New-York tribune., 1920-03-24
Books

One defect in many an adventure
novel is that too much is revealed to
the reader either directly or by impli-
cation in the early chapters. Thus, in
the third chapter Of Henry Oyen's "The
Plunderer" (Doran), we find: "She was
quite tall, and upon her young figure,
long OF waist and 1.-the, yet well-rounded,
the thin white dress Of the subtropics
was but flament, feminine accessory
to the virgin beauty and the message of
her budding womanhood"
Now as soon as a reader has scanned
that he knows instantly that this beauti-
full girl must be the daughter of the
villainous Senator Fairclothe, and that
she will marry Roger Payne in the last
chapter. 1t seems to us as if an ad-
venture novel might be much more ad-
venturous if the heroine didn't marry
the hero, or, if that is too much to
expect, we should at least like to read
about heroine who was not "well-
rounded" These heroines of popular
fiction are so strikingly similar in
figure that we have at least a suspicion
that there is some central factory where
they are turned out, a gross day, on
lathe.
In "The Brass Check, Study of
American Journalism" Upton Sinclair
predicts that his book will be boycotted
by the American press. However. il
seems that Mr. Sinclair has been willing
to meet this boycott half way by send
ing out no copies for review At least
none was sent here, which we think
ought to absolve US from charges Of
capltalistic suppression. But, by Infinite
diligence, we have managed to obtain
copy of "The Brass Check" and we
hope to review it soon. In a prelimi
nary examination we are somewhat sur
prised to find Sinclair by no means as
humorless as we had supposed. We
admit that the charge has been over
played against him. If he found de-
plorable conditions in a packing house
or a mine, or a tenement, and wrote
tempestuously about them, the invari-
able answer was ooh, he's got no sense
of humor."
Still we must admit being a little
amused at the account which Sinclair
gives of how young contributors to
golfers Weekly" were invariably in
vited by the proprietor to "motor and
play golf and polo, and f1irt with ele-
giant young society ladies and spend
afternoons loafing in the Hoffman
House barr We don't know whether to
1eel envious or relieved, because we
never won an invitation to flirt. eat.
arlnk, or play polo when we were
young contributor to "Collier's." Henry
James Forman, who was AN editor rn
der the old regime, did once buy US n
package of Sweet Caporal cigarettes.
out 1T was only after he had left
"collier's," and therefore it could not
nave been part of the scheme of sub-
tie propaganda which Sinclair do.
scribes.
O1 course, we ought to feel thankful
that we escaped, for Sinclair writes of
tne victims OF the motoring, Irritation
and polo propaganda that, "In the be-
ginning they wrote about America, in
the end they wrote about the Smart
set OF Fifth Avenue and Long Island
IN their personal life they became
tlppiers and cafe celebrities, in their
intellectual life they became bitter
cynlcs; into their writing you saw
creeping year by year the subtle poison
Oh sexual excess-until at last they be-
came too far gona for 'Collier's' to
tolerate any longer and went ovsr to
1ne Cosmopolitan which takes them no
matter how far gone they are.'
It u truly a fearful picture which he
paints and Iet ws can't hslp feeling