New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-07-17

IHE WALL. BY John COurnos. Pub
lished by George H Doran Company. So
"HE most familiar form of
tragedy is mans failure to
m adjust himself to his environ
raent. A Shelley or Byron compelled
by fate to live in Gopher Prairie would
probably be set down by common con-
sent as a mailman. A gypsy at fac
tory bench would be a pathetic spec
tacle.
John Gombarov, the hero of Mr..
Cournos's novel, is the victim of
tragic and apparently hopeless NAL
adjustment. A Russian Jew, endowed
with sensitive temperament, an acute
mind and powerful, if vague, yearn-
ing for beauty and romance and lit
erary creative achievement, he is set
down by some unkind destiny in Phila-
delphia, where he is compelled to grind
away the best years of his life earning
living for his numerous dependent
brothers and sisters.
Gombarov makes desperate efforts to
scale or break through the walls of
hostile circumstance, which, as he feels,
are encircling him, crushing him. shut
ting him off from all the things he
loves. He tries to escape by plunging
into one love affair after another. But
his love affairs always leave a bitter
taste in the mouth. The corrodinp
materialism which he encounters every
where poisons his relations with wom-
en-. He finds it difficult to enjoy pure
romance, apart from the question of
dollars and cents. His cup of bitter
ness runs over when the last of his
sweethearts tells him that her mother
feels she ought to marry "gentle-
man"
In the pursuit of his literary ideals
Gombarov is handicapped again by
his incorrigible idealism. He cannot
attempt to make his fortune by writing
best seller because he cherishes the
fantastic and utopian idea that a man
who writes book solely for money can
never write any other kind of book.
He cannot bring himself to accept the
we'll meant advice offered him by Mr..
Riggs, advertising manager of de-
partment store, on the eve of his de-
parture for London in search of a lit
crary mecca:
"Well, you are a chump to think If
going to Europe on a FOOLS errand.
As sensible man, ask you, what will
you get out of it? Literature is a
raise alarm. There's no money in it..
And If there's no money in it, what's the
use OF it? Take it from me: every
man Is worth as much as he gets. If
you must leave the New World, why
not join my staff of ad. writer's? It's
the only literature that's going and it's
the only literature that pays. AS TO,
readers, you'll have more readers than
any book can ever get you. Just look
at my full-page ads. Why, almost
every man, woman and child reads my
ads. My dear boy, the proof of litera
ture is in the car you possess. | have
two myself, l don't mind telling Won I"
John Cournos has already given us
taste of the quality of his genius in
The Mask. The Wall, like it's predeces
sor, is acrid, powerful. mordant and
somber. Cournos is not a gentle
writer; he hacks deeply into the ugly
realities of life. His realism goes far
beyond mere Photographic accuracy in
the reproduction of external details.
he digs much more deeply than this.
lie lays bare the hidden curves and
twists and obliquities of human char
aetas with merciless frankness that
often verges on brutality.
The wasted intellectualisn that Is
such common characteristics Of Jew