Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-02
~ IDA GILBERT MYERT
an Important Addition to the Biographies.
No0eb From French and German Wrifery
-Au0ther Whistler Volume


Claude Farrere. who goes by the name of
Charles Bragone in real life, handles this mas
terful plot with def skill and fine psychology
cal insight. Winner of the Goncourt prize and
with twenty or more books to his credit, he
presents here a novel likely to win him new
honors. H. c. G..
ROOM IN BERLIN. BY Gunther Birkenfeld.
Translated from the German by Eric Sutton.
New York: Horace Liveright
THE substance of this matter appears upon
occasion, but not in the form of a novel,
Rather does it come into the open as a report
Of official bodies upon Investigations of crowded
living conditions in great city. Reports, as a
rule, die a-borning. Story and drama live
longer and live to better effect.
This German author, with a single family,
living in one small room in Berlin, projects
vitality and Immediately and terribly the whole
tremendous fact, the world over, of packed-in
humans trying to exist as humans 1t can't
be DONE That Is the outcome of this merciless
arraignment. A mother and three children
a girl of Is, the boy II, another girl little
older. At bottom decent family. No vicious
faint. no bent toward waywardness. AFFECT
poverty Is the fatal disease under which they
are suffering. A little room in which all sleep
floor mattresses. They dress and undress
together. They 60 through the common pri-
vacieS Of personal attention in the family
publicity of every sort of priVation. Much of
the time they are hungry. The mother earns
a httle-a good woman, finely heroic. Between
food hunger and sex hunger and idleness and
want-well, that's the story. By this time you
are saying, why didn't they get work? Every
body can find something to do If he really
wants to-" That is not So and you know
it. Yes. everything happened here that the
situation invited Everything. revolving
story, Is it not? hideous story, but an es-
sentially true story. And when that boy stood
up and cursed world like the one that had
produced him and then deserted him, why,
pious even as am, could not rebuke that boy.
And the mother-great mother, that one She
finally took upon herself the role of a recreant
society, Of forgetful Providence, of a sue
coring angel. In what way did she do this?
You would better read this story to fnd that
out and to find out other things that We need
to know for the safety and well being of the
human tribe, which. in so many ways is
needy-not for charity, but for opportunity.
A stark and terrible story. Oh, you'll not like
it. You shouldn't like it. That's what it Is
about. For you to hate it; to hate the fact, as
you cannot fail to appreciate the austere per-
lection Of the drama itself.
WHISTLER, THE FRIEND BY Elizabeth
Robins Pennell, author with Joseph Pen
nelD Of 1.-THE Whistler Journal" Illustrated.
Philadelphia: j. B. Lippincott Co.
A DELIGHTFUL book, whose charm is di-
vided pretty equally between the spirit in
which it is offered and the substance of its
so placed rs TO know Whistler, inside and out.
To know that curious man. who rather courted
misunderstanding of himself by fippant and
even bitter sayings flung out to astonish the
natives so to speak; to disturb the friends who
knew that there was very kind and under
standing man beneath the pyrotechnics Of his
satire and cruel wit. And Mrs. Pennen
has brought to us the picture Of Whistler, the
friend, the understanding man, the tolerant
companion the genial partner. It is q story.
~k@ 80
Of wristler's devotion to Henri Fantin-Latour
and Aphonse Legros. The Society of Three"
who served to glorify the idea of true friendship
among artists. Reading Whistler's letters to
Fantin-Latour, Mrs. Pennell declares herself
to have been reimpressed with the positive
genius of Whistler for friendship. Sounds new
and a bit strange, doesn't it. But proof is at
hand not only in this correspondence but in
the revival Of memories of those old days in
Paris among the painters and students These
days. redolent Of much beauty Mrs. Pennen
turns over to us In q deep personal partaking
Of the art life Of the French capital. To US
here in Washington the book has a rather in
innate appeal Over in the Freer Gallery, up
in the Congressional Library, there is a tangi-
BILE Whistler world that many of us love- that
many of us count among the genuine resources
OF Washington, that many of us visit even
more regularly and persistently than we do
some whom we Ought to go to see" A beau
Hful tribute to the artist, fine gift to the
people, Is this warm and Illuminating glow shed
around Whistler, 1.-The friend"
THE TIDES OF MALVERN BY Francis
Griswold New York william Morrow and
Company.
A N odd fellow, that Francis Griswold. Born
up In New York State where folks are sober
and not distinctly romantic or imaginative he
should have moved along the rutted ways of
having Job and doing it well of securing
bigger job and doing 1t better. Not that sort,