Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-31
IDA GILBERT MYER I
Donald Stezvart Writes a Novel Ab0ut
HospitaILife-ANe70 Story Of the Orient
in North of Suez, " a NezO Dog Book
and Others.

JENNY FOWLER. BY Margaret Weymouth
Jackson. Indianapolis: The Bobbs- Merrill
Co.
UTF 1 read that wouldn't believe word of
it. Yet, it's true, for saw it with my own
eyes" And, without question, an identical set
of incidents turned out in print would be sure
to call forth, "Nonsensel Why don't these
romancers strive for at least some faint SEM
blance Of actuality, of plausibility!"
And this means, / take it. that life is the
supreme dramatist. That fiction is, as rule,
but a makeshift@ pen performance, botchetl
and bungling job.
Every day, every hour, life offers innumerable
dramas-great and small--each perfect in
point, in action every mounting through sus-
pense and cumulative renewal toward climax
and curtain-hawless throughout in logic. each
inevitable in outcome and effect But like the
rest of U.S. the story writer, compared with this
master dramatist, is duh of sense, unresponsive
to the spirit and to the form as wen. Inept
in general workmanship, therefore. good
novel means, you may be sure that the author
has been taking lessons from life, learning to
select from it's multifarious productions the
real and rounded dramas that are staged so
strikingly, so richly, along every days way. To
choose the pertinent and Illuminating, to
combine artfully, holding back here moving
swiftly forward there, to clinch this point and
upon its own essence, upon its own inner drive.
Such writer says to the devil of the happy
ending: Get you behind me, Satin. There
is no happy ending here" And he moves
steadily on toward this particular inevitable,
whatever 1t may be.
Here is good novel This is what have
been trying to say about the aim and method
and achievement of its author. A first novel
at that I'm not going to mar the joy of your
reading by sketchng the story for you. A story
that might be found almost anywhere in
America at this point of time. A modern
matter. Almost everything-almoSt every be-
lievable thing-came Jenny Fowler'S way. In
bungling hands this novel would be am in
credible report Not that it is sensational. Not
at all that But many everyday things crowd
Jennys nfe-natural happenings, but such a
lot of them. A realistic story, credible and i'm
pressive. A searching record of abiding quality.
An uncommonly fine work that will be read
after host of lesser novels have fallen out of
any sort of interest. Theodore Dresser might
like this novelist He might not, too
NORTH OF SUEz. BY William McFee, author
of "Casuals of the Sea- etc. New York:
Doubleday, Doran & Co.
A Ill the ships go that way, most of the
people, too-Port Said Adventure of
every racial brand passes that port or stops a
while Scenes of brilliant kaleidoscope shift
city streets. A good place for William McFee,
seaman and adventurer And here it is that
he settles, either in fact or in memory, for a
deep taking-in of the colors and the havors
and the strange behaviors of this only city of
its kind, this true cosmopoliS. But with a
story to do even an artist cannot subsist on
color and movement alone There must be. q
hero. And here he is. Stephen Rumford, r.
N. r.. chief naval transport officer, stationed
for the time at Port Said A most respectable
man of English pattern, bit heavy in his own
British way, conventional, respectable mineful
of the dignity of his great country and dedi-
Gated to its adornment. Such, Sketchily, is
Stephen Rumford, r. N r. And this story Is
all about what Port Said, very wanton Of a
town, did to the good Briton.
The Oriental brand of craft and intrigue we're
Sanskrit and undecipherable hieroglyph to this
blunt and open Englishman devoted to straight
intercourse with all the world. He had a wife.
She thought him fool for being SO graft I'M
mune. Then there was Anastasia, the lovely
Greek. Anastasia the last and the greatest
of the trials of this officer of the Kings navy.
But it is about Anastasia and Stephen Rum
ford that William McFee wakes up and sets
himself to the invention of a love story He
should have known better, and no doubt did.
Once in while the novelist attempts the i'm
possible just to see how nearly possible and
plausible he make it. No use. 1t cannot
be done. You know the old Kipling refrain.
I'm not going to quote it. Don't worry. The
point is that McFee, artfu as he is, could make
nothing but a mess Of love story, with
Anastasia and Rumford carrying on Capt.
waiting. though. Brilliant, speedy, cumulative
then smash! And there you are!
BOLIO AND OTHER DOGS BY Archibald
Rutledge, author of tom and on the Old
Plantation" etc. New York. Frederick A.
Stokes Co.
A HOUN' dog, Bolio Eyes deep wells of
loneliness, ears a dragging melancholy,
voice a tolling bel-juSt a houn dog Yet.
despite such general sadness Of mien Bolio, un-