New-York tribune., 1919-11-29

AT time when the only American
ISM which passes muster is at least
100 per cent, it seems rather hazardous
to risk the opinion that English fc-
ton for the year which is passing is
at least S51a per cent better than ours
StH, we are unable to free ourself
from the impression that May Sinclairs
Mary Olivier" John Galsworthy' IS
Saints Progress.' H. G. Wells's "The
Ondying Fire" w. Somerset Maugham :
The Moon and Sixpense," and Stacy
Aumonier's "The Querrils" are all better
than anything turned out this year by
an American. We should also be in
clined to put Miss Sackville Vests
Heritage" and perhaps Byrd's "The
Born Fool" ahead of our native product
1t has not been good year for Amer
lean novelists. 1t is not, however, a
year entirely barren for American writ
ers. To US Theodore Dreiser's "Twelve
! Men, seems work of great distinction
but this Is neither a novel nor short
story collection, but series of short
biographies fictionized little beyond the
use of fictitious names. From the
Life" of Harvey OHiggins, series
of portraits largely imaginative, also
seems to us work of high merit.
Of the American novels, Sisters, y
by Kathleen Norris, is as good as any
thing we can think of at the moment
although it has highly conventional
ized and sentimental ending tackled on
to an interesting and stirring story
Parts of James Branch Cabell's "Jur-
gen. are beautiful, but there are also
chapters in which Mr.. Cabell's desire
to be impish and fantastic is so evil
IDENTIFY .self~conscious that a rather dis
tressing state Of overwrting ensues
We must admit, also, that for all our
often expressed fondness for immoral
books. we feel that Cabell not only goes
through the ice at times. but is so com
pletely submerged that nothing is left
but bubbles.
OF course, we do not pretend to have
not read as yet Alice Browns "The
Black Drop" or Villa Sibert Gathers
MY Antonia," which has been praised
so highly in some quarters that it may
we'll be entitled to rank above some of
the English books which we have
mentioned. Then, although it is ad-
mittedly light and trivial, Alice Duer
Miller's "The Charm School" is con-
tlnuously diverting, and Dane Coolidge
has done better than any of his rivals
in the western adventure field with
o4ANSA anu 1OAu. JuIldn OlTSot :
After Thirty" is also thoroughly pleas
ant and workmanlike, if unimportant.
Mary Roberts Rinehart's Dangerous
Days" is among the books we have not
read, but in one or two other quar-
ters from which we expected much we
found disappointment. Ramsey Mil
holland" of Booth Harrington starts
brilliantly. even though it covers a
field already much titled by the au-
thor, but it loses merit rapidly toward
the end, when the author finished
lamely and inconclusively.
We have yet to see anything this
year which challenges comparison with
May Sinclair's MARY Olivier" This
is a book done with abundant care and
detail: deep-rooted book, which will
last the reader for some days or weeks
after he is done with it, 1t is a book
absolutely unimpeachable in it's truth
fulness. Some may object to its style
Of story telling. fer continuity is broken
consistently We are allowed to see
things in sudden flashes. This may
or may not be satisfactory technique,