Evening star., 1925-06-14
BLIND MANS BUFF. journal of
Louis Hemon. BY Louis Hemon,
author of Maria Chapdelaine."

dulnOT OF Maria Ana aDQelalne.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
Louis Hemon is a personality. With
In the first half dozen pages of him one
settles 10 the pleasure that comes
from contact with the man or woman
possessed of certain qualities SO pro-
portioned and combined and projected
as TO strike the key of originality and
charm to which everybody responds
in ready and accepting JOY. A rare
bounty of heaven, this. For even
writer's of books, no less than the
common run of folks on the outside,
are mostly cast in monotone as the
unstirring level Of their output so
clearly discloSes. Louis Hemon is an
exception TO this rule. Above all, a
simple man, as appears at once in
Maria Chapdelaine. - A man walking
plain ways. A man giving devoted
heed to men and women in the big
common business of being born, of
living and loving and dying. A man
who seeing with straight and tender
eyes turns the vision into words as
revealing and embodying as some
clear pool disclosing the least and
most fragile of the forms lying with
In its depths.
You remember Maria Chapdelaine, -
that story of the Canadian country
up Lake ST. John way. You recall
deep forests, the barricading SHOWS.
the endless Winters, the faint light
from single cabins around which
miles of white waste stretched. You
recall, too, the feel of hungry ami
NAL life crowding nearer to the cabin
You see again so Vivldly the hard
labor of woodman and lumberman
And, best of ALL do you remember
Maria Chapdelaine. with her girl S
NH-Tr ,GEp-i hnl ia IL n
outside and her girls longing for the
warmth and gayety which were to her
like the fairy tales told to little chill
dren? And when the chance TO go
Came-to be sure you remember. The
whole, an embodied loneliness out or
which Shone the devotion of the hu-
man TO an ideal. A high and fascl-
mating art, the one by way of which
words can be made to set life itself
out before our eyes.
Here is a beautiful new edition of
maria Chapdelaine, keenly intel
ligent and feeling translation by w.
II. Blake. To this Wilfred Jones has
added. in picture, bits of the north
country gathered up alive out of the
place itself. These wander through
the book, lighting upon leaf margin,
or giving the chapter Turing send
off. or stepping-out to take charge of
look at, as it deserves TO be from the
fine quality of its story substance.
THE Journal of Louis Hemon" is,
to be sure, of the mans own quality
simple, intuitive and deeply dra-
matte 1t is NJ. Hemon's account of
his sailing from France to Canada in
pursuit of the material that went
finally into the "Chapdelaine. rec
ord, then, of what he saw and thought
and felt while he was in the New
World-about Quebec, Montreal, the
st. Lawrence, the bordering islands,
the countryside, the people them
selves. Much more than a sightseeing
trip. Much more than a search for
book stuff. Rather is it, as it appears
here, Il pilgrimage of the spirit, where
in Louis Hemon lives over again for
his people the triumph of his race
under hardship, the persistence of
French blood under exile and adver-
sity, the eXultation of the spirit over
the hurts of the flesh.
Blind Mans Buff" is of another
pattern than the one after which this
author fashioned the Canadian eX-
perience. The same man is at work
here, using the same tools of insight
and structure upon a widely different
theme, a wider one. For this is every
mans game, this game of blind mans
buff. True, here it is but the story
of Mike O'Brady, London dock worker.
Even as such it differs somewhat on
the outside from the stories of the
laborers around him, We're these to be
told. For the pure Irishry of O'Grady
drives him to more violent sOrties
this way and that az he carOmS wildly
about the docks and the streets and
the inns of London East End. 1t is
clear that this eye-bandaged 1rishman
is out for life-for play and work and
women. mixing things up generally in
the prodigious game of being alive and
not knowing what to do about it.
What can a blinded man do? In spite
of his prodigious thrashing about,
Mike doesn't get any ''forrader," as
he himself would have admitted had
he had time to sum up his account of
the matter. We leave him about as
we find him-''a policeman'S whistle,
a sound of footsteps and subdued
voices, then a sudden push and the
door burst open, hurting three blue
clad giants into the room"
"And now, we're going to laugh,
said Mike OBrady." Save for name
and place and outer circumstance
just everybody's game of blinded
reach here and there for this or that
or nothing. Then one day, the police
man-let's hope we can laugh" I'M
afraid, like this wild Irishman.
THE BARBARIAN. By Wadsworth
Camp. Frontispiece by John La
gatta. New York: Doubleday, Page
& Co.
The barbarian-that is to say, the
outsider-always has a hard time of
it until he learns to follow the plan
established by his forbears in this
class. The established method of the
barbarian is to break through the
barricade. Thereupon the outsider
automatically becomes an insider, the
barbarian becomes the civilized man.
Such has been the rule of history as
1t is today that of church and society
and politics, the rule even of petty
groups and clubs about town. Ma
ture's method, so to speak, of getting
new blood into sapped and lifeless
bodies. 1t is upon this re-creative
measure of both nature and society
that Mr.. Camp builds his story of eur
rent American life. The story of JEFF
ferson Harmon-the outsider and
therefore the barbarian-in his prog
reSs from nowhere to Congress. Here
is the familiar picture, an exceedingly
well drawn picture, of the exclusive
few-old families, closed social circles.
money interests, political power. Off
against these, the scattered and rela-
lively powerless many. Every town
shows this demarcation, as well as
does this Southern town. To a degree
Jefferson Harmon becomes the organ
izing agent in this larger body, setting
himself and it against the dominant
few. Held to politics alone, this tale
might have had a different ending.
Once, however, the social element in
tervenes the issue becomes problemati-
vol GI Iy1n ty-li itf~s