Evening star., 1937-05-22
CLEAR ANALYSIS OF AN AGE
Beaten Ways Avoided in Fiction Which Leaves Conclusions to
Reader-Distincion in Story of Lovers Who Change
Partners-Book Reviews.
Bv Mary.Carfer Roberts

JOHN DRAKIN. BY G. D. Eaton.
Milwaukee: Gutenberg Publishing
Co.
~ HIS book is from the pen of
the late Godfrey Dell Eaton,
whose first work of fiction,
Il "Backflrrow," published in
the l920s, was hailed as holding con-
the two novels. He was no more than
35 when he died and so must be ac-
counted one of our younger men of
letters. His work seems fit to assure
him a place in the ranks of those
who have survived him.
"Backfurrow," as its title implies,
was a story of farm life. John Dra-
kin" also begins in rural setting, but
its scope is broader. One Of its au-
thor's aims, indeed, seems to have
been the presenting Of a picture Of
American white-collar society as it
World War. Carrying out this aim, he
has taken his hero through wide va
rlety of experiences as a worker, rang
ing from the holding of clerical jobs to
writing for the press associations; he
has chosen these experiences, one feels,
as being typical of those encoun-
tered by the young man Of college
education and superior intellect, but
no special training, when he elects to
support himself.
The book indeed, seems to deal
with grim exclusiveness, with the typ
ical. 1t is a biographical novel and
the hero, whose life story it is, is about
as typical young man as can be
imagined. He is introduced as an
adolescent of no particular individual
tty, mere vessel for holding the usual
adoleScent curiosities and dreams. He
finishes high school just as the World
War engages the Nation, and by that
time has so far progressed in his
typicalness that he is in a fever of
patriotism; he enlists to save civiliza-
ton from the Huns. He then goes
through the typical intellectual aWak-
enlng, he likewise experiences the
strictly average diSilluSion as to the
beauty of the patriotic emotion, the
perfection of supposedly godlike adults
and the eternal nature of the emotion
of love. At this point, however, the
novel departs from the beaten path of
biographical works on young men. The
author spares his readers a miracle;
he does not tell them that young John,
having eaten of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, becomes wise. On the
contrary, he makes him emerge into
manhood still creature of longings
and appetites, which are greater than
the strength Of any learning The
blows which he has suffered do not
lick him into any kind OF shape. He
acquires no technique for living-be-
yond, that is, the technique of get
ting jobs which he invariably despises.
He does achieve the sensitivity and
intellectual freedom of the superior
man, but he never becomes a superior
man. He becomes, instead, the per-
feet type Of Job holder-a man in
capable of controlling his destiny, a
man who, when he has money, spends
1t freely for creature comforts, and
when he has none, sobs aloud in his
misery and finally steals a 5O-cent
piece from his landlady. Hardness is
not in him. His intellectual liberty
does him about as much service as an
extra leg.
THIS obviously is departure from
the common pattern of the novel
which IS devoted to showing how
youth grows into man. For the
most part these works give us a hero
who, at the end, has achieved Olym-
pic calm through his sufferings. They
lead us to believe that the young man,
after reaching his late 20s (for that
Is where they usually leave him),
will be no more a prey to folly. He
generally becomes. instead, new
creature, one who will thenceforth
proceed through life with a fixed (and
noble) purpose and will know no de-
slres but wise ones, and will use
toward his fellow men a tolerant un-
Outstanding which is based on pro-
found pity. 1t is nice closing tab
leau, of course, but one may some
times wonder where these deific young
men are in real life. One meets, some
how, a good many more John Drakins
incompetent poor devils except with
in narrow limits, intelligent to the
point of pain, enSlaved and perfectly
aware Of their slavery, unable to de-
wise any escape for themselves ex-
cept through the brief respites of
drink and women.
Such Is the character presented in
this novel, and the portrait is executed
entirely by the objective method The
author does not pity his man, neither
does he abuse him. He simply tells
us about him. He offers, to be sure
sufficient explanation of Johns in
eptitude in the description which he
gives of his youth, but he does not
offer it by way Of explanation. It is
there Tor the reader to interpret If
he cares to. 1t is. to the reviewers
mind. the most penetrating analysis
IN the entire book.
For it takes up-with pure obiec-
tlvlty, remember-the mentality OF
the American generation which pre-
ceded Johns, and which supplied the
counIy's youth with that training
which led it headlong and armed only
with dreams into the maelstrom of
the war, and which subsequently was
appalled, at postwar decentralization"
"a generation which substituted plati-
tudes for thinking and, in its relation
to the young, offered roseate hypocri-
sizes for truth. Much has been written
about the spectacular debacle of the
actual children of the war; the break
down Of their idealism has been pretty
well hymned; they have been labeled
the "lost generation" and their DOOR
day has passed into history as the
Jazz age. Comparatively little has
been set down about the sources Of
their vulnerability. That, you see, is
nowhere near as good copy.
IN THE present book, however, due
attention is given to those pre-war