Evening star., 1926-02-16
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
/. G.. NJ.
POSSESSION. Louis Bromfield. Fred
erick A. Stokes Co.

POSSESSION. Louis Bromfeld. Fred
erick A Stokes Co.
DR.. Johnson was clearly all out
done with the high-faluting platitudes
and pretensions of print when, pound
ing the table, he roared out, THE pur-
pose Of a book is to be readr' Pre-
sumably every book is included here.
since there Is no record Of specified
exceptions to this sweeping dictum.
Such sturdy digging to the root of
the matter must have been as often
sive to that day as it would be to this
one. For books, like folks, love to
parade under impressive banners of
high purpose and ideal intent. Yet,
stripped to the truth. the basic pur-
pose of every bit of print that STEPS
In between covers or that spreads it.
SELF over the pages Of the daily news
is to secure the widest possible read
ing. And why not? The author is a
producer no less than the farmer, the
manufacturer, the merchant. To cal
culate upon general distribution of
his output Is as legitimate an activity
for him as it is for these Like them
he. too. must count his public and ap-
praise 1t in order to meet the general
reading demand, just as they SO eff
nclently prt pare their wares to meet
the common need and desire Prob
ably no book was ever written out
OF an authors exclusive plan 10 de.
liver the pure overflow Of his soul or
the burden Of his hard gained knowl.
eoSe TO some secret and inaccessible
crypt or permanent hiding
This prime law of commerce brought
over and applied to the modern nov
elist and current fiction serves auto.
fnaticalIF to separate these writer's
ana their product into two parts
Inc Sc correspond to the two classes
into which the reading public natural
ly separates. over here is the enor-
nous group of just commonly intelli-
gent people-as to their reading. care.
iess' uncritlcai. like children easily
diverted and amused. Over there is
small class-cultivated discrimina.
tive, exacting. keen to the better as
poets or art, content only with such
music or painting or reading as salts,
HeS ana reels an already rich soil of
comprehension and appreciation. The
enc CT OF THESE two naturally grouped
combinations upon current fiction is.
on the one hand, a veritable deluge of
popular sensational novels On the
other, there is but slender stream
of inestimably clear value. The in
evitable result, when a free choice in
any direction lies in the hands Of q
great commonplace majority. It is
pain that the popular novelist. ejtha-
from deliberate choice or inborn ne
cesslty, must stay down with th1
great average where entertainments IS
easy and the market is good To the
handful on the other side belongs the
uphill business of ultimately leaven-
ing this lump of mediocrity.
Louis Bromfield stands conspicuous
ly over here with the few who refuse
TO be satisfied with anything less than
digging down into the subsoil of hu-
man life-there where the secret mo-
ives lie. where age-old strains meet
and war in the individual himself
where the truth of human nature
gives many a lie to more than one
laboriously erected human institution.
possession is q Shattering novel
shattering because it wakes the reader
suddenly to a tremendous underlying
fact of human existence, one that he
has either failed to count at all or
that he has neglected to collect and
coordinate in its huge proportions
and in the sum of it's vital influence
We've all been so seduIously trained
TO externals. to observances and cere-
monlais upon all sorts of really uninl-
portant notions, that we've not had
time, or power, to get hold of many
realities. And here is great reality
that rather takes the breath away
the reality of possession. More primal
than love, more basic than hate, is
this deep-seated instinct of men to
possess one another. Parents must
possess their children. Friends must
own one another. The public must
enter in and occupy the individual.
Every one of us is absorbed in the
business of stalking out and pre-empt-
ing claims in the heart and soul and
individuality of somebody else. A
colossal tyranny is in general opera
ton under a thousand specious names
OF merltorious and beneficial implica-
ton.
These claims are so subtle in origin
so lnwoven with the fabric of all hui
man association, so ancestral in their
implications of wisdom and well-beins.
that nobody can escape them-that
is, practically nobody can, since for
this rescue of ones being from the
general mlaSma of possession requires
ruthless Self-a SSertion so rare as to
be in effect non-eXistent. Yet. this
ruthless march toward complete pos
session of ones own soul and body
and life in place of the familiar and
general bondage to home and parents
and friends and society-this is the
theme of Louis Bromfield's latest
novel. 1t is the story of an artist.
or of an artist in the making. \
long and carefully built novel. Look
ing back upon ii, one feels the enor-
nous labor of this undertaking. Read
ing, however, one is carried along with
the sweeping drama of the whole.
With the truth of character to birth
and setting and ambition and the lure
of life. With the incidents, so many
and rich and fit. With the mounting
tension and climbing interest and with
the inevitable quality of the outcome
outside of the story. away from it,
one Is set to pondering anew. or for
the first time. the theme itSelf-that
deep instinct of possession that in
human intercourse colors every hour
of every day, not only in the vital
relations of life but in all of its COM
monplace contacts as well. A story
big enough to carry away with one
for more thinking and more eniov-
| ment. "A story big in the funda
| mental truth of it's theme. big in its
conception as a drama of life. Ad-
mlraoly line and skilled in its develop
ment.
! TABOO. Wilbur Daniel Steel. uar-
court, Bruce & Co.
so with everything against them
| they passed out, on their way to
heaven and hell" Such is the closing
| sentence of a strange and tantaIizing
| story. The heaven" if they find it.
| will lie in their life together. The
| hell will be provided by the rest
Of the world. Yet, in this association
there is absolutely no touch Of that
which either law or religion is pleased
to name as sin.
| A glimpse of the story yields some
thing like this. Here are a father,
his motherless daughter, and a friend
| of than, hofL ,,,o-