New-York tribune., 1922-11-05
~ Tribune's News and Reviews of Books and Authors
Thus Spake Mrs. Zarathustra
THE CLASH by STERN Jameson. Little. new
Brown q q -.
BY VIII Cuppy

new butcheries can be arranged I ask
them to be silent, As literary prop
erty the war seems to me to be quite
az dignified and meaningful as che
more sanctified throwing Of hatirons
| In the home. Artistically "The Clash"
does 1t no violence, and IL returns the
/ compliment.
One defends this book, and yet the
\ reviewer feels himself out of sympa-
\ thy with its reason for being. We are
| told in foreword to the American
edition that IL was written to foster q
better understanding between England
and the United States in the belief
! that without this there can be no last
ing peace between the two. Nobly
| thought and stated and highly impor-
| tant If true. Do they hate each other so :?
The tale tells that Captain Jess
Cornish, commanding an American
aero squadron, and Elizabeth Denman,
| carrying on for England, meet, insult
each others countries, and love. II
| is the clash of their temperaments, MS
determined by geographical considera-
items, that gives the book it's name.
myself have never been one side OF q
triangle the hypothenuse of which was
George Washington, but it may be
| more amusing than it sounds. One has
to fight about something.
A faithful following of Miss jane
son demands that Elizabeth with her
superior culture, education, traditions;
| and so on ad inf, and Jess, ssith. his;
! arrogance, his passion Tor making
money, his nafvete and sa Forth ad
| naus., take on POLITICALLY symbolic
values (or whatever you card to name
it), which ! think they can very we'll
| do without. Elizabeth's favorite re-
In N,,nk h,,&
barbarian" and Jess insists by way of
repartee upon his youth, meaning
thereby something about the Declara-
! tion Of Independence.
I This crude and fat-footed parallel.
/ ism and gawky ingenuity would horrify
Miss jameson were it not for her well
intentioned diplomatic message. TO
one with neither hatred for the hedges
| Of dear old England nor pride In pro-
hibition, Miss Jameson's fixed idea
| gives the effect Of desperate shift to
lend significance to her characters,
who are, however, rather belfttled by
1t than ennobled. Besides. the SYM
| bolism is far from complete. I have
no idea how old England may be, but
as Jess is twenty-five, surely Elizabeth
would have to be at least q couple Of
centuries to carry out the figure.
/ 1 prefer the love making of these
two in their more cosmopolitan mo-
ments. Elizabeth had never experienced
the complete eclipsing of her cerebral
! functions until Jess came flying. He
/ vas uncouth, but stimulating. Although
he said, in his rough Kentucky dialect:
Il will gentle my desire of you" he
| didn't, and SO won her. "You see, my
dear he said against her mouth, "you
see?" She saw.
For all that there was jamie to think
OF. Jamie, you must know, was the
lady's husband all this time. He was
one of those sensitive, sweet-natured,
reasonable, understanding, second
string men. She really suffered about
Jamie. But what could she dot And
what didn't she?
There are a dozen other characters
OF completeness, and the best of all
is Elizabeths great-aunt Miriam. She
had run away from her old husband
with farmland "as mad as herself"
Somebody shot him. And "after that
she was starved in potato famine in
Russia, seduced by Bulgarian during
little war, and married to Levantine
who beat her. A strange woman"
Strange is the word. And drawn from
strange, far depths in her creators
soul. Wise is Miriam with the wisdom
Of witches and sibyls. Her gaunt,
! raviShea face la immortal