The Realm of Books
The Realm of Books Creole Thrills ¦ ¦ _— matK THE LEVEE. By E. Eerl *Z*mt- New **rk.: Char let gerwner't Son*. $2.00. A lUvi.w by CLEMENT WQOD THIS ii • velum* of ihort stories by a young...
...N. Y.i Maemillen...
...When tuch a man turns pacifist, hi* arguments must be heeded...
...Only a literary barometer could sayl Floyd Dell's Mad Ideal THIS MAD IDEAL...
...He has a whimsical enjoyment of its many frailitles, which he readily shares with his readers...
...N. Y.: Doran...
...HERE are two hook* txpoiing tyranny and tyranti, ona of thtm a political polemic, the other a book that will become a hie-toric landmark in the ever-living fight of freedom against oppression...
...The atyle, of course, adheres to the mose and crude character of our civilization...
...Each succeeding novel of Floyd bell s has thrown light upon the strife of youth to maintain some individuality satisfying to its own inner needs and at the same time to exist in the world in which it finds itself...
...He showed thst raseism has destroyed liberty, muzzled tht prt»», snd thst it did not say* July...
...Through adolescence the strength of the herd is too powerfully felt on many occasions and she sometimes fails to hold true to her vision, but at the close of the book, when she makes in*i final decision with regard to the small town life and with regard to the man who partially shares her ideals, we feel assured that she will continue her struggles throughout life, that half-loaves will never be eaten by her...
...To make one laugh at bourgeois morals, bourgeois hypocrisies and conformities to habit, is the purpose of th* satirist...
...Thousands of former independent farmers now compete in Western towns with unemployed worktri for the jobs that cannot be had...
...Bv Giovanni Verge...
...THE LITTLE KAROO...
...InCustrU...
...In this story Mr...
...Your carrot* by root-rot...
...Two Dictators A Review by WILLIAM M. FEIGENBAUM ALFONSO XIII UNMASKED...
...New York: Hareourt, Brace...
...He a note* from appeals to the ptoplt—and dtcrtts belying their fair promises...
...Whenever the dramatic presents Itself it seems to slide through his tender-tipped fingers with a disappointing elusiveness...
...f • gambler who beat hi* ^wjflth «y»t*matic efficiency when gtffm went against him...
...Your celery by blight...
...A piece of art is great when It manages not only to illumine but also to move...
...Thty buried hie body, and hi* spirit is amongst us, lading and fighting more than ever...
...N. Y.: Seltser...
...The characterisation is more definite, less factitious, less extravagant...
...Tht Ohio Gang worked under cover in the days of tht sainted Harding, The gang thst now rules put their feet under the tablt at White House breakfasts...
...A ruling class was being frightened by an attenuated handful of hungry fanatics and misunderstanding and bewildered foreigners...
...It i* s ttrriflc dotumtnt...
...While the point of view is religious, and frequent consideration is given to the teachings and example of Jesus, yet the book is marked by a unique freedom from sentimentality...
...1st there i* nothing distinguished in th* stories...
...Will he ever catch it...
...MANUAL OF VEGETABLE-GARDEN DISEASES...
...They portray the decline of a reigning class by revealing the stultifying nature of Hi present philosophy and ethic...
...Eddy, in his "Case Against War," and Mr...
...Now tht latest advice from Washington Ii for tht farmers to curtail dairying In order to maintain prices, adding that if the dairy cattle are increased the market will be glutted...
...Your cabbage and cauliflower by malnutrition...
...They stabbed Matteotti to death, and he i* still alive...
...Thty havt dont nothing to make good their word...
...The bourgeois promise of future felicity had been exploded...
...of hew tjtjMe, a Spaniard from Honduras, yUKgnd loved the belted lady...
...Yet thete two are the best: and (hey ar* not good...
...Judith Valentine, th* heroine of "This Mad Ideal," puts up a gsllant fight against, conforming to the smalltown pattern Her spirit is dauntless and unafraid...
...N. Y.: Seltzer...
...If Mr...
...This volume is a veritable encyclopedia on the subject, in which the author has gathered all the material thus far available in non-technical language, and should prove exceedingly useful to the plant pathologist, as wall as the amateur gardener...
...Sweet, grim melodramatic little plot —but with a fine romantic sardonic touch to it...
...One ftels him on the lidt lines encouraging them, praising their successes, comforting their failures...
...No novel can be great without tho intensity of the dramatic...
...Or ii it...
...A new disillusionment ensued...
...She has Jwo chil-«tn:_one becomes an 'Unfeeling so-*W worker...
...The Arrow-smiths and Gottliebs'are their contrasts...
...Ibanez hai written his little hook from Pari*, and he hurled the challenge to the Spanish people to overthrow not only their Dictator, but also the monarchy...
...Chupp...
...Lewis had seized upon a less significant theme, one of smaller immensity and narrower scope, than in the two novels that preceded "Arrowsmith," but he has manipulated his materials with finer dexterity and genius...
...A Review by MARY P. FULLER IT must have been four years ago that w* all read "Moon-Calf" and abtorbedly followed Felix Fay's struggle* in adjustment from a Moon to an Earth...
...The demand of foreign markets was crying and insistent...
...These critics should welcome "The Abolition of War,", by Sherwood Eddy and Kirby Page...
...Th* Military Terror in Spain...
...Matteotti hai condemned the tyrants out of their own mouthi...
...Table-Talk of 0. B. S.," a book in which Gsorge Bernard Shaw discourses upon world politics of ths day, reparations...
...By Pauline Smith...
...Matty lives in the county forgets her cleverness and the •%i becomes immersed in her parish •i* husband...
...that have revealed with extraordinary teuton*** the inadequacies of our bourgeois culture...
...Most daring of the "Questions and Answers" are the final ten, in which Mr...
...A social decadence had set in...
...By Sinclair Lewie...
...Russia threatened grandiosely to proletarlanlze tthe world...
...Ht quoted the word* of Fsscnti leaden and tht official statements of their party platforms, and then showed that thty broke every premise thty made...
...It Is a wonder that tht book has not been widely reviewed and quoted in the American press...
...Y.: Dutton...
...ice of Mr...
...Bolshevism...
...Eddy, in which he tells vf his early abhorrence of pseiflssn, 5 his enlistment in 1916 ai a non-combatant, though over age, and of his book, "The Right to Fight," defending America's entrance into the World War...
...Oskar Pollok hss written an Intro* duction, from which I am happy to quota these words: "And never ha* another word become more true than thete prophttio word* of th* dying hero—they killed him, but they were wnab'¦ to kill th* ideal for which k* stood...
...Would that press that licked tht toots of Mussolini's errsnd boy while ht wee Italian Ambassador hart...
...Mattaotti, however, speaks from beyond the grave, hurling a defiance to the bloodthirsty monitor who ordered hi* murder...
...of jpty h> killed the gambler, and how DM h*at*n wife at the...
...PACIFISTS have been justly criticized by such writers as Gltnn Frank for their failure to come directly to the point and outline a clear policy for the individual and for society in order to rid the world of war...
...tht groups.-surrounding his protagonists actually live - - wc know them ourselves, just as we know Intimately his hortei and heroines...
...Your beets by scabs...
...1925...
...Is "th* Rector of Wyck," she *>llow» iii sentimentality that lapses ** the very end into melodrama...
...The story of ths farmers I* now-well known...
...Page, in his "Questions and Answers," have succeaded admirably in keeping the distinction between modern war and such related topics as self-defense, resistance of tyranny and police protection, often confounded with it...
...She has to brook criticism and misunderstanding...
...Ibanez has done a courageous thing in writing his book...
...The mad flare of a bomb, colored by the poetic Inspiration of the Palmerlan detective service bureau, threw the country into a momentary state of terror, stricken paralysis...
...By Abraham Kuvper...
...Thty are a sufficient index to our social disintegration...
...Sparling wants to be taken itriouily as a writer, he might take tim* to discover how people are and hehsve, and then put that down...
...Unusually radical are Answers 47 and 48 to the questions, "What is the value of going on record now as refusing to sanction or participate in any future war...
...Why War...
...vd the author is substantially mh.JW-art'yarn accepted...
...Subversion of principle turned into stupid rationalisations of actions preposterous to a point of extremity...
...President Coolidge Is surrounded by the representatives of gittt weslth snd no man in tbe presidency' ever hsd more respect tor a ruling elst* than Coolidge hss...
...A Review by JESSIE WALLACE HUCHAN, ft.D THE ABOLITION OF WAR...
...Imagine Dostoievsky, Hardy, Conrad, Kellerman'with th* dramatic elements abstracted from their works...
...Such satire makes thee* novels historically unforgettable...
...eoaditioas wore improving before th* march en Rome, and if Benito hid not dsttroytd the Constitution-th* recovery would have been infinitely greater than it has beta...
...Thty killed one, and there ar* kun-drtdt eager to take kit place in the rank...
...Had the Germans marched through this region and commandeered the caving* and re sources of hundred* Of thousands of farmers thty could not have robbed mort than the railroad, elevator, banking and capitalist robbers robbed tht farmers...
...the other is an "inveter-**_W who diea heroically in the **»t World War, redeeming his ust-existence by a final gesture **»>¦ of the salt of the earth...
...aad how, year* after hi* release, she rear unintentionally to his shop, aid h* completed the job then for which he had paid the prison price...
...And so "Main Street" and "Babbitt" came—to take the place of "The Rise of Silas Lapham...
...She finds almost no support or sympathy from others in her tearch for the beauty, for the ideal which something in her demands...
...Tragedies are great when we can most deeply feel the tragic consequences...
...Floyd Dell has a truly remarkable understanding of human nature...
...Of , such is th* kingdom of current ruaga-tin* literature...
...She finds' her-"•"•treign to the talk of the clever »n«sophisticated, so foreign that she ^"•tttslly out of tune, and longs •JWWrn to her quiet, peaceful coun-H'and her husband who Is the ;»**Plar of all that Is sweet and sad religloui...
...A rigorous course in higher Dreiser •nd applied Samuel Butler would be in order, ^ Hail Cabell...
...The Woolworth stores that deal in the cheapest wares that workers buy art curtailing business In the Western States...
...He almost reverently admires their attempts to maintain themselves in an unsympathetic world...
...N. Y.: Macmillan Is your bean crop being spoiled by rust...
...By Sherwood Eddy and Kirby Page...
...tht time-honored problem as to rescuing a woman from a brute is coolly faced...
...Page is careful to avoid partisanship in his advocscy of the League of Nations, pointing out defects in the Covenant usually Ignored even by opponents of the League...
...Today, with the open decay of bourgeois ethics and the gradual decline of bourgeois esthetics, the vanguard of modern artists have forsaken bourgeois themes and deserted bourgeois standards...
...Main Street" and "Babbitt" are among the most important novels in American literature...
...The facts regarding venereal disease in the army are given without adjectives...
...By the absurdity of bourgeois logic the radical movement was again magnified into a menace...
...Page defines in no uncertain terms the position of the conscientious objector...
...By May Sinclair...
...The Administration is more frankly and optnly committed to the groat capi-tslllts and banker* than any other in our history...
...The reader must arise from the work not only informed but emotionally stimulated...
...The freight train tourists are ail decent, law-abiding, intelligent fellows as far as average Intelligence goes," reports Graham...
...SINCE the close of the last war, American society has passed through certain definite development...
...This heyday of bourgeois expansion, this definite advent of American imperialism, found its literary expression in Howells—despite the fact that kjowells under the intoxication of a Tolstoyian humani-tarianism later averred himself a Socialist, one of that tepid, innocent variety, however, that is so abundantly discovered in boudoir srhnapplng parties and in the tearooms of sex rebellions spinsters...
...A brave, gallant soldier of the Revolution, he did not rely upon eloquence alone, but backed up his every statement with what Americans tersely tall "the goods...
...Your sweet-corn by corn smut...
...By Philip Gibbs...
...By Amber I.ce...
...In a similar field Thomas Burke, minim as he is, is a giant compared to Mr...
...end turned agijMt the luckless third party...
...A lUvi.w by CLEMENT WQOD THIS ii • velum* of ihort stories by a young Southerner twtaty-efcc y**r» old...
...On Main street in a hundred cities men cried "Bolsheviki" to that which they could not understand, watched the Government's breathless seizure of aliens, heard the imaginary clatter of the artillery of righteousness, and visualized with relief the out-streaming of The Buford with its deck-loads of hideous scarlet-costumed Reds...
...Sparling often lis**, why, a paragraph will alter the stories...
...Fundamentally it is the emotional stimulation, the visceral excitation and thrill, that art affords which endows it wiih much higli value to man...
...New York: George H. Doran Co...
...After the great war, with the brilliant Treaty of Versailles, snd the democratized world sprung myth-like from the aftermath of hostilities, the time for satire had arrived...
...The point of the first is as hackneyed as a speech ky Hylan...
...During the war tht human sharks and gamblers on the toil of others found their appetite* reitrained by war legislation...
...It has breeziness hut not brilliance, verve but not vigor...
...Page fails to notice that defensive war and war preparations are permitted in the Knox-Lansmg plan, an Important con«ideration la an era when practically Ctfl wars are counted as defensive by their advocates...
...This strata is such a deep one that •St can not possibly extricate herself from it...
...Translated by E. W. Dikes...
...But there was another class-conscious group in society that viewed these changing scene* with a eye to their deeper social meaning...
...TUB WOMAN I AM...
...And it is just this element—dramatic power—that is so painfully absent from Sinclair Lewis' work...
...After the end of the war tho signal was given in Washington, "Business as usual," and tht wholt pack of legal sharks, gamblers and exploiters that infest capitalist society swooped down upon ths masses...
...N. Y.i Doran...
...would the authoritltl who persecuted and jailed an American editor at th* bt-heat of Mussolini ears to let us know about such a book...
...Blessed sre the adaptable: for they shall inherit the royalties...
...the second sounds like a variant of endlesa continental outre entertainment* The author keeps to the hectic hot mood of meridional people, and for technique use* a vari-*ot of the 0. Henry surprise ending...
...Ht shows thtm up as a shabby band of shabby adventurers relying upon brut* force, terrorising a nation aad making a mock of fairness, decency, truth snd honor...
...N.Y.i Doran...
...By W. Somerset Maugham...
...Miscellaneous TO BE NEAR UNTO GOD...
...The Americsn ukaie for the happy nap It the end of the story is satis tti...
...London: Independent Labor Party...
...A Year of Fatcitt Domination...
...TBE RECTOR OF WYCK...
...At the last moment Msri* repents, realizes her love for th* Honduran, the police discover tat man has killed a wicked murderer, ill ends happily...
...In "Arnold Wateriow," •he reiterated the theme of "Mary Olivier," making Mary a man and •tiding a tremendous profusion of love clap-trap that made the book nor* like a preachnient, than a novel...
...A chaos of strange devious criteria, as a consequence, has resulted...
...As pure adventures into the esthetic they are without the elegance and distinction of "Jude the Obicure" or "Sons and Lovers...
...They have reduced the wage* oi their girl employes to nine dollars a week and the trade unions an fighting this policy with but little success...
...vested interests" than in the slashing satire of "Main Street" and "Babbitt...
...Arrowsmith," the latest of Mr...
...A compelling character is given to tht discussion by tht frank pref...
...Then American humanity rose like a tide to defend its hallowed institutions...
...Six million workers paraded the streets—workless...
...The illusion of life, the individuality of character, which realistic fiction tries to create are attained with more success in this pic/ture of the conflict between science and the...
...Without the artistry and eloquence of "Ethan Fromo" or the grace and freshness of "My Antonia," theie two novels of Sinclair Lewis are more signal achievements in the history of our literature...
...0M Usury's Dance" is an even betr tar Mt of work—the story of a man wi* mi jailed for year* for murder-Isf hit dancing partner, who had sefftiy eloped with another lover...
...BOOKS RECEIVED i itrrstutr .. LITTLE NOVELS OF SICILY...
...Jr 8inclair'i characters have the ""•jMllties which Cabell despiies Tr^en sense, piety and religion...
...He has observed the workings of monarchy and the dictatorship of Migutllto, the toy copy of Ber.itO tht Murderer, whom Alfonso aportt in his train...
...Freight Train Tourists The unemployed who are to b« seen mounting snd leaving freight cars are a common sight...
...His book is a well reasoned, well authenticated story of the crimes of Alfonso and Primo di Rivera, ending in the logical climax, "The King Must Go...
...The shallowness of the medicsl profession, the polities of the medical school, the farce of health-commissioners and their, uplift, th* tactics of- Rockefeller foundations, sre depicted with vitriolic vividness A phase of bourgeois society, a phase of its intellectual endeavor, is dissected with an nnslippery scalpel...
...In Max Gottlieb—if ht ii Jacques Lotb, as is rumored, or not, does not matter —we have a unique character, deftly handled, and convincingly portrayed...
...Hsving despoiled tht rural areas of this section the wags workers at tht towns and cities ar* tht next to bt skinned...
...If they rigorously oppose the habitual whippy endings Mr...
...By Vicente Blasoo Ibantt...
...This Mad Ideal* moves with a swiftness which it not found in the other novels...
...It is a section capable of sustaining a much larger population than it has in a high degree of comfort and health...
...Main Street to Arrowsmith •A Review by V. F. CALVERTON, ARROWSMITH...
...Both Mr...
...Social Science TEN YEARS AFTER...
...THE OOLDEN DOOR...
...The "deportations delirium" followed...
...The proletarian protest in America began to swell with indignation...
...As Ax the previous books, his ptoplt ato daeidsdly convincing...
...One day last month 1 was accosted at varloui times by twelve men, each one asking for food, and on that day I fed twelve guests...
...It should be borne in mind that this great region of which our correspondent writes has vast acres of rich soil...
...Fascism, th* movies, th* drama and dramatists, his own methods of writing, etc., will be published by Harpers on April 17...
...EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE IN THE CITY AND COUNTRY SCHOOL If...
...Washington two ytars ago urging Western farmer* to go into dairying Instead of raising beef rattle...
...Translated by V. A. Lawrence...
...It includes the great wheat belt of the Northwest, pasture and grazing territory of inestimable' value, the mining towns, both coal and metal, fruit farm* and vegetable gardens...
...In his discission of th* Outlawry of Wer, moreover, Mr...
...The most popular Spanish novelist, a man who has "sold" Spanish letters all over the world, he was too patriotic to stand idly by and stt his country's liberties ra...
...her with synthetic gin and Ntw Orleans drinking water, and thty Unhappily ever afterwards...
...Jssy, the heroine, is cleverer than *»younger sister, Susan, but Susan ¦sanies a clever modern youth, who ¦Ml of Impressionist art and high-sounding words, and Matty marries •Una, lon/r-miftering, unselfish coun-<ttpttSon...
...New York: The Mac-} mi/fan Company...
...The Pickerbaughs, Tubbses and Holabirds are types, the hand-greeting sychophanta that caress the superficial and feast upon the trivial —the parasites of science...
...Matteottl's book was written In the last days of his life, and it is believed that Mussolini, realizing that such an exposure of his ytar of rule by blood and violtnct wai about to bt issued, ordered tht SocialUt leader killed...
...Mat Sinclair, in her mining for ideas, has hit a strata of sentiment...
...Of tka baker s sggja pf ttorioa, two ar* intending jUtt "Mia Marie and the Spic" iMtW...
...Old Maury only thinks he haa killed the woman for whose murder he was jailed, revive...
...and "If only a small percentage of citizens were willing to take the position of conscientious objectors in the event of war, what good would it accomplish for a minority to do so...
...They wanted to silence a tingle man, and thty hav* raised a world-wide movement of horror ami protest...
...Before the war tjie same inadequacies had existed, but no catastrophe had flung them to the foreground and emphasised their decadence...
...By Oiaeomo Matttotti...
...Kirby Page's "Questipns and An-swsrs" clear up the difficulties of pacifism, one by one, for the man who "wants to be shown...
...Lewis' efforts, is a less important novel from a sociological point of view but a more important one from tht distinctly esthetic angle...
...reading "The Rector of Wyck," jjjj**"* to sing Hallelujah for Madelin Leof...
...By Evelyn Scott...
...2.60...
...Sparling...
...Your onion* by neck-rot...
...Or any of th* vege'-table* you grow, by the hundred* of plant disease...
...The travesty continued...
...But capitalism ha* made this wonderful region a scene of desolation beginning shortly after the end ef the World War...
...New York: E. P. Dutton...
...N. Y.i Macmillan...
...They are pieces of propaganda done with subtlety and precision, but without the discriminating selection of incident, the fine parsimony of phrase, the tense emotionality of appeal, that characterize great art...
...He has a genuine sympathy with the desire of a few individuals to respond to an inner purpose and not lead mere herd existences...
...It would seem that the author had treated the salient points in the development of a character even more dramatically than heretofore...
...Ht omits mention, however, of the provision which effectively precludes all democratization of the League, namely, Article 26, which provides that no amendment shall go into effect unless ratified by all the members represented on the Council...
...MANUAL OF VEGETABLE GARDEN DISEASES...
...The shallowness of the bourgeois ethic was exposed...
...There is this encouragement to b* Mid to the author: there is no rea-itn why such admirable polish of technique should not fill the most popular American magazines...
...Thty tried to stop a fighting lone, and thty have stirred a whole nation...
...Their farm*, thtir homtt, thtir savings and thtir tools are gone...
...An American Voltaire or Swift, however minor in comparison, was inevitable...
...It may well bt that the action taken on these problems will provt the acid test of pacifists for the next war...
...It found its critics, its antitheses, in the over-serious literary dissections of Frank Norris and praham Phillips...
...the probable) casualties entailed by passive and by armed resistance art mathematically computed...
...This emotional stimulation or catharsis, to employ an Aristot-leian phrase, is best secured through intensity of conflict—and it is this intensity of conflict that we call the "dramatic...
...THE FA SCISTI EXPOSED...
...The Spanish* American War, for instance, had but illustrated in concrete fashion our need for expansion...
...revisit* Susan after twenty >*»n of wedded life...
...In "Main Street" and "Babbitt" these bourgeois sentimentalities and absurdities are described with s minuteness almost characteristic of a sociologic documentarian, and travestied with a skill almost Voltalrean...
...It is the absenc* of this ele-ment that has prevented his novels from rising as works of literature to the standard of "great art...
...Either expand or burst," the words of Senator Frey, crystallized a political philosophy grounded in specific economic conditions...
...New York: Alfred A. Knopf...
...N. Y.: Seltzer.' THE PAINTED VEIL...
...By Charle...
...ed without protest...
...Tht labor of a lifetime has left thtm nothing but thtir distress...
...By Charles Chupp...
...Th*y promised . a capital levy—when thty were seeking working clan support...
...By Floyd Dell...
Vol. 2 • April 1925 • No. 16
