19 OCTOBER 1912, Page 25

Larkmeadow. By Marmaduke Pickthall. (Chat to and Windus. 6s.)—It is

hard to understand why an author whose descriptions of the East are so distinguished and so readable should make his picture of local politics in an English country village so exceedingly uninteresting. Anyone who knows anything of country politics will resent their being forced upon his attention in the insistent way which Mr. Marmaduke Pickthall adopts in this novel. There is no other interest whatever, and although it is impossible to say that these pictures are not true to life, yet the reader will heave as great a sigh of relief at the end of the book as he would do if, after being condemned to exist in a village like "Larkmeadow " and to take an interest only in its affairs, he were suddenly released to live in a wider sphere.