The sun., 1918-12-15

tfaruNely bound but badly printed; well written,
but deficient ii emotional intensity; full of action,
but weak in Characterization; has good plot, but
is devoid of style
He reads all the books he reviews. Every little
while he pOunceS upon misquOtatiOn on page 1913,
or miSprint on page 279. Reviewers who do not
read the books they review may chance upon such
details while idly turning the uncut leaves or while
looking at the back cover but they never bring in
three the other side : error They spot the
fact that the heroinc'S mother, who was killed in
train accident in the fourth chapter, buys a re-
frigerator in the twenty-third chapter and they
indulge in an objectionable witticsm as to the
heroineS mother whereabouts after her demise.
But the wrong accent on the Greek word in Chap
ter XVII. gets by them; and as for the psychology
zeal impulse which led the hero to jump from the
Brooklyn Bridge on the Fourth Of July they miss
it entirely and beray their neglect of their duty
by abiding to him as a poor devil crazed with the
heat. The fact is, of course, that he did Steve
Brodie because he found something obscurely hate
full in the Manhattan skyline. Day after day, while
walking his work OH the Brooklyn Rapid Transit,
he gazed at the sawtoOthed outline of the buildings
limned against the sky. Day by day his soul kept
asking: why don't they get gold filling for that
cavity between the Singer and WOolworth towersY'
And he would ask himself despondently: "Is
this what | live fOr?' And gradually he felt that
it was not He felt that it might be something to
die about, however. And so, with the rashness of
youth he leaped. The George Meredith Thomas
Hardy irony into the story when he was
pulled out of the river by his rival in DORINDA' s
affections, GREGORY ANTHRACITE, owner of the
magnificent steam yacht Chuggermugger.
So much for the anatomy Of a book review Put
backbone into it. Read before you write. Look
before You leap. Be Just. be fair, be impartial; and
when you damn damn with faint praise, and when
you praise praise with faint damns. Be all things
TO all books. Remember the author. Review as you
would be reviewed by. IF book is nothing in your
life 1t may be the fault of your life. And it is al
ways less expensive TO revise your life than to re-
wise the book. Your life is printed from plates
that cost fortune to make and another fortune to
throw away. Life is too short to read inferior
books Ell? Books are too good to be guiIlotined
by inferior ives-Or inferior livers. BACON said
some books to be digested but he neglected to
mention a cure for dyspepties.
Books as Accretions.
But when We say much have only touched
the surface of profound matter The truth Of
that matter, the full depth of it, may as well be
plufnbed at once.
would factor a number play You can't be
of the factors that make up the collective i'm
pact of the book upon you. There no way of get
ting at them. They are summed up in the book it
self, and no book can be split into multipliable
parts A book is not the author times an idea times
the views of the publisher. A book is unfactorabe,
often undecphcrable. 1t is growth. 1t is series
Of accretiOnS about central thought. The central
thought is like the grain of sand which the oyster
has pearled over. The central thought may even be
diseased thought and the pearl may be a very
lovely and brilliant pearl specifically at least, for
all that. There is nothing to do with book but to
take it it is 90 at it hammer and tOngs, pei
and curette chisel and auger-smaShing it to
pieces, scraping and cutting, boring and cleaving
through the layers of words and subsidiary ideas
and getting down eventually to the heart of it, to
the grain of sand. the irritant thought that was
the earliest foundation.
Such surgery may be highly skilful or highly
and wickedly destructive; it may uncover some
thing worth while and it may not; naturally YOU
don t go in for much Of it, if YOU are wise. and