New-York tribune., 1921-02-07
Books :

| In his book Miracle Mongers and
! Their Methods, published by Dutton,
Harry H-udini devotes a chapter to
sword swaIlowers and explains that
the trick is easy if only the performer
can learn to get the blade past the
pharynx. This seems to be the stick
ing point. But for the pharynx we
might all be sword swallowers, in which
case, of course, the practice would
soon cease to have any commercial
value and would be continued only by
those who were genuine artists. An
interesting essay might be written to
show that under socialism, which de-
stroys initiative by removing the hope
of financial reward, there would be no
sword swallowers at al.
But what we really had chiefly in
mind upon reading Mr.. Houdinis in
teresting and instructive book was the
close kinship between swallowing
swords and reading novels, for we find
that ever so many books have habit
OF sticking at the pharynx or there
abouts. Getting started is the great
difficulty. Some authors try to obvi-
ate the difficulty by beginning with
pistol shot or a scene in which q beau
tiful young girl suddenly enters
young mans two-room apartment in an
exclusive building at the dead of night
and exclaims "You must save me.
They're following mel"
There was time when these fooled
us, but by now we have learned to an
tlcipate that nobody of any particular
interest will be hit by the pistol shot
and that the beautiful young woman
will turn out to be only the crown
princess of Robogivinia in disguise.
AS for the books which begin with a
long description Of the countryside and
expand for chapter or so the menac-
ing quality of the ancient oaks which
cluster about the manor house, we
must admit we never have been able
to do much with them. In fact for al
most month now book after book
has gone as far as the pharynx and
no further, but yesterday we got hold
of Zell, by Henry G. Aikman, and down
it went in an afternoon, without the
slightest difficulty. This is the best
novel we have read in long time. 1t
deserves a place in the growing list of
native fiction of the first rank.
A year or so ago we read first novel
by Aikman which was called The
Groper 1t began promisingly and then
fell away to nothing, but zell is g. sus-
tanned piece of work in which the
readers interest is captured from the
beginning and held in close confinement.
We met Avery zell at the age of nine
IN Sunday school at a tine when he
was busily engaged in singing, little
louder than anybody else in the class,
g ditty which ran:
''You muss not play on Sunday, Sun
day, Sunday,
"You muss not play on Sunday,
Gods holy day of rest"
There was another, too, which went:
Tobacco! Tobaccol
"f hate that word--Tobaccos
"Tobaccol Tobaccoi
II hate that word-Tobaccoin
1t was easy then to appreciate the
conflict which went on in the mind of
young Avery Zell when, upon his re-
turn from Sunday school, he found
that the baseball curver for which he
had written in answer to an advertise
ment in Harper's Round Table had just
arrived. 1t had been persuasive ad-
vertisement, beginning with its boldly
capitalized question, "Can You Pitch
Battling Out Curve?" Avery zell adj
mitted TO himself that he couldn't and
vent on to read:
Whether you can or can not, you
will want the greatest baseball discov-
cry of tho age, our new Baseball Cury-