, 1925-01-04

1@A(
And t~itillators of the school.
Donald Davidson in AN outland
Piper"
In 1.-THE Crooked Mile" Minton
Balch) Bernard De Voto has written
a story OF a new west and OF a new
generation-a west foul with the
smoke of smelters and factories, a
generation that is nothing but an
intelligence that has eaten away
the substance; nothing but n mind
without a will" To the age which
he pictures the epic Odyssey OF the
pioneers is only a legend, a myth;
the frontier is a vision mildly ridi-
culous to their ennuied new wisdom;
life is a thing compounded OF golf
and mortoring and flirtations. IL
nanced by the income from the plr-
acy of predatory sires.
Mr.. De Voto's novel covers 80 odd
years out Of the life of Gordon Alb
hey, third scion of a pioneer clan.
In him the flame that had brought
old Jim Abbey westward with GOV.
cred wagon and ox-team. that had
tAAdbloo L IN VII <ibbtg ~ Btl AtLA
the copper-smelting process which
had made Windsor q populous in
dustrial city has burned out. leaving
only the Hurried ashes of unrest and
discomfort. Skeptical, sardonic.
s%cornful. believing in nothing and
least of all in himself, he lacks the
resolution either to achieve or to
Yin successfully.
There have been such heroes in
contemporary fiction before 1.-THE
Crooked Mile" There have been
other pictures of the jazz-mad gen.
eration-"Flaming Youth" and This
Side OF Paradise" for example. But
somehow Gordon Abbey has a life
such as Fabian and Fitzgerald fail.
ed to breathe into their creatures;
somehow his cropping quest for the
final!ty which he ridicules is visit
fully real and moving. And in the
end the dreaS which he has scoffed
al and denied possesses him against
his own will. and as the book closes
he swcars fealty to an enterprise as
madly quixotlc as those to which his
fathers were pledged-inspired part
ly. perhaps. by his hatred OF the
sprawling octopus that his native
town OF Windsor has become; but
more by his pioneer heritage impell-
ing him on to a new and last from.
tier.
There are other characters no less
true and convincing and fully re-
alized. Old John Gale, for instance.
~dtocratic New Highlander, who de.
votes his lifetime to puncturing
what he terms the frontier delu-
sion;" who writes book after book
10 prove that the pioneer was not a
superman dominated by visions OF
empire, but a hell-ridden calvinist
driven west by economic pressure"
that. mot Gods whisper urged him
out. but bankruptcy among his
stronger brothers," that The sought
not something lost behind the
might repair his fortunes" His
daughter Hope. cool. aloof aristo.
crat. somehow holding herself free
of the turmoil OF life. Louis Far.
rand. crusader and reformer. with
his preposterous vision OF n city
cleansed and purified through the
alchemy OF publicity and politics.
And Jane one OF the most delightful
flappers in fiction. 1t is n full a n
vas. peopled with n living process.
sional of real men and women
The book is beautifully written.
Bernard De Voto has, more than
most of his profession. that intang.
ible magic. defying analysis, hat we
call style. HIS prose is sensitive,
highly-colored. resilient; his phras.
ing almost invariably happy.
Superlatives are dangerous coin
age, and reviewers are right in shun.
ming them. But now and then
Nshere comes a book so good that the
reader hungers to pass on his dis
covery for others to share. THE
Crooked Mile" is such a book. It is
the best first novel by an American
that this writer has encountered in
many a noon.
Tennesseans who have given 1.-THE
Fugitive q unique flavor among
the dozen or so poetry magazines.
Donald Davidson is n Of the
group OF young Tennesseans who
have given THE Fugitive a
unique flavor among the dozen
or so poetry magazines. His
first collection of verse appears
under the Houshton Mifflin i'm
print. entitled AN Outland Piper"
There is much In this book TO re-
pay the reader who has patience TO
delve for II. Mr.. Davidson's poetry
is distinctly cerebral, and It is cast
in an idiom difficult and elliptic. Its
subtler Implications often are ap.
pS<ent only on the second or third
reading. But II read with "a alert
Intelligence It energies into a cramp-
cd. reluctant beauty.
Time and again in these poems
tho artist shows an ecromatic skin
in piercing tho arid posturing OF
everyday and seeing behind 1t a
pagan mirth and beauty.
The flaprer, swaying through the
jazz-born ritual of the modern dance,
becomes Corymba, who
g. . has heard a silvery Jangle
From the slight harps of the
moon,
The maddening sistrum shaken
r.. T.l.s