Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-25

nowadays can take bad woman and
put her through her PAGES for that
number of pages to the edif1cation, more
or less, of thousands of readers.
lola with the instinct of true artist,
exaggerated just enough to make his
characters interesting, and he secured
this result by the novel expedient OF
making his story really begin when
the first Rougons were 60 years old.
The rage for getting ahead he
showed alive and vigorous in Pierre
Rougon and his wife, even after they
had made a tacit failure of life, and
had retired on mere pittance to live
their last days in peace.
In France in those days mer-
chant might retire" on very little; his
annual interest enabled him to live
humbly and decently, but without the
luxurieS which he would have had II
he had made a bigger success in life.
The Rougons lived on street where
they could look over into the new
town." as the newer section of the lit
tie village of Plassans was called.
From their drawing room window-so
one of their three rooms was called
they could see the neat cottages of
those with more money. It was in the
new town" that the tax collector and
other dignitaries lived. Beautiful DAM
ask curtains waved at those windows;
at the windows Of the Rougons there
appeared only those Of cheaper ma
terial.
Their sons were educated, but ap-
peared to make little from the money
and time expended. One of them went
to Paris, and lived more or less mys-
teriously. 1t Is not until the middle
of the book that the reader realizes
that he has been a secret agent for
the forces of Louis Napoleon.
The tremendously interesting thing
in this novel is that the elderly Pierre
and his wife are just as eager to sue
coed in life" at the age of 60 as most
young men and women are on the day
they are graduated from high school.
They never gave up for an instant
the thought of getting somewhere"
No ambitious young man of today, with
visions of studying and becoming man.
ager in two years, as some are said to
do, ever wished to get ahead more than
the characters of this book.
All their scheming, all their plotting,
Is for this one end. And this making
good, of course, Is In the strictly mod
ern manner. To be able to live in a
nice house, to have good furniture, to
De enVleQ Dy OIneTS, 10 pun Ou IIlc
dog" to keep up with the Joneses." as
our American expressions have it-these
were the aims of the Rougons, just as
they are the aims of millions of peo-
pie today.
This is why 1.-THE Fortune of the
Rougons" Is a good book, although 1t is
told in disjointed manner, with none
of the compelling interest of such a
masterpiece as "L'Assommoir," which
makes one finish it. One will be
tempted to lay down 1.-THE Fortune"
many times before he finishes it. lola
had not yet attained the mastery found
in his later novels. He knew, however,
what he wanted to write-and he wrote
it. Thus the climbing Rougons, who
seize their big chance at about the
time when most people are willing to
let opportunity slide, become living peo-
pie, the examples embalmed of millions
of other people, the very moving pic
lures of millions of other people. Every
reader will find himself there, for the
simple reason that the instinct to get
ahead is second only to that Of self
preservation,