Evening star., 1935-11-17
BY Mary.Carfer Roberts.
MARS HIS IDIOT. H. M. Tomlinson.
New York: Harper g. Bros.

MARS HIS IDIOT. H. M. Tomlinson.
New York: Harper g. Bros.
KR. H. M. TOMIINSON now
NH joins the ranks Of those who
v speak against war. This is
- particularly significant. Mr..
Tomlinson, 1t happens, Is not q man
Of literary fashion. He would not be
developing a social conscience merely
because social conscienceS are q cur.
rent writing trend. As near as may
be. he has lived outside worldly mean
ings in his past, and has written
simply about appearances. Whether
It were q London slum or the dense
wall Of the jungle, it was the visible
aspect and the brooding implications
that interested him, and not the name
Of the contractor who put up the
tenements or the botanical term for
the tropical plants. His whole world
was a spectacle.
When, therefore, this detached in
terpreter of form and shape and color
turns his eyes away from what there
Is and begins to look into the future,
and even to prod and delve into the
future, it may be that his findings
will not be of particular significance,
but the fact that he is doing such q
thing at all becomes tremendously i'm
portant.
To illustrate, one would expect Mr..
Wells to write book about the future
MIR. Wells, who was once an artist
and Is now q pamphleteer. The fu-
ture is, in a sense, Mr.. Wells domain.
He has staked out his claim on it and
obligingly furnishes tourists with
guides and accommodations. But Tom
hnson used to write about the plants
that grow on sand dunes and on the
horror of being lost in a midnight
storm in the jungle, or the color Of
the city from London Bridge. And
20 on.
But now he writes about war. And
what does he say? In sum, that one
World War is all that can possibly be
justified, even by the greatest charity
toward human judgment. That IL we
have not learned our lesson, We must
proceed to our deaths. And so on.
And what does he propose? The
only thing that he could propose, as
the reader who knows him will recog-
nize. He proposes that we use Chris
tian decency toward each other.
He is a grand writer and one hopes
that, having uttered his observation,
he will leave jeremiads to the
prophets, Of whom there are such
large and willing throngs, and write
another sea and Jungle"-which no
one but himself could ever do.
WNTERSET. BY Maxwell Anderson.
Washington: Anderson House.
THIS most recent play by one OF
- Americas foremost dramatists is
Q grim thing, probably owing some Of
it, inspiration to the Sacco-Vanzetti
case. It Is the story Of the quest
for justice Of the son Of . man-an
anarchist and an Italian-who was
executed for crime which he did
not commit. It is tragedy: justice is
not forthcoming and the boy and his
sweetheart die as the result Of his
efforts to bring the truth to light.
The play Is the first Of Mr.. Ander-
sons poetic dramas to deal with
contemporary theme. He calls it an
experiment. There are. however, pas
sases Of great power In it and its
poetic impetus Is clearly perceptible.
Any play, Of course, suffers In
published form but the poetic drama
perhaps suffers least. Those who have
followed Mr.. Anderson's work will
want this volume.
THE GREAT TREK. BY Max Miller.
Doubleday Doran & Co.
DECENTLY, one remembers, the
papers carried story about q
reindeer herd that had been five years
on the march somewhere up in the
Canadian forests.
Now Max Miller, who wrote about
what is involved in covering q water
front, tells the story of that reindeer
drive and why it was undertaken and
what things exist in those tabled woods
that, combined, will make a 1,200-mile
trek stretch out over five years and
might have made 1t go on even longer.
It is great tale he has told, with
qualities varying from epic to night
mare. It is well worth reading.
Not to give the plot away. one will
conf1ne oneself to telling that the
purpose Of the drive was to provide
reindeer herd-for food-for the
Canadian Esquimos, who, having killed
of their own game. were starving.
The Alaskan Esquimos, on the other
hand, having learned about reindeer
from the Lapps across Bering Straits,
were prospering and doing fine. The
Canadian government, observing the
contrast, undertook to buy 5000 head
OF reindeer from the Lomen brothers,
reindeer dealers, and Lomen brothers
in turn undertook to drive the same
over hill and dale into Canada. Five
years was the time it took. as has been
said. None of the original herd sur
vived, but the offspring were as
acceptable.
Mr.. Miller's work makes raising
reading at times. It is, in fact. .
1irst-rate book.
VICTORIOUS TROY OR THE
HURRYING ANGEL. By John
Masefield. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
THIS novel follows the classic tradi-
- ton Of THE Nigger Of the Mar
cissus," 'Typhoon" and other sea
tales, In being the story Of . storm.
It goes beyond most Of these. however,
In the proportion Of the work that is
actually devoted to the hurricane.
The reader will arrive at page 204
before the weather even begins to
clear, and there are less than 800
pages In the book.
Books about the sea suffer In the
Landmarks reading from the termi-
nology necessarily employed. What
one will understand in this book. In |
spite of mizzens and shrouds, Is that |
q sailing ship was driven into hurri-
cane by q drunken captain, dismasted
and generally banged about, and saved |