Evening Star Newspaper, September 13, 1931, Page 88

FISHERS OF BEOOKS. By Barton Currie, Boston: Liit'e, Brown & Co. HE coile_tor gees a long way back for innir:s, I'm thinking. The true brand cf ccileclor, I mean—the one who ga hers coins and medals and stamps, bo s, pictuires, original manuscript; and many another seiz- ‘able and portab’e whal-not out of an over- laid and forgottcn poct As such, he i m-re than likely the culture- ‘end of primitive man himcelf, or even of cer- tain animals, gatheriny ¢nd hoarding, primarily ‘against the hungers of tcmorrow and the next ‘day. Out in the W-os, many a time, have you 'seen the squirrels, in efzatigable in their searcii, uncanny in th2 crts cnd crafts of stor- ing their Winter hoard. Of the very spirit, these. -Just such a ze:st, an a'most furious zest, takes hold of the molcin col'ector at his best. Distance? That's n-thing. Do2eply hidden and seemingly impossible of approach? Nothing. Costly? A mere nothing. God will provide. And, seem#Mzly He dces. For in one way or another the born co'lector bends circumstance %o his own need beiter than does almost any other of $he searchers after treasure. And he is an exciting person, boih in action and resting upon his good achievements, I know of no more inte.csiing adventure than J. Edward Newton i3 ab'e to recount in “The Greatest Bock in the Wo !d” and “Th2 Ameni- ties of Book-Collecting.” No more fascinating story than William D-ra Orcutt’s “The Magic of the Book.” And now here i\ t.‘ is other man, Barton Currie, with his rs of Books,” a génuine rod-and ht of hauling in rare catches from hidden in'els for long passed by and forgotten. . Sometimes the quest is co long and hot that its fevers shut off re-it:l. In this case, how- ever, there is no su-h handicap. Barton Currie is a joyous ccliectc aking triumph and defeat as they comc, o 3 of each a useful bit of information in the great adventure of collecting books. He t:lis quite freely and in- timately how he cam> to s'art upon this ca- reer, weaving into tiat "anation an artful defense of this “bock-madness.” In equal frankness he opcns up some of his reckless and inept'outfarings along the collector’s path- vay. Then, like the youth he appears to be, he brags a bit about his triumphs here and there. Around these pérsonal experiences Mr. Currie gathers a substantizl store of d>finite instruc- tion and advice, of exrert knowledge on the present status of the ari, of forecast for its future. For 20 years, now, rare editions and manuscripts have beckoned this busy editor away from his daily ardors into the pleasant engagement of chacing rare scraps of paper around the world. Up in his home, I'm told, there are things to sce—precious things, like original manuscripts of this or that famous creation, where the very hand of genius rested upon the leaf and drew the words upon it that bound the man and his work into a living reality before the eyes of one looking upon it. A touch of history comes into this account- ing. Of the rise of book-collecting to a busi- ness, with agents and advertising and markets attached. Now and then the business sounds lilke Wall Street itself with “When the Bulls Boom Books.” The special psychology of the rare-book dealer is most interesting to trade psychology in general. The whole adventure is a delight of happy enterprise, of substantial resuits, of new knowl- edge for the general reader along a most pleas- ant way and of definite instruction to those of like mind with Mr. Currie, begin to feel the drive “to go a-fishin’,” to become one with the “PFishers of Bocks.” WET PARADE. By Upton Sinclair, author of (-\J “The Jungle,” “Oil” and others. Farrar & Rinehart. New York. R. SINCLAIR has long been a crusader. 4 That is, he takes up a subject which may be puzzling the American people. He delves into the matter, amasses an abundance of information, puts it into story form, and it to the reading public as a novel. Quite often, the author merely states the facts he has so laboriously gathered; he offers no solution to the problem he is writing about; there is nothing especially constructive in his method; he details material which is known to the everyday newspaper reader. In this particular instance Mr. Sinclair has taken up the prohibition problem, and when the reader finishes the Icng novel he is some- what dazed. If, before he read the Sinclair statements, he had opinions regarding the eighteenth amendment, one way or another, he is now doubtful. He has gone through a mental whirlwind; he does not know whether prohibition is a good idea, a bad idea, whether it can be enforced, whether it cannot The novel opens with the adventures of a well-to-do family in thz “sugar country” of Louisiana. Certain members of the family, al- though long associated with “polite drinking,” nevertheless turn into “real drinkers.” This phase is not new, either in fact or fiction, but the author has made the most of it. From Youisiana the story shifts to New York City, where Maggie May of the Louisiana sugar family finally turns into a “wowser lecturer,” a prohibition speaker. Another member of m‘mfly becomes a successful poet and play- , but also a heavy drinker. The husband of Maggie May, always a rum fighter on ac- count of his father's drink habit, becomes a Government prohibition agent and goes to his death by a bootlegger's bullet. If one idea of the novel is more stressed than anothier, it may be that Sinclair is com- plaining about the lax method of enforcing the Volstead act. He claims that enforce- ment at the present time amounts to a little over 5 per cent; that many public officials men of money allow only a small percent- ‘of enforcement—enough to. “keep the drys .” Reading the novel as most novels THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., SEPTEMBER 13, The T'rue Collector and His Searching— Upton Sinclair’s New Novel, “The Wet Parade. A Long Story From an English Writer. are read, and forgetting the crusader’s”: isti- cal material, it may be looked upon as a “thor- oughly good story—a little old fashioned with the “Ten Nigkts in a Bar Room” theme, but interesting nevertheless. C.E N. ALBERT GROPE. By P. O. Mann. New York: The Book League of America. RINTED primarily by Harcourt, Brace & Co., “Albert Grope,” by special produc- tion and sclection becomes the September choice of the Book League of America. The classic set beside it for this month is “The Seven That Were Hanged,” by Leonid Andreyev. “Albert Grepe” is a long and even story. Almost 60 pages long. Even, with the slow growth of life from boy to man. Sounds out of step with the hurry and the racing all around, out of tune with the shrieking of the sirens and the clamor of a thousand bells hour upon hour. It is out of step. It is out of tune. It becomes a sanctuary by virtue of these misfits, a haven of quietude and oppor- tunity to catch a glimpse of life itself. There is scmething about the young one that is immediately irresistible. Nothing but a baby, clad in rough made-ever garb, pushed into a London east-side school to leave his mother free to drudge the days through for scraps of food and a place to sleep. Something about his mild acceptance, his stoic front to strangeness and lornness that makes one want to take him up and tell him it is all right —even though it is all wrong. It is much the same when Albert leaves school at the great age of a dozen yecars to work for a mite here and a bit there which more than once he does not get. This job and that. The joy of finding one friend—for the lad is lonely, made of the lonesome warp and woof—the grief of losing that friend. In the main, this is the story of Albert Grope. Looking for work, look- ing for friends. Finding the one, not often coming upon the other. Simple program. Too simple for so long a story? Hardly, since even the longest life can count not much more than just this. It is the man wandering through the book, the man looking through it upon life that counts. A man of slow movements and long pauses between this action and that one. But the leisurely steps are for much seeing and more of feeling. The long waits in between are for the gentle play of intuition, understanding, a mellow smile that is not humor, not quitc. And around Albert Grope and his chronicler hosts of people gather and then move on in scattered lines or alone. And each one leaves his bit of life with these two. And they, pat- terning it and arranging it in the soft lines of their own kindliness and understanding, let us have it, whole ard beautiful, for our own ex- pansion of heart and soul. What a joy of a3 book ! SUSAN SPRAY. By Sheila Kaye-Smith, au- thor of “Joanna Godden,” etc. New York: Harper & Bros. AVING read “Susan Spray,” don't be in & hurry to say “Nonsense! How came 30 gifted a writer to miss her leading figure so completely! Susan is impossible. Make an impostor of her, if you want to, Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith, but don’t try to make an honest woman of her at the same time!” And that is the great point of a story that in itself touches genuine genius more than once, touches it with inspiration and security. We are all there, in some degree. In some measure, here and there, now and then, we are next of kin to Susan Spray. Self-deceived, maybe. Unconsciously dramatized, possibly, hut there all the same. A little girl of Sussex, where Sheila Kaye- Smith knows the soil clear to the center of the earth, knows its moods and its human spawn, from cradle to coffin. Susan is of Sussex breed, father, mother and many children trying to hold body and soul together by field work and any odd job. One day when little Susan was pulling weeds there came up a great storm. And Susan was scared. But she dared not go home for she would miss the sixpgnce pay and gain the whipping for such behavior. A ter- 1ible flash and crash—and Susan saw God. Bursting into the house, she cried out the vision. And it worked. The next Sunday Susan was asked to tell of God’s visit to her before the little congregation in the shabby. church. It worked again. Here was an in- spired child. That was the beginning. From it, little by little, Susan half believing in her- self and half doubting, became by sheer force of the Susan in her a noted evangelist. And why not? We have them. Married? Yes, sev- eral times. But that has nothing to do with religious sincerity and power. Has it? Step by step Susan advanced along the evangelical’ road laid out by her own ambition and will to succeed. Liar? Yes, 'sometimes, when only a lie would do. Deceiver? Occasionally, in a good cause. Perfectly chaste, as a woman must be? Oh, well, now here, that’s going a little too far. Read for yourself. And, having read, if you do not call this a robust, home-grown work of art, wherein the human nature reacts authentically to its time and circumstance and inner drivings—why, then, call the story “non- sense!” If you dare—but you will not do that. Btrong, self-contained, well sourced, and tre-- meudously engrossing is “Susan Spray.” THE VEILED WOMAN. By Achmed Abdullah, author of “Black Tents,” etc. New York: Horace Liveright. 'N ALMOST full bulk the current novel is, at bottom, of fairy-tale design. It has to be. Readers, like other customers, must be served. And these, for moments of diversion by way of fiction, refuse sturdily the logic of love's vicissitudes. Enjoyable, indeed, to them is every manner of hazard and escape in the familiar swift descent from high ecstasy to bitter distaste, right up to the edge of calamity itself. But enough is enough. So when the novelist has piled up a sizable budget of love in its danger and menace is he allowed to take sthe next step, the only next step, off into the open abyss of disaster? He is not. Rather is he made to turn tail in quest of some Edenic corner where reborn love is a staple and common thing and where brand-new happiness waits sapped and exhausted couples. Clear mayhem to both truth and art. But, what to do? The people decide whether a novelist shall eat or go hungry. “The Veiled Woman” follows the conven- tion. It, too, is a fairy tale. But Achmed Ab- dullah has resources of inheritance, tempera- ment, training and experience. These serve a good turn here, leading hign to turn a com- pletely acceptable modern romance into a me- dium of significant illumination and inter- pretation. The East to the West, the West to the East. When, over in Constantinople, John Pem- berton, by accident caught sight of Fathma, veiled daughter of the East, sister of his Ori- ental friend, Shukri Yar, right then the great matter began. Love at first sight with both of them. That's the story, as such. The story of not understanding and of being so placed that understanding was the single imperative. Let that go. Or, better, read about it here. For in such reading you will find that Achmed Abdullah has made in support of the essen= tial action itself a brilliant and beautiful drama of Oriental scene animated by ancient senti- ments and beliefs pricked into the fabric of life in Constantinople, Stamboul, Pera. Then off to the West in its own characteristics of place and personality. And the two are car- ried side by side, ostensibly in the marital experiment of this young pair of lovers, but really in a depth of waywise and in-seeing con- trast that sets “The Veiled Woman” high as historic evidence done in terms of high ro- mance. A curiously earnest and sober man, with the student and scholar uppermost in this Oriental Achmed Abdullah. THE DRESSES OF THE MISTRESSES OF THE WHITE HOUSE: As shown in the U. S. National Museum. By Rose Gouverneur Hoes. George Washington Bicentennial edition. Washington: Historical Publishing Company. ROM Martha Washingten to Grace Coolidge this booklet reproduces in historical sequence . the costume display whose original is a feature of the National Museum at the Capital, Primarily the exhibition is a comment on changing modes of fashion, this change ex- pressed from period to period by the most out- standing women, the Mistress of the White House, First Lady of the Land. In this revised edition of an earlier production Mrs. Hoes has made certain slight changes in order to meet next year's certain demand for it. Along with a demand for every other legitimate part of the great George Washington year, now just around the corner. Facing each picture is a sketch of its original. A touch of history, incidents attending the acquisition of the costume sought, a light touch of rumor here, a shade of humor there. The whole rounding to a most engaging pageant of fashion by way of these women of exalted position, these women of unfailing interest to the public generally. In point this is a guide book for the sightseer in the Capital. By incident it is also a chapter of pictorial history, supported by a concise and lightly informing text of explanation for each skétch. Reading the booklet impels to visiting the museum for a look at the reality, just as, no doubt, possession of the book would lead to & museum excursion. By Daniel Chase, author of Indianapolis: BACKFIRE. “Pines of Jaalam,” etc. Bobbs-Merrill Co. STORY of New England in background and in the general characteristics of its personnel. In effect, however, the novel covers a much wider field, reaching wherever disap- pointed and discouraged youth follows the course of indecision and the promise of failure. Out of college before graduation, sick and with a grotesque limp to show for it, shipped to the country with an allowance, of sorts— this the young fellow, Chan Mather, who out of natural vanily and some earlier promise of a good career developu an inferiority complex deep enough and big enough to ruin a dozen boys, let alone this one average fellow. Weed- ing gardens and splitting wood provide no no- ticeable uplift to such a state. They did not in this case, at any rate. And in the glamorous days of adventure provided by the prohibition laws, why should a fellow turn into a hick when he can be a bold buccanear? Just why? And so young Chan took an occasional job with the night riders, behaving like a steady water-boy of the garden by day. The leader of this gang was an Italian of true Capone pattern. So in the ccurse of no very long time the vivid Latin product developed jealousy, not of the business alone, but of a girl that as well young Chan thought much of. Fine girl, too, and but for her he probably never would have pulled out of the mess into which that inferiority feeling was forever getting him. Just a brisk romance of the moment in debt to prohibition for its prime agent in both the business of being in love and of straight- ening a fellow out into a man at the same time. Books Received THE MORALIST. By W. Adolphe Roberts, au- thor of “The Mind Reader,” etc. New York: The Mohawk Press, Inc. THE WAY TO RECOVERY. By Sir George Paish, author of “The Road to Prosperity.” New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. A BULWARK OF DEMOCRACY. By Augur, author of “Eagles, Black and White.” New York: D. Appleton & Co. GOD AND THE UNIVERSE. The Christian Position; A Symposium. Edited by Lewis May. New York: The Dial Press. FATHER COUGHLIN'S RADIO SERMONS: October, 1930-April, 1931. Baltimore: Knox & O’Leary. THE IRISH FUTURE: With the Lordship of the World. By C. J. O'Donnell. London: Cecil Palmer. THE JEW AND HIS NEIGHBOR: A Study of the Causes of Anti-Semitism. By James W. Parkes, M. A. New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc. LOOKING THEM OVER. Barnhardt, D.D. RBoston: Co. THIS MECHANICAL WORLD: An Introduc- tion to Popular Physics. By Morton Motte Smith, Ph. D. Illustrated by Emil Kosa, jr. New York: D. Applcton & Co. THE CASE OF THE JEWS: An Interpretation of Their Rights Under the Balfour Declara- tion and the Mandate for Palestine. By Louis J. Gribetz. New York: Bloch Pub- lishing Co. PARIS AND ALL THE WORLD BESIDES. By Dobert N. Keely, M. D. Philadelphia: How- ard C. Myers, Publisher. TALKING YOUR WAY THROUGH EUROPE: Conversational Aids for Travelers Abroad. New York: The Mohawk Press, Inc. WHERE PARIS DINES. By Julian Street. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co. CHARLIE CHANN CARRIES ON. By Earl Derr Biggers, author of “Seven Keys to Baldpate,” etc. Indianapolis: The Bobbs- Merrill Co. NANCY GOES CAMPING. By Jean Henry Large. Foreword by Mrs. Frederick Edey, president, Girl Scouts, Inc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. HAPPY SINNER. By Elizabeth Hamilton Her- bert. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. By Jesse Homer The Stratford “00000“000000“ 00000000 iPSYLLIUM: BLOND INDIAN SEEDS Meore Economical Than Black Most Harmless—Natural Laxative Own Importation—Lowest Price 16 oz......75¢c 5 Ibs.....$3.35 'I'IIE VITA HEALTH FOOD CO., 1228 H N.W. 3121 14th St. N.W. Call Col-nbl. 2980 for Delivery 9 900000000000 0000000000000 i [ 4 3 & * It’s Set the Whole Town Talking! READ MIRRORS OF 1932 “A BRILLIANT book— and delectable reading. It is at once cruel and kind, but it is never dull. Mirrors of 1932 will set the American people agog."—Charles Hanson Towne. $2.50 Ilns. All Book Stores. BREWER, WARREN & PUTNAM, N. Y.