Evening star., 1937-01-16

ArnOtd Genthe, from q OuSt
By Brenda Putnam. He is the
author OF "As 1 Remember"
Uhich has just been published.
(ReynaL & HitchcOck.)
from pathos, it is kind Of writing
which cannot be done except per-
fectly. There is no middle ground
for it. "Benediction," for those who
care to go with the writer into her
romantic domain, offers performance
of virtuosity.
1t is an account OF an episode be-
tween young love and old tradition,
fought out with imperceptible weapons
in the very seat Of the tradition-an
ancient French chateau where, in a
modern day, the life OF the past is
still dominant. The lovers are crushed,
the romance is ended and the brood
ing sense of the Interchangeable past
lives on. Almost no words are spoken,
it is a battle of intangibles. The
theoretically romantic quality OF Claude
Sive's work is such that the conflict
is invested with suspense beyond that
ordinarily sppertaining to works of
more open conflict
That is the merit of the work and
its triumph. 1t is commended to those
who enjoy the minor masterpiece.
LORDS AND MASTERS. BY A. G.
Macdonell. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
HERE is a rafting cheerful book
which seems to be the work of
British Sinclair Lewis, in so far as
the terms can be made at all COM
patible. Mr.. Macdonell, the author
of England, Their England" evil
IDENTIFY enjoys lambasting his native
land, and in his present work he has
written of its follies in the heartiest
vein imaginable. His book is anus
ing reading, because his satire is at
times very we'll carried off and also
because he has provided a melodra-
matte lively plot. There are times,
to be sure, when his satire does not
come of. but comes down, rather,
and that in distinctly heavy man
ner. But at those times, when one is
tempted to lay his book aside, the
story interest comes forward as
saving element and it is safe to
that most readers will per-
severe unto the end-for one cause
or another.
This combination of excellent satire
and ingenious plot with the broadest
kind OF uninspired belaboring does
put one in mind Of our own Nobel
prize winner in his more careless mo-
ments. But, as Mr.. Lewis is impos-
sible to read for long without the dis
covery of some felicitouS crack, so
Is Mr.. Macdonell One is forced to
feel, in this present book, that he has
written hastily. With more time, he
might have weeded out the heavy pas
sages OF his story and produced a
consistent satire that would have been
really measurable.
The story Is thrown together on
the basis of CONTRAST contrast be-
tween the manner in which the un-
touchable British tradition of gen.
tility is actually built up las Mr.. Mac
donell sees it), and the manner in
which its heirs imagine it to have
developed. Mr.. Macdonell reminds
us that the basis of any tradition is
inherited fortune, and that fortunes
are always made by men strong
enough to make them, and not by men
with dreams of playing
the game, or by that category of con-
which the nicer charac-
ters of the book sum up as Cricket"
On the contrary, in the words of the
hero. a steel magnate of refreshing but
unlikely frankness, fortunes
are made partly by fraud and partly
by violence, says Mr.. Macdonell.
Against this disarmingly honest
we have the magnate's
admiring worshipfully the
notion that they are inheritors of in
alienable privilege, bestowed upon
them by their proven superior quail
ties. The hearty old pirate who has
begotten them views these pretensions
with cynical tolerance. And thus the
1t all makes for lively reading and
can be commended to any readers ex-
cept very confirmed Anglophiles.
PARNELL. BY Joan Haslip. New
York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.
THE career of Charles Stewart
Parnell has by no means been
neglected by biographers in the past,
but that hardly seems to indicate
that its appeal to writer's of lives is
exhausted. For few figures in history
combine more picturesquely the ele-
ments which 60 to make q good tale
than does the stormy petrol of Ire
lands politics.
He was the leader Of q romantic
cause, he was the defer Of the tyrant.
he was the martyr. he was even the
lover. Like Sir Walter Raleigh, he
seemed to live for the delectation OF
future generations of historians. His
career might have been planned in
advance by committee of biographi-
cal writers. 1t is therefore with no
surprise that one receives yet another
account of his rise and fall, nor does
the circumstance that the tale Is
written in a vein of fiery champion
ship and unadulterated hero worship
occasion downright CONSERVATION.
The most hardened reviewer cannot
deny that Parnelps life is q first-rate
story. He ranks with Uncle Tom and
Camille as a reliable tear -jerker. and,
Like them, seems destined to come to
status.