Evening star., 1937-01-30

delightful-scholarly, humorous and
well seasoned.
THE INVADERS. BY Stuart David
Engstrand. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf.
THIS Is q novel by q new writer,
one in whom the publisher SEEM
ingly has taken great pride, for some
weeks, reviewers have been receiving
advance notices artfully designed to
titilate the critical appetite. A work
Of genuine power" we have been
told. was about to break upon our
horizons, and yet other adJectives
were used to drive into our jaded
brains awareness that THE Invaders"
was something very fine. indeed. Alas
for hope. The Invaders Is here
and 1t turns out to be q thing Of
very dubious merit. It is plainly
work written because a young man Of
energy wanted to be an author. The
information that he had been q COM
mon sailor, trapper, tree trimmer,
a share cropper. q salesman, . re-
porter and q free lance contributor
to horse-racing journals has also been
kindly rendered us In recent weeks.
Well, he Is an author now. He has
published q book. It Is not entirely
without evidences Of awareness of an
authors obligation to his materials
either. It shows with painful clear
ness that Stuart David Engstrand has
understood that q novel ought to have
a plot, even II 1t Is necessary to
rough-hew human conduct into an
unacceptable state to procure one. It
also shows that he has an eye on
popular taste, as he has seized and
energetic manner imaginable) two
kinds Of material that are in good
popular favor. One Is the estimable
Glass struggle" which, If not q gen.
orally popular theme. Is still rated
highly as reading matter in certain
quarters. The other Is always sure
flre-frequent descriptions Of the more
intimate moments of married life
done in a somewhat excessively virile
style. He also has not neglected to
touch on the Freudian device of the
mother complex" nor has he omitted
to provide his work of art with
heroine of morals somewhat lighter
than featherdown. And there you
are. A work Of genuine power"
1t Is q story Of farmer and his
wife, and the struggle Of his farmer
neighbors to deal with the wicked
capitalists who run the local cannery,
and Of strike and broken hearts and
heads and great deal Of noise. 1t has
the elements Of q good book In it
(since it has about everything). but
it is done with preposterous badness,
with its people at one moment talking
like stage yokels and the next spout
ing in the manner of stage Greenwich
Villagers and nowhere conducting
themselves even slightly like people.
Still, 1t Is done.
MARIE TEMPEST. BY Hector Boli-
tho. Philadelphia: ]. B. Lippin-
colt.
THIS Is . biography Of q famous
actress by a competent writer. On
the one count 1t ought to be inter-
esting to those with taste for the
stage and stage history. On the other
1t should appeal to those who enjoy
contemporary lives. It Is plain, OF
course, that Mr.. Bolitho tremendously
admires his subject; his book is frankly
adulatory. But as Marie Tempest has
commanded the admiration Of q great
public during her life, there may be
some reason In this.
The book is told to q considerable
extent through the medium of con-
versations with the actress, the author
using her own words for many pages
at q time. It Is not, he says, o COM
plete biography. chiefly because, al
though he spent much time with Miss
Tempest trying to elicit q coherent