Evening star., 1933-10-01
% SARAH @. BOWERMHN
Last Volume Of Hugh Walpole} Chronicle
ofHe Herries Famib b-SpAeudid Fiction
on the Early autumn List.

Il HINUkH ALJLs
ney. sore in his pride from being insulted by
Mr.. Stoneley, whose sons suicide he had ex-
pected to turn into a good STORY" arrives at
the Blue Bell just before the fire breaks out
at the A. c. p. works. With trained sleuth
sense he perceives a substitute for his suicide
story, hero publicity campaign. So Charlie
is captured, the suspicious Mr. Oglesby Is
silenced by q threat Of unfavorable instead Of
favorable publicity for the A. G. p and Charlie
finds himself in London, having his picture
taken for film in the act of receiving a check
for 500 pounds from the editor of the Tribune.
This is but the beginning. Charles expert
enceS at the luxurious New Cecil Hotel, the
mate to Arnold Benefits Imperial Palace"
his Quitting at the expensive Manshop, the
dinners and theater parties in his honor, more
photographing, his meeting with a rival star
who has won beauty contest and is also
being entertained at the New Cecil, are all
to him a dizzy dream. He thinks the whole
affair vastly silly, most of all when he secs
himself on the screen as the Man Who
Saved a Town-Utterton Hero Receives Check
from Editor Of Daily Tribune and knows that
his original neglect of duty Is the cause OF
his being a wonder hero" Ida Chadwick,
winner OF the beauty contest, enjoys the pub
hcity and the festivity much more than Charlie
does. His enjoyment increases however, after
he meets Ida When the publicity bubble has
been blown large and thin, it is, of course,
allowed to burst-gently Charlie and Ida find
themselves again ordinary, lower middle class
young people, back in the North Midlands Mr..
Priestley ends his burlesque before he ends his
novel. He closes with picture of the difficult
and starved life among the workers Of Northern
industrial England. marked contrast to the
wasteful fashionable life of the West End Of
London. One of his minor characters, Kib-
WORTH represents the mounting discomfort
among the workers which leads to Communist
plots.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOK-
LAS. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
A LICE B. TOKLAS needs explaining: Ger
trude Stein does not. Ostensib1y this is
the autobiography of Gertrude Stems friend
autobiography. Of Gertrude Stein herself. It
IS the most informal of biographies but the
personality Is there. Alice B. Toklas says that
only three times in her life has she met .
genius and each time bell rang somewhere in
her mind. The three geniuses are Gertrude
Stein, Pablo Picasso and Alfred Whitehead At
the atelier Of Gertrude Stein, 27 rue de F1eurus,
Paris, Picasso and Matisse were frequent Wis
itors. Helene, the admirable bonne . tout
faire, did not like Matisse because he would
ask her what there was for dinner and then
stay or not according to his taste for the menu.
together in 1907. Gertrude Stein had been born
in Allegheny, Pa; had studied in Paris and
Vienna, had lived in San Francisco, had studied
at Radcliffe and at Johns Hopkins. In psy-
chology William James was her mentor, in
medicine Osler and others. Examinations
bored her to such an extent that she often
refused to take them and some of her instruc-
tors including William James, recognizing the
brilliant quality of her mind and sympathizing
with her feeling toward examinations, accepted
her refusals and accorded high marks.
After medical school, which more or less
bored her, Miss Stein settled in Paris and be-
came one Of the apostles of the ultra modern in
the arts Her writing has never been popular.
Her name Is known to many: her books are
read by few. Like James Joyce she Is an
authors author. Her stream of-consciouSneSS
style with its repetitions, progressions and
retrogresSionS absence of capitals and periods,
is too difficult for the reader of average intelli-
gence, and even the reader of high intelli-
gence wonders whether the thought thus buried
is worth while. Gertrude STEMS personality
seems to many more interesting than her writ
ing. This Autobiography of Alike B. Toklas"
is the book Of her personality. She disclaims
intellectually and is thankful that she does
not come from intellectual people. The term
"intelligentsia" would probably arouse her mild
scorn. '.She has horror of what she calls
intellectual people. 1t has always been rather
ridiculous that she who is good friends with
all the world and can know them and they can
know her has always been the admired Of the
precious. '''And she always consoles herself that
the newspapers are always interested" The
value Of this biography is that Of a novelty
mosaic-bits of reminiscence of artists and
authors, glimpses of the individual Paris life
Miss Stein has created for herself comments
on painting and literature, long chapter on
the World War, during which she sent copies Of
her manuscripts to friends in New York for