Book Reviews
There is, in all living literature, a kind of between-the-lines expression of the atmosphere belonging to the described period and the described place. With the advent of literary interest in thought as well as action, the point of view peculiar to the time, the race, and the situation has been present also. To create these mysterious things by connotation from the written word, so that the reader becomes, temporarily, contemporary and incident with the characters of the story, is at least one of the essentials of a permanent novel. And while I am not at all prepared to predict permanency forThe Captain’s Doll, I feel that Mr. Lawrence has been particularly happy in this strange business of evoking environmental atmosphere.
For instance, there is a moment in the first “novelette”—the volume contains three—when the German Countess-heroine and the Scotch Captain-hero are climbing a Tyrol Alp in a motorbus. The Alps and a motorbus! Everywhere, against the naked looming rocks and great glaciers, the blue sky and the blown clouds, are bulky trucks, picknickers, and “the wrong kind of rich Jews”. There are wild mosses and berry bushes among the rocks, but “the many hundreds of tourists who passed up and down did not leave much to pick”. Yet the exhilaration and the spell that belong to climbing even a civilized mountain are there; the civilized climbers get out of their lorry and feel it. The German Countess feels it in a glad, pagan abandonment: she likes the wind in her face, and she likes to see “away beyond, the lake lying far off and small, the wall of those other rocks like a curtain of stone, dim and diminished to the horizon. And the sky with curdling clouds and blue sunshine intermittent”. She “breathes deep breaths”, and says, “Wonderful, wonderful to be high up!” The English-Scot feels it, but in a different way. “His eyes were dilated with excitement that was ordeal or mystic battle rather than the Bergheil ecstacy.” He looks soulfully out, out of the world,hating the mountains for their excitement, and their “uplift” that takes him beyond himself, and he feels bigger than the mountains. All that, as Mr. Lawrence tells it, comes pretty close to “getting” these races in a phase of our era, a phase which is important because man in relation to nature is man at his best. And anyone who has climbed mountains of late years will appreciate the realism of the picture, and of the story’s atmosphere.
But I said I could not predict the future forThe Captain’s Doll. To me, Mr. Lawrence seems supremely able in handling the psychology of the moment, but less effective with the dynamic psychology necessary for his drama. I am not sure his characters would act as they do; I think no others would. Through a series of individual snapshots which are real to the life, Captain Hepburn and Countess Hannele move in a manner I cannot take for granted. More decidedly I should apply this criticism to the principals in the second story,The Fox. Over time, these people are all a little queer: it is the fault in most of this “new” kind of writing.
D. G. C.
When the cauldron of contemporary American literature has boiled down and the dross been skimmed off by the years, there will be a special and enduring mold set aside for the works of Owen Wister. In his writings and in the pictures of Frederick Remington a richly romantic period of our national life will be long preserved. The Virginia, Lin McLean, and Scipio Le Moyne, even as the nightingale, were not born for death. As Scipio himself remarked, “I ain’t going to die for years and years.”
The eight short stories included inMembers of the Familyare typical of Mr. Wister’s most delightful and vivid manner. Those who enjoyedThe VirginianorRed Men and Whitewill wax happy over such tales asThe Gift HorseandWhere It Was. Owen Wister’s characters are unusual to us, but like that mostfanciful of characters, Long John Silver, they live. For humor, strength of plot, characterization, and general worth this collection takes rank with the very highest.
F. D. A.
As a general rule anthologies are of a distinct sameness. The most noticeable thing, therefore, in regard to this collection of verse by Henry Van Dyke is his novel method of arrangement. Instead of fitting the poems in chronologically he segregates them according to their poetical form. The volume is divided into six sections, devoted respectively to: ballads; idylls or stories in verse; lyrics; odes; sonnets and epigrams; and elegies and epitaphs.
As to the selection, it is as judicious as one would expect coming from Mr. Van Dyke. An attractive feature is the inclusion of a considerable number of modern poems. In quantity the collection lies between theOxford Book of English Verseand Burton Stevenson’sHome Book of Verse, being nearer to the former. It is especially adapted for use in class-room work and is a valuable addition to a small library, from a utilitarian as well as an aesthetic viewpoint.
F. D. A.
Thorough discussion of this latest book by Upton Sinclair is a task that would require many pages. A brief dissertation upon his remarks about Yale, however, will suffice to shed considerable light upon the book as a whole.
Commenting upon the University in general, Mr. Sinclair remarks: “But the secret societies come in, and now Yale is just what Princeton is, a place where the sons of millionaires draw apart and lead exclusive lives.” Disregarding for the moment the innuendo cast upon the societies here, it seemed best to interview the millionaire we know in order to ascertain whether he wasreally being secretly exclusive. The cause of research suffered when he proved to be out for the evening wearing the dress suit of his neighbor, who was working his way through college and could not use it himself.
Concerning societies Mr. Sinclair further opines that they encourage intoxication and venereal disease, but dictate the choice of clothing, slang, and tobacco, while preventing originality of cogitation. It is a sad thought, and the woeful plight of the American college lad is typified by the brazen indifference with which he bears his shame.
Mr. Sinclair certainly exaggerates—we are now speaking constrainedly, ourself—but his sincerity no one can doubt, as no one can sweepingly deny all his charges. He may irritate or he may distress or he may merely edify, but he always gets a reaction.
F. D. A.