The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-11-12
Reading Makes Us Wise"

6r1wo of the most interesting books which l have had the
 S pleasure of reading in the last few weeks are Three Soldiers by John Dos Passes George II. Do- ran company, Publishers. New York city) and "The Master of Man" by Hall Caine, CJ. R. Lippineott company Publishers, PhiladelphiaG.
 Absolutely different in every re- spect-the one Three Soldiers" a story of the late World war, colorful, vivid, intense-the other "The Master of Man" a story of sin and lust and evil.
 In Three Soldiers" John Dos Pas sos, the author, has aroused the ire of many an ex-service man. and he has aroused the admiration of many more. for his book is the sort of thing as Conningsby Dawson has said of 1t that. anyone would have been arrested for writing during the war, and if 1t purports to be the, Now it Can be Told of the enlisted man in American armies it is either a base libel or hideous truth. It is so savagely explicit in its accu- sations that it deserves no quarter at the hands of the reading public you must be either for it or against it; if the statements which 1t makes can be proved to be varacious, it ought to raise the roof"
 Three Soldiers" is a story of Flu selli an Italian of the second genera tion from San Francisco, eager to adapt himself and to get on in the army; of Chrisfield, wIld-angered, lovable boy from an Indiana farm, and of the eastren John Andrews. insurgent in thought and passion, but outwardly tanned. The background is filled with figures-officers, sol diers, French peasants, Y. M. c. A. workers, cocottes, Parisian aristo- crats. l know of no American novel of this generation in which so many minor characters, each unforgettable and perfectly placed appear and dis appear without confusion. Mir Dos Passos, realizing that two of his principals at least were unusual characters going toward unusual fates, has contrived to silence crftf- cism by placing against his protag- onists, in each crucial moment, an or dinary soldier with quite normal re- actions. Despite the technical diff culties of carrying three major char
  ture of steel.
 Varying opinions about Mir. Dos Passos' book are rampant as I said before, and here is what Scott Fitz- gerald says:
 With the exception of a couple of tracts by Upton Sinclair, carefully disguised as novels but none the less ignored by the righteous booksellers of America. Three Soldiers by d young Harvard man named John Dos Passes is the first war book by an American which Is worthy of se- rious notice. Even The Red Badge of Courage is pale beside it. Laying Three Soldiers down l am filled with that nameless emotion that only a piece of work created in supreme detachment can arouse. This book will not be read in the west. Main Street was too much of a strain-I doubt if the 'cuItured' public of the middle border will ever again risk a serious American move! unless 1t is heavily baited with TO- mantle love.
 "No-"Three Soldiers will never compete with The Shiek' or with those salaeious sermons whereby pr. Crafts gives biological thrills to the wives of prominent butchers and un- dertakers-nor will it ever do aught but frighten the caravanserie of 12o- proof Americans, dollar year men and slaughter crazy old maids who waited in line at the book storeb to buy and read the war masterpiece of the Spanish Zane Grey, the one that Is now being played in the movies by pretty young man with machine oil on his hair. @
 To a dozen or so hereabouts who