Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-19

Evergreen, and in the Temple of Mys-
FERROUS Heaven, which combines religion
with meeting place for Young China,
contain enough of the unusual to ap-
peal to those somewhat tired of the
average output Of hundreds of good
noveliStS.
A reader does not always stop to
realize just how much the usual fills his
mental bill-of-fare. A careful survey OF
the modern novel, for instance, will re-
veal. we believe, that the mass Of
authors have come to a point in their
own lives when only the sophisticated
love intrigue interests them. Happily
for them, the same sort of thing inter-
estS the bulk of their readers.
Far too many modern novels, it would
sometimes seem. go in for clandestine
adventure of moody men and women
who declare heatedly that they have
managed to miss romance in their lives
and are determined to find it at last,
no matter what sort of trickery and
deceit 1t involves them in.
Now, this theme has long been stand
ard for the drama and the novel, but
today it is running riot in the latter,
with the result that there is a deadly
sanenesS in modern novel writing
There is, too, uniformity of ability
among such writer's which makes much
of their work seem written almost by
the same hand. They are all good, but
all much the same.
The authors of THE Golden Wind"
have achieved something different, and
that is why We like it. BY the use of
Oriental imagery, sometimes bordering
on the eXtravagant, a sense of unreality
in reality is built up which gives the
story almost the aspects of a fairy tale.
And this fairy tale atmosphere, we sub
NIT, is exactly what makes the first
Paper Book good.
We got an almost childish enthusiasm
from the line which runs as the theme
of the piece:
Even in the Wall of China there are
cracks!"
When a subtle Oriental wants to do
something which simply cannot be done
he winkS an eye, places his finger Slyly
along his nose, and cries, Even in the
Wall of China there are cracks!" And
some one standing by, who aSsuredly
represents the reader there, pops up,
like a Greek chorus, Even in the Wall
Of China there are cracksr
Some way THE Golden Wind" strikes
us as one of the most sex-determined
books we have ever read, not so much
through the inner nature of the hero,
who lives his life simply on the lookout
for love. AS Padraic Column says in
his introduction, THE women whom
TakaWo meets and takes farewell Of
Lee, Nadia, Kay-hardly differ from
each other; they might be the same
women seen in different situations"
The poet introducer correctly says,
after quoting description, This might
be from a Chinese print" The book
has that quality In novels written in
America we are not used to such state
ments as Silence gathers up her tail
and sinks across the ring" The fol-
lowing description we particularly liked:
For half an hour more the bandits
rode on. Suddenly their way turned
and the bandits passed through an i'm
mense gate and came at once into a
Swallowed street with here and there
lamp burning in shop"
The reader can see that picture. and
the same may be said for scores of
other paragraph etchings throughout
1t is, in sense. true dream story,
but one which has remarkable aspects
Of reality. 1t is an intensely stylized
piece Of writing, in q day and age when
the mass proficiency of most writers
results in an almost uniform standard
Of goodness-and Sameness. 1.-THE Gold
en- Wind" at least is an exception.