Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-09
REVIEWS OF WINTER BOOKS
Emil Ludwig New Book the Life of Abraham Lincoln.
Author of Sam Houston" May Win Annual Prize.
Another Book About the War

would not be worth while. Here. in
stead, Is q panorama OF Warlike pattern,
a spreading, out-reaching, diversified,
world Of human activity, whose glorious
aim is the destruction Of human life.
To manage In any degree of plausibility
so gigantic q movement, and so sinister
a one, calls for superlative organizing
gift coupled with the power to hold the
human element-or the unhunan II YOU
will-to It's real vitality. to its believable
worst. And Mary Lee has, clearly, done
this. And so, after the first few pages,
you deliberately go to war" with Mary
Lee. And not long after you, too at
this point Of crisis or that one-now a
real crisis, now trivial turn-shout
aloud with the rest, either in wry laugh
ter or in an agony of lamenting, ITS a
Great War!" as you march of, to hos
pital, or the front, or to wayside attend
snce upon the dead and dying. upon the
shocked" and fear-paralyzed. And
there is play-time here. and a deal of
love making, bit gruesome and CHASTITY
all of it-but youth cannot be served bv
fighting alone. Vivid, every line OF 1t,
hateful every phase of it-unreadable to
many in its regular order. And these
roam about within the story, moving
into this forward section or that one,
looking for some easement Of the ter
rible business. but it is not there. And
so they move on. Here, a SURPRISING
confusion Of artificial hatred is used to
throw the world of men upon one an
other in lust of murder. There is no
order, nothing but tumultuOus action
toward determination. And it is Just
this that Mary Lee delivers to readers
in an epic effect of the world gone to
war. 1t begins as simply as bedtime
tale. Two children, brother and sister,
maneuvering for place in an old swing,
Then the years leap forward and the
war comes. These two go to war. 1t is
out of this experience that the girl
Anne, writes one Of the great war stories
Not vital, but certainly interesting and
important that the book is made from
the woman'S point Of view. A woman'S
point of view. Anne Is a better man
than lot of the males around her. So
there Is no flabby sentimentality about
this story. 1t Is true war stuff. man
stun, woman stuff-all at its best. or is
1t It's worst? In either event, here YOU
} have it TO hold till you have absorbed
1t from first to last.
GRANDMOTHER BROWNS HUN.
DRIED YEARS: 1S27-1927. BY
! Harriet Common Brown. Illustrated
Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
THE clever and original device of ar
outstanding young woman took
shape and issue in Grandmother
Browns Hundred Years" There was
the material at hand-grandmothe
herSelf, In whose possession was q clear
memory Of eventful years in the his
tory OF this country. Almost q hun
dred OF these years And grandmother
liked to 60 back into them, bringing
forward from the adventure innumer-
able facts OF the daily life of the set
tiers, their makeshifts for existence
and q shade of comfort, just how they
used to do this and that to make ends
meet. Not so very long. before this
young 1n-law, granddaughter, realized
that here was a treasure of frontier
life in almost every one of its aspects
that should be caught and held from
running away into silence and forget
ting. And, so, this woman encouraged
grandmother to talk and talk. To be
sure, there came the weeding-not
putting together into a book that pre-
Sents youth" middle age" i'old
age" OF Grandmother Brown. Like a
romance runs the recollection of DAYS
when Il was young" when lit wasn't
like this" when the stories were not
OF World War. but Of the War of In
dependence instead, when generals had
otner names and statesmen had other
programs" The DAYS of young love
and marriage and getting a new start
in life crowd forward here in an eager
zeSt for renewal in the mind of this
woman whose youth was of a different
texture from that of the youth of the
present. And what then, Grand
mother, and what next. and then what
happened?" Such is the part played
in this long dialogue between the young
) woman and the old one. And this IS
the time to say that the self-effacinR
attitude Of the young woman is one of
the triumphs of this notable book. II
would have been so easy to push a lit
tie here, to prod gently there, to re-
mind OF possible omissions, to pat into
new shape right there-but this did not
happen. The invaluable process Of let
ting welr enough alone is paramount
here. And out Of this inspired attitude
comes from Grandmother Brown, at
f1rSt hand, innumerable pictures of pio-
neer life In the Middle West, out where
, today 1.-THE tall corn grows" and where
many other tall things have matured
in contribution to the big Nation as a
whole.
like the picture-and so do you-of
these two women so plainly having o
good time" grandmother holding the
middle OF the stage, to her obvious en-
1oyment. the younger one in full SYM
pathy with such stellar role, aiding and
supporting 1t in fully partaking spirit.
Then, the telling done, there came the
work OF delivering this unique history
to the hundreds Of readers who are
still reaping from it authentic and pic
turesque patterns Of the earlier life Of
the country. There could be no single
disagreeing voice in the decision that
awarded honorS to Harriet Connor
Brown for the originality of plan, for
the competency of execution, for the
artistry Of fulflllment that produced
this unusual book. One Of the best
things to say about It is, I think, that
its quality Is such as to insure not one
reading alone. but to give guaranty OF
many returns to the century-long story
OF the United States delivered straight
from the personal recollections of
Grandmother Brown herself.
MOTHERS CRY. BY Helen Grace
Carlisle, author Of See How They
Run" New York: Harper and
Brothers.
A STORY that runs stark naked.
Something like this: And I told
Mama that loved Frank and Frank
loved me and Mama said that would be
all right, Frank and could be married
II we wanted to, and so we were mar
ried. In the same level way the re-
port goes on with four years Of welded
life and four children as hostage to
the blessed state. Thereafter. 1t is a
very busy accounting of the thousands
OF mother-acts in behalf of a family
OF children-good children and that
other kind which. inheriting-from God
knows where-strange trends and out
breaking unrulinesS, pack down the
mother-measure of patience and love
to its brin and then to its overlooking
In this even telling that, no matter how