Page:The New Yorker 0002, 1925-02-28.pdf/28

BOKS . cult in an Occidental setting, and when- ever we want that effect at full strength, we can get it by re-reading Dunsany's "A Night at an Inn." However, if Sulli- van's attempt at it seizes you, he has you-- and maybe in your case he would. are Liveright Bookshop 4 West 49th Street New York New Yorkers appreciate a bookshop whose atmo. sphere is a relief from the tumult and rush of the city, but whose service is in the full New York tra- dition of efficiency and speed. There is nothing more restful than bookbuying here, when tired out with other shopping; and noth- ing more satisfying than knowing that you can have book WHEN you want it by phoning Bryant 4016, or jotting a line to the LIVE RIGHT BOOK SHOP, 4 West 49th Street. THIS column is not a geyser. We Robert Nathan's "Jonah” (McBride) is a fantasia and parable, now sly, now on laying down a novel that has given us three hours of sheer pleasure, what can we openly quizzical, now touching, based on do but our undamnedest to make Old brated whale-filler. Its ironies are not the Old Testament history of the cele- Faithful, the pride of the Yellowstone, strikingly original, but its incidental charm look like a water-blister in comparison? is for epicures. The novel is Margaret Kennedy's "The Constant Nymph" (Doubleday, Page). At this moment, we have no critical judg- ment to pass on it. We don't know yet Ford Madox Ford (Seltzer) seem to be Quarrels about "Some Do Not ..." by whether we think it is "big" or "vital" or "significant,” or what other tiresome book breaking up families. No wonder. The book has undeniable merits and some of reviewer's epithet; all we know is that for us it was utterly fascinating. Would you them are great, but almost all are strictly find it so? Well, not if you happen not artistic ones. It has, for example, at least to care for stories of musical geniuses two dramatic episodes of rare power and though you need not know music more originality. But as to temper, it is 28 deeply than to enjoy, say, “Trilby." And gratuitously black-biled a work of art as not if you can't stand without hitching we ever saw. A study of England's gov- while unsheltered, precocious and gifted erning class through the early part of the girl-children love, and one of them makes war, it has been praised for its poise and love, and does in a tawdry escapade. its viewpoint--which are, to us, about what The moral aspect of these goings-on Queen Victoria's would be if she were doesn't agitate the author in the slightest, alive and troubled by her liver. and neither has it agitated us, partly be- cause another of the children is Tessa the Nymph, and we are Tessa's; to have read What's funny is not to be argued. Your of her is to have had a singularly beauti- sides either split or they don't. A lot of ful experience. people, whose sense of humor are quite Otherwise, we should think you would as good as ours, are splitting over "The The mere writing, clear, bright and Auent Prince of Washington Square," by Harry as a mountain spring in sunshine, ought to F. Liscomb, boy novelist (Stokes). For refresh you, these days. And oh, the ous part, we did some chortling while we pretty, the audacious and triumphant were dipping into it, but when we came to things young Miss Kennedy does read it through our old oaken ribs seldom cuvering her unfailingly interesting char- budged. It isn't that we can't believe in acters! But is this suggesting a "writers' this boy novelist as genuine. On the con- novel?” trary, his is just the story that would be written by a clever kid with the kind of head big words stick wrongside-up in, Along with woeful hokum, "Stacey" by after his consuming bales of magazine and Alexander Black (Bobbs-Merrill) con- tains the raw materials to have made as newspaper trash and acres of movie cap- good a novel as Wells's “Kipps." One rea- posed to make you laugh is his largely un- tions. Our difficulty is that what's sup- son why they don't make it is that despite intentional burlesque of all that trash -- some skill in the cooking, they don't jell. and we found the burlesque too close to Stacey, the hero, is intended to represent a the originals. numerous kind of half-baked, superficial and pretentious young male sentimental- ists. We can see the kind, but we no more Some readers who were won by "Maria see Stacey now than we did when we be- Chapdelaine" may be disappointed in gan to read the book. We simply know Louis Hémon's very different "Blind a number of things about him, Man's Buff" (Macmillan), a story of the gropings and fate of a young Irish steve- dore in London, who is driven by the It is fair to tell you that "The Jade effects upon him of inaccessible girls to God" (Century), a mystery story by Alan seek first freedom, then exaltation for his Sullivan, is being liked by some judges of spirit, by way of dim soapbox notions and such amusement. Nobody loves better to then of Gospel settlement and Salvation read mystery stories than we do; neverthe- Army trail-hitting. We like it, but would less we failed to get any paralyzing kick like it better if Mike were a solid, com- out of this one. 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