BRIEFER MENTION
Indelible, by Elliot H. Paul (12mo, 297 pages; Houghton Mifflin: $1.75) has already been given the accolade by the Academie Burton Rascoe. It is an exceptionally disappointing work because the author has liberated himself from stupid conventions of story-telling and has then failed entirely to subject himself to any inherent discipline. The early life of the protagonist, Samuel, is supposed to be told as he himself sees it; yet all too frequently it sounds like a collection of bright remarks. Curioser and curioser, the succeeding portion of the book, dealing with Lena, as yet unseen by Samuel, is told in exactly the same way, yet is professedly objective. The mystery is not cleared when one realizes at the end, with Samuel grown up, that he, or the author, or somebody, is still writing in the style of childhood impressions. The story is generally good, sometimes remarkably childish in its sentiment, and frequently spoiled by the absurd interludes. The genuine talent which produced it is perceptible; its owner needs a more thorough training than any other of our younger writers and is more likely to justify the pains.
The Outcast, by Selma Lagerlöf (12mo, 297 pages; Doubleday, Page: $1.90). To have written Gosta Berling is a tremendous handicap for any author. For any one but Miss Lagerlof to have written The Outcast would have been a singular achievement. It is a novel with height, breadth, and depth, but it lacks magic—a quality one can demand only of the greatest. The Outcast is a book with a mission; it is art with a moral, in other words diluted. The nightingale that in the branches sang, is not singing in this book.
The Widow's Cruse, by Hamilton Fyfe (12mo, 304 pages; Seltzer: $2) has its points, as stories go. The numerous ramifications of its plots all hinge upon character, arguing ingenuity and perception in their author. But it is a pity that so many novels are written professionally, or as a relaxation from the arduous business of filling newspaper columns. After Mr Fyfe's frothy competence, one remembers Harold Bell Wright not unpleasantly.
Lost Valley, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould (12mo, 452 pages; Harpers: $2) is a first novel in which the author breaks many eggs without making an omelet. It begins well in a setting beautifully sketched in, but once the heroine and her half-witted sister leave Lost Valley, the artificially concocted plot rides them past all realities. One can more easily believe in the Africa of Mrs Gerould's Vain Oblations than in the Mulberry Street of her manufacture, where Madge, the heroine, finds romance, and Lola, the defective sister, wakes at the point of death to distinguish between the ethics of rightful and wrongful stabbing. It isn't done in those half-circles. Mrs Gerould has, hitherto, etched cameos and probed her own mind skilfully, but here, with the commoner realities of life before her, she has failed through lack of understanding.
