The New York herald., 1922-05-28
New Fiction
Continued from Preceding Page.

He starts with a grandiose prom
isS: a prologue in heaven. which
owes a great deal more to Mr.. Wells
than to job or Goethe. In fact. the
inevitably suggested comparison 10
Wells's scene in Joan and Peter" is
fatally illuminative. This prelude
deals with Gods Erazers-
God looks DER the world. a
stupid, cluttered map with many
billion eyes for dctn. upstaring
heiter-skelter. The eyes are always
bright to start with. Every morn
ing the new ones are bright. Still
births don't count.
God has a rolltop desk. and in
the pigeonholes erasers.
First He tries brown one. Her
itage. He rubs the hester- -skelter
map and weake.. dots fade
A soiled eraser, Passrty. sweeps
Down comes Crime. the red one.
and eyes are smudged out that
were not aimed at. Eruption, Fam
inc, Disease, Pestilence. Drought.
He tries them all at times.
Divine ImpatienceI A steel
eraser. War.
Believe it or not, there are still
bright eyes remaining.
Bang goes the lid of the rolltop
desk
Let them livei
1t is evidently a large order. and
naturally one expects it to be filed
In a large way. But instead we get
two narrowly seieetive cases of
highly specialized individuals. neither
of whom is very essentially affected
by environment or any of the cosmic
eccentricities indicated by Gods
erasers." except, in the girls trag-
edy. by sheer accident Each of
these movements" is for the most
part effective as a unit case The
story of Lena is tense. brilliantly inn
agined. rising to real tragedy at
times. and the companion picture of
Samuel is a very lifelike figure. But
neither is of eosmic significance.
And there are not infrequent false
notes. like the Irrelevant "stillbirths-
of the prologue.
The arrangement is antiphonal
First we get Samuel's story of his
beginnings. then Lena's. then Sam
ueI's trials and struggles. then
Lena's tragic Affections, and lastly a
conversence of the two for the in
dicated happy ending The move
ments are well arranged and the
final solution is not entirely mechan-
ical
Samuel Is the son or a common
place. lower middle class folk in a
suburb of Boston. with heritage of
narrow religious intolerance and
suburban banality. But he is a mu-
steal prodigy" as a performer
(Ncither he nor Lena are composers
or creative musicians.) This talent
lifts him out of his heritage" and
into the conservatory. Much of the
early story is clever. liyened with
humor. though Mr.. Paul often makes
the mistake of endOwing his boy with
an adults view Of things instead of
that of a raaI hoy
lena is the daughter Of a middle
aged Jewish immigrant. II is a rec
ord OF poverty. but she. too. is a
musician and destined TO be a won
derful violinist. The Boston Ghetto
life is wildly drawn. but its folk
rather idealized. Lena, of course,
also enters the conservatory. she and
Samuel fall in love. but equally. of
course, the path of true love follows
its we'll known habit of bumpiness.
A brutal bit of pure accident mains
Lena, breaking off her finger tips
and thus ending the possibility of a
career. The rest of the story runs
true enough 10 statutory forms Of
romance. TO a slightly artificial con-
clusion of happiness.
The style is. for the most part,
fairly good. though it is often exas-
peratingiy ejaculatory. with a weari-
some staccato of ex, iamatiOns. There
is also a specious appearance of pro-