Evening star., 1925-07-28
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
/. G.. NJ.
FRANCE HIMSELF.
Jean Jacques Brousson. j. b.
TjDpjDcott %

Lippincott Co.
You hesitate at the door, maybe
turn back in natural diffdence. But
Josephine, muttering Nonsense,
gives you a sharp little push, and M.
BrouSSon assures you that it is all
right, expected even. And so, sud
denly, you are inside the bedroom
door to see an immortal get up OF
morning. Within the huge four poster
bed lies a long stretch of man
swathed in a smother of woolens-
robes, shawls, blankets. Around his
head, twisted turban fashion, is an
India silk handkerchief abloom in
rainbow colorS. A pair of bright eyes
peer out. 1t looks for all the world
like Granny in wolf makeup waiting.
to seize upon little Red Riding Hood.
Instead, if you please, this bundle is
Anatole France, mighty man of let
ters, about to be launched upon an
other day through the brusque eff
cheney of Josephine and the waiting
attendance of his secretary, NJ. Brous-
son. The one, scolding and cajoiing,
conducts the famous one from bed
TO bath and then into his clothes
with a great to do over the right
shirt and the proper socks and the
fitting tie, all the time pushing and
pulling this refractory child, who
NJ. Brousson's part in the daily
comedy is to do his best at keeping
up with the torrent of Words-Orders,
suggestions, soliloquies, orations -
that sets in the instant that sleep
takes definite leave of the man. Here
somebody else slips into the room and
then another and others. Getting up
in the morning is clearly a public
function with Anatole France, as it
was also with the great Louis, re-
minding you that the French people,
| more than most, have so keen a sense
of personal drama that their least
acts become impressive attitudes,
while their more serious behaviors
take on the character of elaborate
open entertainments.
Throughout the long and intimate
association with France that Brous-
son here permits you to share with
him you miss now and then the total
lack of privacy that exists. The ma
ture Of France, like that of many
another great man, required a per
petual audience. This he insisted
upon, impressing TO such service
Madame and Brousson and Josephine
even when the usual coterie of fol
! lowers failed to appear. Even his
house, Villa Said. was a museum filled
with rare and beautiful things, evi-
! dence of their owners sense af art
along other lines than that of the art
of words. A part, also, this exhibi-
| ton house, Villa Said. of Frances
! leaning toward the limelight of gen
eral admiration and approval. A per
| fectly instructive human trait, this,
| whose complete absence in the man,
| coupled with the possible absence of
| NJ. Brousson, would have been an ir-
! reparable loss, as, once inside this
| book, you discover in no time at all.
! Happily. here is Anatole France.
| Notwithstanding one minute like a
| spoiled child, tearing off his faithful
/ skull cap, throwing papers about in
| showers driven by the whirlwind of
| his sudden angers; believing the next
! minute like a strutting actor, de
| claiming great things in big tones.
| But all the other minutes he is the
| world man ranging through history
and art and matters of the present in
an honesty of mood and a depth of
| insight that end in disillusion-in-
| evitably the ultimate state of people
who think, though not of those who
merely think they think. Along with
| the basic disillusian of Anatole
France is a deep sense of the pity of
| II al. Il neSe Two, Tor MN, MAKE up
| the sum of life. These are the ma
terial of his art. Sometimes he falls
upon this material, upon this life sub
| stance, in a fury of denounciation, in
lightning flashes of scathing reve-
| lation, in the bitter laughter of de-
! rision. And sometimes he fashions
| it subtly in a story and fable and
double-dealing satire. Now and then,
when he IS at home with his smaller
1rl hn mfr iS- in hf
book, he just kicks life all over the
place He bloodies its nose and black
ems its eyes and kicks its shins and
punches its ribs-a gorgeous time with
| life he has in these moments. And you
| couldn't have been there but for NJ.
| Brousson. And these demonstrations,
no matter what the mood behind them,
| yield invariably crystal blocks of, say,
| criticism on letters, music, painting,
| the stage. political questions. Or they
yield equally clear summaries of his
| tory centered upon this dominant fig
| ure or that one-summariZe homing
straight to the fact that world over
| turnings have more than once been
( sourced in the defective character of
! q single human. And now these
moods play around our little isms, and
| our small moralitieS, and our abysmal
| ignorances.
| A real adventure awaits you in this
| book, and a high experience. Straight
| thanks go to NJ. BrouSSon for this
! opened bedroom door and other
thanks go to John Pollock who put
| NJ. Brousson bodily into English here
for this our intimate excursion into
the soul country of Anatole France.
| x X
j. NJ. BARRIE. Patrick Braybrooke.