The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-29
By REGIS MICHAUD.

Frances lie Petit Pierre, Paul Bourgeois
lie JuSticier, Rene Hszins Les NOuvedar
Oberle, Sacha Guitry's Pastenr and
Rostand's lie Vol de la MdrseiIlGtse will
certainly be marked with white stone
in the annals of French letters.
Frances Petit Pierre is already known
to the readers of Books aud the Book
World. 1t is a worthy sequel of Pierre
Noziere and The Book Of My Friend,
delightful mixture of tales, witty satire
and philosophy. The war has certainly
not made Anatole France less ironieal,
indulgent and witty.
To be at the same time writer of fic-
ton and n professional moralist, so
biologist and politician is once more, in
lie Jasticier. the paradox of Paul BOurget.
Leaving aside all questions of doctrine, IN
lie Jasticier, as already in Let0pe or lie
sens de Ia mort, will be found at its best
the art OF Bourget to illustrate moral
confiict-here the case of a man who
takes upon himself the sins of his own
brother-by a well chosen story.
French novels will probably for some
time to come continue TO bear the stamp
of war Clartf by Barbusse is his Under
Fire in a new garb 1t is the same ar
raignment of war with, maybe, this time
more optimism The visions of peaceful
labor in the first and last part of the book
make a striking and dramatic contrast
with the battle scenes, and there is run
ming through the book an undercurrent of
mysticism which will not escape the at
tentive reader. Barbusse's political views
may be wrong; he remains, nevertheless,
in CIartf, as already in Under Fire, a
wonderful artist of the school of Zola, with
all the Improvements, in his descriptions
especially, of twentieth century literary
pyroteehnies-
II.
Rene Bazin finishes in the Revue deS
Deur Mondes the publication of his Nou-
peaur Oberlf. 1t is the story of an Al
satan family reunited to France. The
war seems to have widencd Bazin's philos-
ophy and art. The chapters in the book
where Balm takes us on the Russian bat
tlefields with his hero, Joseph, the Asa
tan on the German side, remind one of
TOlstOy's Var aud Peace. Reading the
book one dreams of less narrow and
provincial Balm, cosmopolitan Barn
who to solve the problems of France
would consent TO take a trip around the
world. OF special interest is the char
acter of Pierre Laneier, the Alsatan in
the French ranks, who persOnities the
problem of the readaptation of the peo-
DIE of Alsace TO France, not without
many perplexities, fortunately cleared at
the end of the book.
Rene Boylesve, who has just entered
the French Academy, is the most modest
and the most refined OF French nOvelists.
His Lenfam Ia balnStrdde The Child
on the BaIconyl and La jeune file bien
<lepee A Wen Brought Up Young
Maidenl are delightful novels to be rec
commended especially to the American
reader for their clear and savory French
as well as for their keen insight into
French life and bourgeois society.
A strange and also pessimistic book Is
La Roue The Wheel by Ellie Faure, a
soldier, an art critic and the author Of
another war book, La SGinte Face. True
to its title that novel of Faure, half 10
main ROLAND, half Barbusse, takes MS
through real whirlwind, from the
trenches to the quietude of the Swiss Alps
"above the strife" with a conscientious
objector who finally dies brave soldier,
if not a convinced one, in battle; then
through the most gorgeous Italian de-
scriptions back to the battlefield to see
the two heroes of the novel helplessly
crushed by the wheel. The wheel whlrls
and carries away men and women In
frantic love story. Anew art is felt IN
that book, half lyrieism, half painting,