Evening star., 1933-09-17
10y SARAH @. BOWERMAN
DR.: WiAi0m Il. UhHe5 New Book Pychaty.
More 1Abomf Casano1u - AdUsnturss Of
"D07cn and Oufer"-Ne7v Fiction. 50

worse now than usual
A PASS IN THE GRAMPIANS BY Nan
Shepherd. New York: E. P. Dutton g. Co.
= DING through the pass in the Grampians,
~ in Eastern Scotland, we come to the
habitat of the Klgours, lairds of the land
through many generations At the very be-
ginning let say that the Kilgours are worth
knowing and that Nan Shepherds story about
them is very decidedly worth reading. Mem
orieS of Scott ard Barrie and Ian Maclaren
come as We turn the pages. but with the
memories recognition that their age is past
and that. even in the remote and lonely places
of Scotland, life has become tainted-or invig
orated-by the modern age. Andrew Kigour
Laird of BOggiewallS has become in the lives
Of those who know MIN a symbol of physical
and spiritual stability. Honor and industry are
enough as a basis for his personal philosophy.
Pleasure and individual freedom he never con-
siders for himself but admits, without under
standing, as authentic ideals for others. He is
the family autocrat: yet such a kindly, liberal
autocrat, whose frmness is always tempered
with gentleness. who unfailingly knows the
limitations Of his powers that no one resents
his authority. That is. no one resents it
except his widowed daughter -in-law who has
been brought to BoggieWalls on the death of
her husband. with her daughter Jennie, to
keep house for the old laird, in order to set
his daughter Mary free for her business life
in London. Andrew Kigour Is big a char
acter. though of quite different pattern, as
SCOTS Magnus Troll of THE Pirate"
The land and the people in relation to the
land. performing the primal traditional labors
of farming and grazing are the groundwork OF
"A Pass in the Grampians." But it is not
quiet ruminative tale-of season succeeding
season. Of people growing from childhood to
maturity and then to old age, without inter-
ruption of their accustomed tasks and routine
living. 1t is tale of conflict. Of the clash Of
modern exMbitioniSm and vulgarity with the
ancient dignity and worth of the Klgours.
There is a secret, existing through a genera
ton cue to the unalterable belief of one simple
woman in the Day of Judgment and her deter
rlira alton that her brother must expiate sin
before he appears before the Seat of Judgment
on that day. Because Of the secret a tense
drama works itself out at BoggieWalls and in
wolves all the Kilgours-the laird. his daughter
Mary, his self-suppressed and almost ignored
daughter-in-l law and his granddaughter Jennie
the chisf delight of the lairds exstence-as
well the laird's shepherd. Durno. and his
sister Alison and Bella Cassie daughter of
former servant OF the Kigours and brought up
by them after her mothers death.
Bella, always ignorant of her paternity AMI
of the cause of her mothers death, has escaped
from the too-hard- wording and high-m minded
life of the Kilgours at the first possible mo-
ment, and by the method of her escape, her
marriage to Glib Munro. has made enemy Of
Mary KIgour. She returns unexpectedly one
Summer to the villa ge of Balbrggie. as Dorabel
Cassidy, vaudeville singer and radio queen.
She is grossly feshy and ruddy, loud in her
speech and laughter. diSguStingly greedy ove-
her food exuberant, vulgar in every way. She
is like RubenS Venus. In fact she is mean.
to symbolic all the senSuousness which is
in direct opposition to Kigour austerity. Bella
the g:abber-grabb.ng everything" thinks
Mary. She has always grabbed her food Sll,
grabbed Glib And now Bella tries to grab
Jennie whom Mary loves. and plans to have
her few years later in London. Mary and
the old Laird" set themselves to struggle with
Bella for possession of Jennie. Her body they
can restrain at BoggieW ails. but of what use
to do that if her spirit belongs to Bella? The
struggle is complicated and is linked with the
secret of Bella's birth and with the fantastic
pink tile villa she is building on a corner of
cleared woodland directly adjoining the lairds
piece of moor At the end Bella is routed,
physically, through revelation of the secret,
but the future Of Jennie is left in doub.,
whether not the influence of Bella will
persist and shape her life. We feel sure it
will not: that the love of Jennie for the
Grampians and the life of the land, her unity
of mind with her grandfather, and her inhe
rent soundness of nature will prevent her from
becoming permanently the disciple of Bella.
the sensuous grabber. In this vigorous novel
of Scotland, Nan Shepherd Scotchwoman.
has produced an artistcally finished piece OF
work and in which all her characters act
and think in the realm of reality. Her two
former novels are The Weatherhouse' and
Quarry Wood both stories Of Scottish lite.
AN AMERICAN HERO. BY F. w. Bronson
New York Farrar g. Rinehart.
AR. BRONSON'S American Hero" is
W. morally superior to Louis Bromfeld's
Modern Hero only in the fact of his keeping
out of the hands of the law. In making their
heroes American and implying that they are
typical, both authors are bitterly satirical to-
ward modern AmeQean life and it is not possi-
BILE to bring against them a charge of great exag