New-York tribune., 1922-05-28

ms believe. pretends only to
being a new dialect. 1t advances to
sucn Sl cohtrence as is contained in
Nolcl, touts cendrss Sspho
I'ont ce fut Ia moindre defaut
~ alner, Venus. les coquiilaKes
0ue Vous entrouVrez sur les pageh
ana eliminates in the delicate wit and
charming sentiment of
GABRIEL AU VILLAGE
Madamoiselle Marie
Nous etc5 crosse. dit panse
nouS aures un hls sans mari;
IardonneS 81 ja vOus deranEe
,ette fscon d'annonccr
Les chooses par la fenetre
Etonne un peu la Gancse
Tui son amour voudratt connaitra.
-. "pRe sen Va, CONNIE fonte
oes nciEes vers iinhumuin
"a petitc I'm peu honte
ct &c cashe dana ses maiuA
,,, une OF Cocteau's loveliest poems is
Entendez vous Ainsi?" an amos
trophe to France gentille ct verdoy
ante in which he says:
81 Jc to chante ma tacon.
NNnacun Na,t SO detourne ct mo moqus.
Mals un Jour arrive lepooue
On oreille entend Ia chanson
lntelligence and facility, irony and
fantasy, these are the elements Of
Coctsaus poetry. He is as certainly
the most interesting of the Young
poets as Paul Valery is the graycst
ana nnest of the older poets in France.
Vigorous New Realist
IL WAS In 1914 that Roger Martin
- du Gard published his Jean Baroi..~
The war broke out at a moment when
the book had commenced To- receive
w'de attention; in common with much
else 1t was forgotten in the DAYS that
followed. Last year the Nouyele Re-.
vue francaise republished It. ] read
1T with great interest; q novel of the
life of an atheist, reared in a Catholic
mii'eu, who came to maturity during
the Dreyfus affair and who was, as
may be anticipated, a violent Drew
fusard. The book had been overpraised
to me. 1t is filled with platitude; it Is
rudely, commonly written, but it is
passonately honest, carved In granite.
with an energy, restless determine
tion to tell the truth and all of the
truth, and verismilitude that re.
call tho burning sincerity Of Jules
Valles.
To-day we have the arst volume Of
Martin du Cards new novel, LES Thi-
bault." It will be published, the au-
thor tells US, in eight or ten volumes
at intervals of couple Of months. The
hrst Is Of novelette, length, containing
about two hundred heavily loaded pares.
1t narrates the runaway Of two school
boys Of fourteen years, one from the
home of family of practicing Cath
ollcs, the other the son of rotcstant
family, the discovery Of their gray note
book, containing the romantic CORE
spondence Of the lads, their pursuit
and their recapture.
Already in this book We are made
acquainted with half dozen incisively
portrayed characters, among whom it
would be difficult to choose the most
excellent. The boys and their parents,
at any rate, are not easily forgotten.
This is also, to my knowledge, the first
French novel in which there appears a
Christian Science practitioner, to work
miracle when doctors have given up
hope. He is, for the American reader,
somewhat grotesquely drawn. In any
case we have here great improvement
in technique over Jean Barois" and
the admirable beginning Of what prom
.o-9 W OV a kHlllCGuIly lIdnh AHQ
honest novel, rough hewn out OF life.
Barres at His Best
s. TEAM BAROIS" reminds me that
y should be doing you service il
recalled to you a certain narration of
the other "atfair"-that Of Panama One
Of the most absorbing and dramatic
books in all literature, book which
enc roreads imm ediately after the first
reading in order to reconstruct mentally
without flaw its fascinating, imperially
sordid story, is "Ce que J'ai vue au
temps du Panama" in Maurice Barres'
"Leurs Figures" know as we'll as any
one the nationalist-propagandist that
Barres has become he remains, never
theless, great personality In French
letters and in this book he has written
the finest specimen Of literary report
ing which exists. His portraits Of
Reinach and Clemenceau are unparal-
leled for verify and dramatic interest