Evening star., 1937-04-03

truth. Miss Josephine johnson can,
at times, write. There Is no reason
either to believe that she Is unable to
think. But as long As she deliberately
foregoes thinking, In favor OF ready
made ,and vulgar isms, then she u
just another superior hack. The re-
mark Is made in entire kindness.
SPANISH PRELUDE. BY Jenny Bal
lou. Boston: Houghton Miflin
Company.
INTELLIGENT readers ought not to
be unduly prejudiced against this
book by the fact that 1t has won .
prize. The reviewers honest opinion
is that it is not bad. 1t is also her
opinion that 1t is not good she read
it, indeed. deriving no positive opinion
whatsoever, beyond dull soporific
wonder that so many words could be
set down, so studiedly, with so complete
an absence Of effect. 1t is not a cheap
work or an insincere one. 1t is. let us
say, Worthy. But it had an effect on
the reviewer that can only be COM
pared to the effect of a too-large and
too-heavy dinner. 1t is defeating to
any lively thought or emotion.
1t is smothering, deadening 1t over
powers with its sheer solemnity, with
out ever making clear just what 1t is
being solemn about. To read 1t Is like
being lost in large. dim circular hall
full of curtains all of an unvarying dull
purple. One gets to feel that one
would like little edge by and by, and,
if not asking too much, a little light
of less peculiar color than the color
Of Miss Jenny Ballou's mind. That
is as near as this reviewer can come
to describing Spanish Prelude" It
would help, of course, if she could de-
eide in the first place just what 1t is
that has to be described.
The prize which this strange treatise
received was, it should be said, one of
the Houghton Mifflin fellowships for
1885. There were two such awards;
the first went to novel by one ODon-
nell called Green Margins" The
present winners work is also a novel;
a novel without plot, characters or ac-
ton. Green Margins" was at least
rudimentarily outf1tted with these con-
ventional commodities and it made up
its lack of greater veriSimilitude in re-
spect Of them by supplying readers
with tremendous amount Of scenery.
AS the scenic, or geographic, novel is
well-recognized and even beloved
figure in our literary midst, there was
no occasion to comment specially on
Mr.. O'Donnells opus. Spanish Pre-
lude," however, enters strangely-a
muffled figure uttering incoherent but
solemn sounds. 1t may be authentic
ancestral voices prophesying war, and
then again it may be just one OF the
neighbors' children playing naughty
You will have to make up your own
mind about that.
1t is a stream of-consciousness story
taken out of the mind OF an intelligent
but dreary young woman, as she drifts
drearily about Spain in the days of its
political travail, and thinks with stern
intentness about what she sees. Per-
sonalities pass in and out, but they
never do anything Ideas are dis
cussed-but what of it? One gathers
when it is all over that Miss Ballous
heroine was not very lively sort and
that Spain is not exactly 4 paradise
And that is all. Still, even though it
did WIN q prize, this book is not bad
1t sets a new high in prize winning
works. as matter Of fact, by not being
anything. With this to go on, we may
even hope to get good one, In time.
But not too soon, of course-not too
revolutionary.
THE LAST ROMANTIC. BY William
Orton. New York: Farrar & Rine-
hart.
THE title of this book might per-
fectly be changed to The Ten
Thousandth Romantic" so we'll does
the work follow a ime-tattered for
mula. Withal, it is a selection OF
THE DISCOVERIES, which Is depart
ment OF Farrar &, Rinehart's given
over to choosing works of very special
merit.
OF course, the fact that book be-
longs to type is nothing against it..
The goodness or the badness of writ
ten work lies always between individ-
ual book covers, not in schools. So
that even so excessively trite q for
mula as that OF the young-man'S s.
quest for that -bea uty- -which-he new
er-flnds should be received with respect.
1t is still possible that a writer may
work it to living ends. But when that
happens the book has triumphed over
the pattern, and, needless to say, 1t
Is not an everyday occurrence.
1t does not take place in this book.
This book is the tale Of youth named
Michael (and one notes how very
OTTER the heroes Of these quest
beauty" novels are called Michael,
Tony and Terry, who dreams, whose
tastes are not for business, who expe-
riences an awakening Of soul when he
first hears great music, who falls in
love with words" who looks to every
girl he meets to see if she is his ideal
who, in short, does . great many
things which a great many fiction
heroes have done before, and then
goes wistfully of to the war and ends
his novelist's labors by stopping q
shell with his world-weary and still
unsatisfied frame. 1t has all been done
before-ad absurdum. Why, In the
name OF heaven, do 1t again?
Mr.. Orton, it may be added, piles
Pelian on Ossa by stepping in be-
tween his hero and the reader on every
possible occasion and declaring in his
own person that Michael was low
able, rare and interesting young man.
AS the book is done in such close de-
tail that one suspects it of being
autobiographical, this tendency does
not add much to its charms. Why
this should be discovery" is beyond
the reviewers possible comprehending
PRESENT INDICATIVE BY Noel
Coward. Garden City: Doubleday
DOran d Co,