The New York herald., 1922-11-05
The World of Foreign Books
SURVEYED l. M
URE Surveyed by /. M. PETROVITCH

and save the world from economic misery
from falsehood and Hypocrisy that New
Man who has been so frequently evoked
by former revolutionary writers. He de-
nies more than he affirms. Thought
wholly, mercilessly negative, his negativ-
ism is strong. convincing and overpower-
ing. 1t is not mere cynicism. as in the
case of another contemporary Jugo-Slav
writer, Milosh CrnjansKy; but a higher
and more human pessimism which does
not deny the possible existence of certain
ideals, but regrets rather their weakness,
their falsity and deceptveness.
Just before the end of the world war
there was published. this time, too. among
the Croatians, a book by Two Andr1tch
under the title "Ex-Ponto" The book at
tracted much comment and sympathy. and
in a short time ran through several edi-
tions. Though written during the war, and
indirectly caused by the war Git was mo-
tivated by the Imprisonment of its writer
for his political ideas, in Austro-Hun-
garian prisons) the whole book makes
the impression of something deeply per-
sonal, something isolated from all the
world These are very tender and ex-
tremely intimate confessions of soul hurt
by base and mean surroundings. and voic-
ing disillusionment. disappointment. 1t is
great monologue, collection of moment
ary reflections and analyses, fine "vibra-
tions of the soul"-nothing more. There
is no mention of all that was going on at
that moment everywhere in the world
1t is as if the author had cut himself on
from all worldly things. enclosing him
self in few of his blue and tranquil
perspectives. full of longing and expecta-
ton, not willing to see anything further,
eager not to know anything more. The
other things of Andritch, such as THE Way
of Alya Djerdjelez," are in a quite diff
ferent style-reversions, as it were, to the
social and psychological novel
Milosh Crnjansky. Jugo-Slav of Serbi-
an origin. born of an old bureaucratic fam
lily, somewhere in The Banat exemplifies
in himself and in his works the degenera-
ton of a particular Jugo-Slav type belong
ing TO special province. His lyric is pale,
morbid. morose. and prefers momentary
ecstasy to deep love and higher under
standing Former socialist, former ma
tionalist. former "man of the people" Cat
least by party afhliation). and former
aristocrat-meeting in his youth disap-
pointments which he had neither sufficient
power nor the necessary heroism to over
come-he is now. especially in his prose. a
steady negation of everything, full Of sar-
casm and cynicism, with feebly accented
expectations of something new and better.
This new and better of his is without
any precise definition. 1t may actually be
nothing at all beyond a phrase. In gen.
eral Crnjansky is one of those writer's
who are giving more attention to style
than to content.
Rastko Petrovitch, pseudo-m modernist,
energetically unites in some fifty lines of a
poem, ''Perun," the whole heavy artillery
policemen. benzol and healthy red checked
peasant girls He and "his gang" cali this
new revolutionarism" or "dynamism" in
poetry. Gustav Krloc is a poet very
much under the influence of contemporary
German lyricists. above all of r. NJ Rilke.
He is a poet with a certain distinct and
well formed style, but without great ore
tensions or sweeping gesture. His at
tempt to write for the heater was not sue
cessful. Stanislav Vinaver is a great
jester. He does not mean seriously all
that he says. 1t is charged that he is too
thirsty for international ranu+a+io1 7