Evening Star Newspaper, January 31, 1932, Page 89

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 31, 1932. REVIEWS O | IKE the traffic man whose job it is to un- snarl tangled city streets, so league and guild among the books undertake now- adays to open up for readers little free spaces in the bewildering pebfusion and confusion of current publications. More eye range, elbow room and foot {freedom through the maze are a public need. These the leagues and guilds seek to provide, for the average man is quite lost in today's stupendous landslide of literature. In plain pursuit of a first-aid intent, thesc have organized into working bodies of readers, critics, judges, advisers to a needy world of readers. Fiction, science, history, business— indeed, the whole whatnot of general interest has become the field which they glean, sedu- Jously, in a distinct measure of common well- doing. A case in point: By Neil Bell, LIFE AND ANDREW OTWAY. New York: author of “Precious Porcelain.” G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 11| IFE AND ANDREW OTWAY" is the Feb- ruary choice in fiction of the Book League of America. A robust novel, a lusty thing step- ping out from this particular and significant hour of time to embody it, to project it. An- drew Otway, the man, is life. He is, in striking effect, today. declaring itself in the voice and attitude and behavior of Andrew Otway. A man of tremendous activity, of huge projects, of many beginnings and as many abandoned schemes. A greaf talker, a giant of loud laughter, of gorgeous promises, of infinite self- econfidence. Pockets empty. Credit, none. Pub- lic esteem scanty in his direction. Ome around whom smiles of ridicule were likely to gather. Just a big bundle of bombast, so the small- towners roundabout sized him. Yet, oddly enough, Otway was always catch- fng at something that worker, for a while, and then fell flat. Another something came the way of this man. That, too, promised great things and then, in no very long time, went back on its pledges. And all the villagers smiled, knowingly. They knew how it would be every time, from the start. No one seemed to notice that in these crazy adventurings there was a trend upward, just a little lift, hardly noticeable. Well, the long and short of this 18 that, in the course of not too many years An- drew Otway became a man of money and power, of bg schemes and spectacular achieve- ments. A product of the modern hour. Finally came, as il does come always, the test of man stuff that Andrew Otway was carry- ing around to meet life with. This, the cimax of the matter and the wiping out of Andrew Otway by his own choice. Life was too big, too mueh for him, too rigid, and. regardless of the human element, so mercilessly jostled around by it. Innumerable stories identical with this one, drawn straight out of this very minute of time, g0 glamorous, so inviting, so promising, so self- destructive in effect, a thousand true stories could slip into the heart and soul and body of this Andrew Otway drama. And it would fit them all. However, this is no allegory or other double- faced matter. It is instead a warm and human and absorbing reality. A little boy tells the story. No, it is not “telling a story” at all. The boy and the man live together. And the boy, talkative and clear- sesing, and straight-thinking, as children are, simply lives Andrew Otway into these pages as the man was. As he felt and thought, and dreamed and built and tore down on through the years. “Now come on, son, get some paper and pencil. We’ll figure up the first profits on this new business we're going to set up.” La- boriously would they figure and scratch out and revise, always toward “big things.” *“See, boyo, gre2t scheme!” And “boyo” would agree. Within the first page you will be sold to any and all of Andrew Otway’s figurings on financ- ing the universe, as it seemed to be before the end. Sold to them because of Andrew Otway himeclf, and the “boyo” going along in an adoring agreement with the big man. it 1s the quality of the work, as work, that has created Andrew Otway and the lad beside him. Created them and delivered them to the heart of the reader by way of sincerity of in- sight and search, by way of an artistry that withholds as often as it gives, by way of that disputed power called “genius.” A great and beautiful story. Just one man and life. Rather, one man in life. But, you see, that is, in effect, all the story there is, really. And Neil Bell has embodied one aspect of it, one unit of it, in the spirit of deep comprehension in a me- dium of high power. SYMPHONIC BROADCASTS. By Olin Downes. New York: The Dial Press. HIGH point of enjoyment for hosts of A people throughout the country for the past year and more has come from the weekly programs of the New York Philharmonic Sym- phony Orchestra, coupled with the work of Olin Downes in interpreting these programs. Broadcast every Sunday over the Columbia net- w . the plan became opportunity, novel, rich, and so intelligently sourced as to step off with other inspired and inspirational projects. Only a cingle point lacking. That, some device to sive a measure of permanency to this passing th . some way of holding it in mind for study thought and many resavorings. And here at hand is that device, that way. A book by Olin Downes himself wherein are set down those very interpretations that so illu- minated the work of the orchestra to listeners far and near. The radio talks turred into print through “My wish that the book may afford, in one way or another, hints of untechnical kind about orchestral compositions which will be useful and suggestive, more especially to thoe who have not specialized in music. My own experience is that often a chance remark or sentence read Iis sufficient to connect music and imagination, and that once such a relation is established between an individual and a masterpicce the rest quickly follows . . . I ‘have been principally concerned in discuss- ing or describing the compositions themselves, An Effort to Aid Readers With Guilds and Leaguces to Select Books—One of the I'cbru- ary Choices—1The Newest Novels. «in an attempt to serve the needs of radio or concert audiences, or those who have record libraries of symphonic music.” Nothing long, nor heavy, nor discouraging here. Just the direct simplicity of the radio talks themselevs and just the charm of them. A comprehensive first course in symphonic compesitions, with a touch of historical setting and a glimpse into the lives of the great composers. A glance also at the ways of great orchestra leaders and at the orchestra itself. “The orchestra is to me one of man's supreme marvels and triumprts—a godlike transmutation of raw materials of nature which merges the seen and the unseen in magical beauty. For the gross materials of the orchestra are bits of wood, metal, skin and string. They are endowed by the magician, man, with a power past the telling.” A prize book to go along with the prize undertaking of Columbia in sending master music off upon its mission to near and far places, to lonely people, to hungry people. Great! The radio, the Columbia, Olin Downes, speaking and writ- ing. APOOT IN ITALY. By John Gibbons, author of “Tramping Through Ireland,” etc. Il- Justrations by Reginald Cleaver. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. AD this been the uswal “tramp” through Italy or otherwhere, well, in that case it would not have been printed. Or not much read if it had been accepted and published. Another sort of adventure, this one. No Alps, no mountain lakes, no rushing streams and strung-out Apennines, “backbone to Italy,” no hill towns nor vineyards nor peasantry. None of these things, that is, not to dwell upon. Nor is the point of the footwork to hunt out the ancient greatness of Italy in art, music or its conceded and much discussed splendors. Something quite different, this. So the young tramp, one of the newspaper persuasion, gets himself as quickly and unsee- ingly as possible right down to the toe-tip of the “boot” that is Italy's southern geography, There the tramping begins, day by day, stage by stage, toward tbe north, picking up the new Italy, that piece of handwork in modern state-making produced by Mussolini from the principles of Pascism and from its host of young advocates, the Fascists. Just for a minute let us take a long jump to the end of the adventure. Here it is: “An absolutely inflexible efficiency.” Now, knowing upon what we are headed, we can go back to follow the proof of this conclusion. Work, getting things done, is the slogan here. Noi art nor any other seduction. Just getting things done, practical and useful things. So, the tramp follows roadways and enters towns, looks around, talks with the people, or tries to; gets meals and lodging. all in the stir of exact performance, prompt action, of industry in command, of production, the great goal of a new Italy. Por this is a new Italy, new in vision, in aetivity, in repudiation even of its own great past, for the time being at any rate. A great industrial machine in the making, such as is the stamp of the present in other parts of the world. A very simple, humorous and knowing trav- eler, this John Gibbons, who misses nothing and who does not get his tags mixed. A de- lightful man in his passing views and in his sound summaries. Good natured, human, and —1I think the very man to go with again some time when he finds a new place to go ‘“afoot- ing” through. A clear refreshment in the way of seizure and summary of a vital hour for Italy and the world. FOREVER AND EVER. By Warren Spencer. New York: Alfred H. King. ] TITLE that might mean almost anything. It does, however, mean just one thing. Orne that, in the measure to which it has any application at all, turns out to a deep and disturbing significance in one of the commonest of social situations, matrimony. This is a forthright story of modern cast, drawn off straight from the occupations and engrossments of the moment. Business and the chances of getting ahead in it. Diversions of the common pattern. Intercourse of men and women, the famfliar stripe. The engagement of the story, as a means of getting ahead, is that of a young business man, not too successful, who, in the course of natural events, falls in love and gets married. A new and very frank note is struck right here on the eve of marriage, as it is called. The young man, cn that night before, is gripped with something close to panic over the step he is about to take. Reading this unreserved self-disclosure, most convincing in its straight, bare-faced honesty, one is held to the con- viction that such dismay over the great step is not uncommon. That terror is a quite natural seizure of the moment and the occasion. However, the romance advances by way of marriage and its subsequent commonplaces of adjustment between a pair of practically strangers. A bit of realism, coneeived in tem- perance and carried out in good restraint, this makes up the body of the modern adventure in -wedlock. Now, it happens, not unfamiliarly, that the young man is susceptible to the win- ning ways of women. Nothing deeply serious about it. Just the familiar errancies that one can see at almost any time. But, as occurs now and then, the wife is of standard wifely design. Hurt, angry, resentful, she takes her baby and goes away. And that's the end of the matter. You looked for the good story end—reconciliation and the rest of it. In this cace the end of the romance as such is different. Especially different sinee the au- thor brings its true essence and point out into the cpen for all men to judge. And here that deep issue is: There is no release from the long and interweaving processes of living to- gether as man and wife. Separation does not locsen the beonds, divorce offers no real freedom. “Foreversand Ever” is not an excursion into piety, not a lesson in social morality. It is, rather, a deep-diving adventure into the ac- tuality of feelings, recollections, innumerable binding contacts and associations that, in Fuman nature's high craftsmanship, knit man and woman together, knit man and wife together in compilete repudiation of the possibility of release and freedom. A romance that, burrowing deep, has come up with a startling discovery. A discovery that relies mot at all upon superficial convention. Rather one that depends upon basic human nature, upen the irresistible power ef habit ingrained to brain and blood action, upon a psychological and spiritual denial of release from wedlock. A CLUE FROM THE STARS. By Eden Phill- potts, author of “The Grey Room,” etc. New York: The Macmillan Co. O fierce and fast is the murder order of the moment that a deliberate crime or ene whose detection lags is to a degree out of the running In general interest. It is for this rea- son that murder fans may turn away from Mr. Phillpotts in this mystery tale in search of methods more in harmony with the hurry-up crime situation eof today. This was the way of it. Sir Julian Marchant of Clyst Warrington, Devonshire, strolled across the fields one night to dine with a family of friends. Leaving, not late, round about 11 o'clock, to walk back to his own home, Tudor Manor, Sir Julian disappeared. No cause for foul play existed, for Sir Julian was a man much loved by friends and neighbors, by the servants on his estate, by the public generally. A benevolent, kindly, generous man. But there was the fact. He was gone. No trace of any sort to suggest the manner of his going. De- tectives were brought down from Scotland Yard. They, too, walked across the fields, along the plain and simple road taken by Sir Julian himself. Walked around, and went back to Londcn without a thought in mird as to the taking off of Sir Julian. They came again. Went through the same maneuvers once more. And left no wiser than they came. A bloodhound was set to the trail. He followed it to the cen- ter of an open field and stopped. Nothing more. And so the story moves steadily, and a bit stodgily to the impatient reader about swift vengeance and brutal reprisals. But Mr. Phillpotts is in no hurry, for he follows clues to his better liking than the open ones of familiar pattern. He is trailing psychological situations and digging out the movements and actions derived therefrom. So, very slowly, and very surely this author works back to any mental state that might point upcen brute force and disaster to the man so mysteriously snatched away without trace of the agent of such violence. And, in his own good time, by way of following up mental reactions, generally, through feelings and impulses and actions in a plain sequence of undeviating cause and ef- fect, Mr. Phillpotts arrives and the mystery of Sir Julian's death becomes clear and, in a measure, as unavoidable as logic itseif. A fine exercise for the reader, bent that way, as well as an absorbing event to follow for substantial diversion. THE PROPHETIC MARRIAGE. By Warwick Deeping, author of “Sorrell and Son.,” ete. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers. RIAL by error becomes the method of this romance of youth by Warwick Deeping. The subject of the experiment is a boy of fine quality, born of real parents who bequeathed him high ideals and not so very much besides. Then these two died, leaving the youth there- after to the universal mentor of boyhood, girls and women, This boy, by virtue of his essential self and his good lineage, looked upon all women as different expressions of one great idea, perfec- tion. You know the story. You know the series of assault upon the lad, and the misery of his batterings to soul and spirit. Then, as he would, this boy Tod married the one rare bit of handiwork that came straight from heaven itself. Secretly, to the girl, money and having ‘“naice” things, getting out of the shop, an easy time, these had been the motive power of all the soft looks and endearing words. The marriage served one of the good purposes of that institution, it brought an atom of reality into an ctherwise unreal world. Young Tod had a guardiam angel. A wise old man who loved the boy and could have spoiled him utterly. For he was a rich man who iiterally ached to help the youngster out of his matrimonial mess. But, wise, he knew that time was a better fixer, a more inspired mentor, than he could hope to be. So, as the very height of sagacity, he kept sul. and stayed away till, finally, the marriage died violently e e R ——— at the hands ef the girl, disappointed at the lack of enough “naice” things. The story is a Deeping rendition of a young man’s schooling, in the only institution that has lessons at all for male youth. Girls and women. This Tod turned out to be lucky. For his final choiee fell upon a woman wise enough not to torment the life out of him for dis- closures concerning his earlier loves and ad- venturings. And the good angel of this boy, the fine old man, senses that school days are over, that experiment has issued as knowledge and in this realization he becomes what so long he has wanted to be, the substantially competent friend of young Tod Western and his right-wife, Claire. A straightforward, unsentimental, realistic study of the education of boys and young men. WILD RYE. By Muriel Hine, author of “Pil- grim’s Pord,” elc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. " ILD RYE" is a period novel of Victorian date. It is, however, quite free from the familiar, and wearying, overload of modes and manners and customs that, in this stripe of invention, are likely to cbscure actors and to hinder action. Another count for “Wild Rye” is that it , creates its people in definite character and per- sonality. This is Jenny Rorke's story. A story of courage and a gallant taking of the hard spets. No triumph at the end, no defeat either. Hard- Iy anything meore pitiful than a littie ehild, parentless, and sent to live with unwelcoming relatives. This was Jenny's first misfortune. From England up into Scotland, where both climate and ereeds are uncompromising, Jenny went to a Jonely and loveless life. But, even so, young Jenny was brave against harshness and no companions and small playtime. A nice child. Happy by nature, winning and beauti- ful. Then, in time, came along the young man. Jenny was merely an hour to him. He wus that sort. But to Jenny the fellow was eter- nity itself. Unhappy in its nature and substance, the story lifts by the sheer courage of this friend- less girl. And, at the last, with about every thing biack and unpromising, Jenny is looking ahead and singing a little tune of better days and times to come. Modern in its spirit, in the plucky heart of Jenny Rorke. Maybe a fore- runner, in those Victorian days, of the uncon- querable young woman of the present. Well- built and interesting for the reader of novels, “Wild Rye.” Books Recerved TOLSTOY; Literary Pragments, Letters and Reminiscences, not previously published. Issued under the authority of the Tolstoy family. Edited by Rene Fulop-Miller. Trans- lated by Paul England. New York: The Dial Press. STOUR CORTEZ; A Biography of the Spanish Conqueror. By Henry Morton Robinson. Ilustrated. New York: The Century Co. DIALOGUES WITH RODIN. By Helene von Nostitz Hindenburg. Translated by H. L. Ripperger. New York: Duffield & Green. PRINCE CONSORT. By Frank B. Chancelior. New York: The Dial Press. EDWARD VII; Man and King. By H. E. Wortham. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. ENGLAND'S GREATEST STATESMAN; A Life of William Pitt; 1759-1806. By E. Keble Chatterton. Illustrated. Indianap- olis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. MARY GLADSTONE; Her Diaries and Letters. Edited by Lucy Mastermab. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. VARINA HOWELL; Wife of Jefferson Davis. By Mrs. Dunbar Rowland. New York: The Macmillan Co. THE WORLD COURT; 1921-1931. A handbook of the Permanent Court of International Justice. By Manley O. Hudson, Bemis pro- fessor of international law, Harvard Law School. Boston: World Peace Foundation. WHEN THE WORLD WENT MAD; A Story of the Late War. By Daniel Morgan. Bos~ ton: The Christopher Publishing House. THE PROHIBITION EXPERIMENT IN FIN- LAND. By John H. Wuorinen, instructor im history, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press. PILOTING MODERN YOUTH. By William S. Sadler with the collaboration of Lena K. Sadler, M. D. Introduction by M. V. O’'Shea, professor of education, University of Wisconsin. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co. FEBRUARY, 1917; A Chronicle of the Russian Revolution. By Aleksei Tarasov-Rodionov. Translated by William A. Drake. New York: Covici-Friede, Inc. PROSPERITY PROBLEMS; Why, Whence, Whither? And With What Part in World Welfare? By Arnold G. Dane, author of “Porto Rico's Case.” Of the statistical edi- torial staff of “The Commercial and Finan- cial Chronicle, New York City. SOVIET POLICY IN PUBLIC FINANCE. By Gregory Y. Sokolnikov and associates. Translated by Elena Varneck, edited by Lin- coln Hutchinson and Carl Phehn. Califor- nia: Stanford University Press. USED BOOKS at SPECIAL PRICES 29c¢ Books 60c Books (4 for $1) (2 for $1) At WOMRATH'’S 1319 F St. NW. 3107 14th St. N.W. Jane Bartlett, 1347 Conn. Ave. N.W,