Evening star., 1937-05-15

Of the business houses, a steamship
and railroad train in Salonika. The
"Boatmen" are successful in their
wholesale destruction, but at what ex-
pense! Every one dies either at his
own hands or by execution. More
over, the outrages are followed by re-
prisals at the hands of the Turks
Whole villages are wiped out, in
cluding the home of Paul's mother
and wife. And Mara, who worshiped
every grain that grew, who debased
herself to seek charm to ensure the
fecundity of Paul's wife and glorifled
in the knowledge that she was with
child was witness to the burning Of
her fields and the destruction of her
daughter -in-law before she, herself,
met death.
There are parts of this book that
are especially noteworthy, bits of de-
scription that are particularly vivid.
Among them is the chapter on the
drouth, the making Of 'doodoole,"
which sounds much like the rain
dance of the Hopi Indians and the
following, tragic hail storm.
r. r. r.
MIRA EAU. BY Pierre Nezelof
Translated from the French by
Ware B. Wells New York: Live
right Publishing Corp.
ZESTFULLY, the biographer takes
his reader with Mirabeau ON q
personally conducted tour of the
boudoirs and bastilles Of France. Sor-
tribulations. Somewhat reluctantly,
he heaves himself up to the revolu-
tionary level. It is, you sense, not
so much Mirabeau for Mirabeau as
Mirabeau for Nezelof who goes through
these pages.
Nezelof makes the most Of the
strange contrast Mira beau presented
the wild youth whose multitudinous
and scandalous love affairs were in
terrupted only by prison and the
statesman who became the balance
wheel of the early French Revolution.
He shows us the Mirabeau who STAYED
off the Terror and established the
foundations of a constitutional mon
archy which crumbled only because
he died.
Three-quarters OF the volume
breathe little but the Casanova
atmosphere and it is only the final
pages of the work in which the reader
who expects to find background for
the French Revolution will encounter
that which he seeks. Nevertheless,
the book Is worth reading from the
standpoint OF serious biography and
history. J. S. E.
WHERE THE WEAK GROW
STRONG. BY Eugene Armf1eld.
New York: Covici, Friede.
4 NY ONE who has lived in small
town in the South will find many
things to set off sparks Of recognition
in this novel. 1t is a careful and
detailed picture of North Carolina
town in 1912 The locality and the
time play an important part and lend
notes of authenticity. The town is
the hero and a multitude Of chara cters
seem incidental to the larger picture.
Mr.. Armfield's style is impression
istic, something of a novelty In full
length fiction and not without its
drawbacks. Emphasis is a constantly
shifting element, turning from person
to person and event to event in the
minute span of paragraph or even
q sentence. This makes for confusion
and lack Of point when the book Is
considered as a whole. There are a
few, a precious few, persons whom one
remembers when they are reintroduced
and there are a good many moving
scenes, but the maze of fact, fiction,
description and narration remains al
ways the maze.
Mr.. Armf1eld likes to use words
which were banned before the legal
admission to this country Of James
Joyce's Ulysses, and, while apparently
he has every legal right to use them,
thew detract from his book e T.