Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-26


of his point in partial support of it, this pop
ular novelist cites dozen recent English
novels. all above the average, showing that the
balance of general favor among these has been
on the side of the objective story. On the SIDE
of romance that works in human motives
which are recognizable, ponderable as well as
in human behaviors that are of familiar pat
tern In a VOID. readers of fiction are inter-
ested in finding themselves in the story. And
they being of so obvious design. become puz-
zled bewildered, impatient with the mysterious
doings of q purely mental abstraction declaring
itself to be the whole human. Both incompe-
tent and Indifferent toward the subject novel
is the great body Of fiction readers and SO It
will continue to be for many long age TO
come. We slow growers, we humans. Long
ages to account in the business OF being
human have not moved us. noticeably, out Of
the immediate domain OF eyes, ears, touch,
taste and smell-that combination route that
passes the outer world into the individual and
passes, just that out again in certain attitudes
and activities Hardly shade of concern takes
hold Of one as to what has in the interim been
going on in that mental realm, the human
mind So the readers cry for outside stuff in
their novels, for matters that can be seen and
weighed, shared repudiated. And so they
will continue to cry for-oh for ages. accord
ing to the waywise ones, like Hugh Walpole and
Others of his craft that have grown skilled in
estimates of the reading public
Now here is novel of wholly subjective aim
and production. A beautiful novel, so the elite
among intellectuals say. Certainly it is written
with a power and charm that the translation
holds high and inviolate. Selected by the Book
League of America as recent choice the novel
steps out in a clear atmosphere of promise and
acclaim. Here it is:
THE PURE IN HEART. BY Franz werfel
New York: Simon & Schuster. The Book
League of America.
A GERMAN writer, who in an earlier day
N wrote poems and novels of happy promise,
these generally of reminiscent content and
mood. Then the made a German soldier
of the poet and romancer. Since the war has
come The Pure in Heart" And here in
the older days Of writing it is memory that
dominates, that stands as the authors theme.
The mental process Of recalling events, scenes,
episodes, from one and another of the years of
life, each one lifted in the fullness Of its own
identity Of action color, drift and effect, over
into the present of the writer's mind. An en-
bOdiment Of the abstract power of memory,
such is the preoccupation of Franz Werfel In
the poetic days of youth these recallings out Of
the past were joyous adventures. bright colored
re-livings, winged out-farings. Memory and
hope, hand in hand going along with the gifted
youth who had chosen these his inspiration,
as his field Of effort. Then, the war. And
then, the nightly changed spirit of the man.
such as every partaker in war action expert
enceQ. curious erect tnaL LnlS man, Stlu
clinging to memory his prime possession,
looked upon it in his changed state from an
entirely different standpoint No longer happy
field for poetic fancies and inventions, for
philoSophc ponderings of generally benevolent
trend A sinister power in the later day.
thing to be annihilated a menace rather
than to be cherished a benefaction. The
story is told by way of young physician whose
mind now goes back toward bitterness rather
than to joy-to the days when, abandoned by
his mother, he became a charge of the state,
a military student under the strict discipline
OF the German military school. An old nurse
of early childhood stands the kindly
companion of his youth. From this after-the-
standpoint these memories rise as perse-
cutorS, as malicious and wicked perverters of
the boy who finally rescues himself to strength
and right living by virtue of the remembered
love and service of Barbara, the nurse of his
babyhood, the friend of his childhood. A long
story, close packed record of memories that
serve, ultimately, to the soul which at
one point they promised to destroy Very beau
tiful thoughts, very high invention for the
occasional readers who at home in the
mental chambers of human hidings and
secresies.
THE SECRET LOVER. BY Ursula Bloom New
York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
CIT down beside Arthur Weald there in the
- high plain rooms of his dead friend, Simon
Betherley. And with him read the story that
Simon has left behind, the story of an elderly
bachelors quest for happiness. Arthur Weald
was supplied with the reading for he knew
or thought he knew-the quiet kindly dignified
man who for many years had been his best
friend. You. too, will be surprised at about
every turn of the leaf, but under the surprise
and above it and all around it will be sheer
delight in one of the most ingenious and beau
tiful stories that you are likely to come upon
this year, or next.
Here is the frank story of secret love, of many
a secret love, caught for the moment by Simon
Betherley as the bluebird of true happiness,