterson, 313 Horace St., Nor-
wood, previously reported missing, is
now a German prisoner of war.
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at home or overseas. Original articles and poems as well
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little venture.
THE EDITORS. (
I