Evening star., 1925-07-05
Reviews of the Newest Books

wonted ways outside that crucial mo-
ment of eating or being eaten. EX-
plorer, hunter, student and mere man
each will find in this adventure of
youth in the Polar seas a full story
for his own need of fresh information,
his own mood of faring out into new
and far places.
TRIPLE FUGUE. BY Osbert Sitwell,
New York: George H. Doran Co.
A GROUP of short stories by an au
= thor who is young and clever, with
the gift Of words and a large round
aboutness of approach upon his theme
which is, invariably, the human as
poor thing, defeated always, either by
outer forces around him or personal
inadequacy within. So young, this
writer, that TO him Kipling and Wells
and Bennett appear as enfeebled and
failing ancients, while Pater and Wilde
and Whistler are cotemperarieS of
Tut-ankh-Amen himself. Clever at por-
traiture of elaborate detail and de-
pressing effect. Like that of the two
spinsters in one of these tales, cling
ing so desperately to youth and the
fiction of lovers, ghastly in their wan
and sapless gaiety; or~that of the man
half make-believe and half self-delu-
sion, an imposing facade of literary
pretence. behind it no actual domicile
whatever; or that of another man, the
kind and patient husband who yearned
to kill his sick wife-and did, or the
case of triple personality that finally
split apart into three distinct persons,
as low forms of animal life reproduce
by a similar division into separate en-
titles.
Subjects and attitude, these, that be-
long to the years not far past those
when "Bluebeard" and Red Riding
Hood produce the delicious thrills of
fear that entrance and terrify children
all in the same breath. Not so much
at regular story making, Osbert Sit
well. For story is something that
starts and goes and arrives. Indeed,
the go" of a story is it's prime factor
with the majority of writer's and read
ers as well Not with this author,
however. Having once set the matter
on it's feet, Sitwell appears to lose in
terest in its progress. Rather he whips
up a tremendous interest in almost
anything else, pushing the young mar
rative aside while he himself steps to
the fore in long discussions of analyti-
cal NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. of the plastic
arts, for instance, of criticism, of the
state of the universe and the sad plight
of the world. Then he gives way. re-
luctantly. for the story itself to take
very interesting person. this Osbert
Sitwell, who when he has taken off
lot here and put on some there. when
he has added a few more years and
has shed many degrees of omniscience
will. then, be a regular writer of much
interest TO readers of quality. And
they do say that even now he has
made a good deal of a literary splash.
Heaven knows why, except for the
promise that he so clearly makes.
THE RECKLESS LADY. BY Philip
Gibbs, author of Heirs Apparent, >"
etc. New York: George II. Doran
Co.
THE story of the reckless lady is
the story of a foolish woman with
a streak of the heroic in her grain. In
part this romance gets ahead by vir-
tue of the heroism expended in behalf
Of her two dearly beloved children and
in other part by an abysmal folly TAX
ing effect in unconsidered actions de-
voted to her own selfish interests. The
problem, such problem as there is
here, grows out of this woman's pas
sion to hold her children against the
counter claims of a husband and
father, home from India after many