The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1923-04-20

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of profound suffering Literary Di
gest international Book Review.
SO soon, many of us have forgotten
the war and all it meant and still
means of sorrow and anguish and
loss to thousands of our brothers and
sisters across the water. England,
France, Germany, Russia, Ireland
broken lives, broken bodies, broken
hearts and such oppressive economic
conditions to be faced as We. in oui
land of fat harvests and excellent ~
carnations, know only by hearsay. Sir
Philip Gibbs, in a strong novel Il the
European International conditions to-
day sets forth the points of view OF
labor and of capital of nobility and
of bourgeoise and peasant, of radical
and conservative, Bolshevik and arts
tocrat. In "The Middle of the Road"
(Doran $2) he shows young Eng
lish major. home from the war, trying
to keep himself sanely in the middle
of the way, not yielding to the self
binding of passionate partisanship.
He is called traitor" by both sides
of the Irish question, suffers estrange-
ment from his wife because Of her
striking labOrers. He sees many of his
old trench mates among them, re-
turned soldiers out of work, and SYM
pathiZes. He goes to France, Ger
many, Russia, trying to find out what
people think, how much of rumor is
truth and how much propaganda. His
conclusions seem to be that, with few
exceptions all Europe would like to
disarm but dare not because there is
no mutual trust on which to build.
Fearful famine on the Volga, while
Soviet Russia, failure, trades ler
Red army batalliens to Germany, for
steam engines to revive Transports
ton. Frence, looking on, feels she
must make Germany pay to escape
complete financial collapse herself
and to prevent the enemy from grow
ing strong enough with Russia's aid,
to involve Europe in an even more
disastrous war in this generation or
Tie utAl. Will ali ILLS pCi iouo Ai'e'e
ter in it, the book is not in the least
prosy or didactic. 1t is full of action
full of vivid pictures, full of throbbine
hearts, of people who become as close
friends to the reader. Who would not
read world politics when given in such
interesting guise.
l do not know whether Vachel
Lindsays last book, "Going-to-the
Sun" (Appleton, $l.75) is more re,
markable for the occasional flashes OF
brilliant wit and pulsing song in his
verses, or for the graceful quality
imaginative pen drawings he has made
in illustration The book is, of course
a response to the demand for his re-
port of the walking trip he took witt
Stephen Graham through Glacier Parl
"a demand quite to be expected after
one has read Graham's Charming
breezy, book "Tramping with Poe
In the Rockies" Sometimes, it is tru'
'one finds it a bit difficult to see thu
connection between some of Lindsay'
rhymes and pictures and the Rock!
mountains: as, for example, the on
about Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Mary Pickford curls. or that on
about the pious fat lady who wears
hairnet over her mind because she L
so restrained, refined" And when
was in the shadow Of Going to the SUI
mountain / saw no sea horses, or ape
on elephants, or fairies running cir
cuses with bull frogs and pigeons. Blu
of course these things may be perfect
ly plain to the poet and his travelin
companion. for they may refer 7
things that they talked about together
1t would be too bad of carping crit
ic to hold poet accountable for way
side dalliance with the hieroglypnic
he has been studying In the Methc
politan Museum and the odd, childis
things he had amused himself wit
here and there, as the astonlshed ca
that saw a mouse with two tails c
the boot owl watching three house
flies down in the ink-well, or som
balloons that grow on trees. Their
are delicious funny lines in $50 Niue
the Worse for Boston"
ssss
l have read of book called I"