Book Discussion
Tales of Two Countries, by Maxim Gorky.[B. W. Huebsch, New York.]
Gorky’sgenius was meteoric. It flashed in the nineties for a brief period with an extraordinary brilliance, illuminating a theretofore unknown world of “has beens,†of NietzscheanBosyaki. Gorky’s genius, we may say, was elemental and local; it revealed a great spontaneous force on the part of the writer in a peculiar atmosphere, on “the bottom†of life, in the realm of care-free vagabonds. As soon as Gorky trespassed his circle he fell into the pit of mediocrity and began to produce second rate plays, sermon-novels, political sketches, and similar writings that may serve as excellent material for the propaganda-lecturer. The present volume may be looked upon as Gorky’s swan-song, if we consider his ill health; in fact he outlived himself long ago as an artist, and in theseTaleswe witness the hectic flush of the autumn of his career. The exotic beauty of Italy appears under the pen of the Capri invalid in a morbid, consumptive aspect; the author is too self-conscious, too much aware of the fact of his moribund existence to see the intrinsic in life. The tendency to preach socialism further augments his artistic daltonism, which is particularly evident in theRussian Tales. The doomed man casts a weary glance over his distant native land, and he sees there nothing but dismal black, hopeless pettiness and retrogression. The satire is blunt and fails the mark; the allegories are of the vulgar, wood-cut variety. Gorky has been dead for many years.
Plaster Saints, by Israel Zangwill.[The Macmillan Company, New York.]
The old situation: A revered priest, saint abroad, sinner at home; the old sin—adultery; the old moral about casting the first stone. What is new is the clergyman’s point of view that a “plaster saint†has no right to preach righteousness, that only one who has gone through temptation, sin, and contrition may be fit for the post of God’s shepherd.
A sea captain who has never made a voyage—the perfection of ignorance—and you trust him with the ship. You take a youth—the fool of the family for choice—keep him in cotton-wool under a glass case, cram him with Greek and Latin, constrict his neck with a white choker, clap a shovel hat on his sconce, and lo! he is God’s minister!... When I look at my old sermons, I blush at the impudence and ignorance with which I, an innocent at home, dared to speak of sin to my superiors in sinfulness.
A sea captain who has never made a voyage—the perfection of ignorance—and you trust him with the ship. You take a youth—the fool of the family for choice—keep him in cotton-wool under a glass case, cram him with Greek and Latin, constrict his neck with a white choker, clap a shovel hat on his sconce, and lo! he is God’s minister!
... When I look at my old sermons, I blush at the impudence and ignorance with which I, an innocent at home, dared to speak of sin to my superiors in sinfulness.
It is all very well, if we grant that society is still in need of sermons on chastity, if the Hebraic ideal of monogamy is still the most important problem in the life of a community, to be discussed and advocated from the pulpit, while ignoring the economic and social complexities of the present age. But can we grant this anachronism? Is it not high time to follow the policy oflaisser fairein regard to individual morals? Mr. Zangwill appears in the unenvious position of one quixotically breaking into an open door; yet he has been accused of possessing a sense of humor.
Anthology of Magazine Verse, 1914; selected and published by William S. Braithwaite.
The proper way to review this collection of verse would be, no doubt, to quote some of the best and some of the worst, make a learned and perfectly empty comment upon so-and-so, and say that the book was better or worse than last year’s compilation. But Mr. Braithwaite has sifted and re-sifted the entire crop of poems until there is in his book nothing but the best, such as it is. And the general trend of the volume is scarcely a matter for enthusiasm. A fair conclusion must be that magazine editors were frequently hard pressed for copy. As a faithful and stupidly patriotic American, one should ponder long over certain attempts to found new “American†verse-forms; but it is to be regretted, possibly, that the most enjoyable poems in the collection are written upon foreign or mediaeval topics. As a true aesthete, one ought to reek with admiration for nameless or badly-labelled sonnets that, for some reason, fail to delight. And, as an exponent of politico-poetic modernity, there should be wild raving over the “radical†art of formless form; but this also is shamefully wanting in one’s reaction to this anthology. A number of intelligent humans have been observed in their expectant approach to this collection; they closed the book with neither smiles nor frowns. It is difficult to forget that good poetry will bear re-reading, or prove its worth by clinging to the memory; and it is still more difficult to remember that art has only to be new, rude, or extreme to be called wonderful. Why is this?