Evening star., 1935-05-29
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
Margaret Cermond.

4
THREE ENGLISHMEN, BY Gilbert
Frankau, New York, E. P. Dutton
& Co., Inc.
Three lads, classmates at Eton
during the closing years of the nine
teenth century, are the heroes OF
this panoramic narrative OF English
life. In disposition. personality and
family tradition they are as unlike
as they are in their ambitions. An
drew Curle. reserved. Unconditional, be.
comes professional soldier. MAJ
Benton, impulsive and inclined to be
surly, becomes a famous surgeon
Jeremy Wainwright, cheerful, gregar-
ious and amorous, goes in for money
on a large scale. Their occupations
and their personal interests separate
them for months, even years in the
span from 1899 to 1884, yet the bono
of friendship formed in boyhood al
Eton remains firm as they grow with
the rapidly changing world into mer
of action, suffering the hardShipS anc
tragedies of their generation, ano
mellowing through their experiences
as they approach the ripper years Of
life.
Mr.. Frankau has called his story
"a romance OF married lives" Just
why he does so may be quite under
standable to the English mind. but
to the American reader there seems
little basis for the definition. All three
men love more than once and eventu-
ally they all marry, but unless it was
Mr.. Frankau's purpose to intimate
that the wives of Englishmen are
limited to a scanty share in the prob
his subtitle does not fit. His three
men are types, and as such they
carry on in the business, professional
and patriotic traditions of England's
world of men. Their loves and their
wives are but incidentals in the his
toric pageant of war, peace, pros
perity, war again and the ungulflng
aftermath of 19l4l8.
Such story needs no intricate plot
or design to mark its course, and there
is practically no encumbrance OF that
sort. 1t is the straightforward, con-
vincing narrative of three men whose
lives are representative of millions OF
their fellow countrymen during the
most fantastic half century in the his
tory of the world.
The novel is long. but throughout
its more than six hundred pages there
is not a dull moment. Upon publica-
ton in England its sale mounted TO
thirty thousand copies in three weeks.
There may be disagreement as to its
import. but it is unquestionably Mr.
Frankaus best work.
YOUNG RENNY (Jalna, l906). BY
Mazo de la Roche. New York
Little, Brown & Co.
When an author writes more than
two successful novels about the same
people, or, as in the case of the Jalna
saga, the same family, the effect upon
the public is similar to that Of an
actor whose fame has been won by
the creation of a particular character
More OF the identical role is demanded
and il sometimes prevents the actor
or author from fulfilling any other
ambition. This is the fifth book in the
Jalna series. and while Miss de la
Roche has produced other stories since
the beginning of the Whiteoak family
history. 1t is by these works that she
has established something of a tradi-
ton that apparently must prevail in
definitely, as the demand for Jalna,
and still more Jalna. continues.
The unusual procedure of setting
back the years has been adopted for
this latest addition to the story of old
Adeline and her host of children and
grandchildren. Back to 1906, when
the dominant old tyrant was eighty
years old instead of the hundred she
boasted in the first book. Kenny. the
young hero of this newest novel, is
only twenty, and Philip, the father
and husband. is still living They are
all younger, but they are just as vital
and as quarrelSome and as tenacious
in their affections and jealousies as
they have been in their more mature
presentations.
In turning back the clock Miss de
Ia Roche undertook the clearing of a
hurdle that was extremely risky, per-
haps even dangerous. but the leap was
accomplished in safety and without an
everyday of visible effort. This new
to the now familiar saga
of the Whiteoaks is as interesting and
compelling as its older companions.
PASS. BY Tom Gill.
New York: Farrar g. Rinehart.
With the fading away of the from
tiers and the virtual end of the two
gun bad men. cattle rustlers, range
feuds and highway hold-ups of the
golden West of a few
years ago. the flood of thrilling stories
of romance and adventure that fired
the imagination and sent shivers down
the spine of the city-bred Easterner
has ebbed. and now only occasionally
does a book appear that possesses the
old-time power of fascination.
But there is one expanse of territory
in that region that is still unexploited
and little known to the civilization
beyond its boundaries, and it is of this
area that Mr.. Gill has finally written
the novel that has been pet ambition
for long time. Those who remember
the happy style of Guardians of the
Desert and other stories by this con-
vincing author will rejoice in the live
illness of this narrative, which is based
upon actual experience and the char
acters of which are drawn from life.
1t was in the Wyoming Rockies that
a threat, made years ago when Tom Gill
was serving his apprenticeship. gave
him the idea for a novel of the Forest
Service. The threat was delivered in
person by a ranger who had for thirty
years set himself up as the only law
within eighty miles and had brooked
no interference with his lawless prac-
tices and whose regard for life was as
lacking as his respect for law and hon.
esty. When Gill first encountered him
he knew he had the villain for a novel
that he would some day write. And
here it is. with all of the flavor and
excitement that characterized those
earlier thrillers of the vast region of
cattle country and forest lands that