Evening star., 1938-10-02
HIGHEST PRAISE GIVEN STORY
Author of Best Seller Turns Beautiful Tale of Chdhoodorc
Dunsanys Autobiography Is Distinguished One-French
Writer Does Second Book on i. S. S. r.

which the reviewer cannot say. It Is
commended to its public-heartily.
THE DOOR OF LIFE. BY Enid Bag
mold. New York: william Morrow
& Co.
ONE of the great fallacies of fiction
writers-apparently of those of
all times-is the notion that a novel
can be written about an occupation,
that the fact that people follow 4
certain mode of life makes novel
material" Of them. Actually, nothing
can be farther from the truth No
clam digger, no stock broker, no
aviator or hired hand deserves to
become the hero Of novel on the
ground Of his occupation alone. And
no novel worth the name has ever
made the facts Of an occupation its
sole background. Novels are written
about life. Occupations may be
treated Of in treatises. The two kinds
Of writing simply do not meet and
those earnest authors who make
anguished researches into clam digging,
stock brokerage and so on, are only
wasting their time. They had better
get themselves jobs as statisticians or
sociologists. They are not artists.
They show. by their method of pro-
cedure that they lack even an appre-
citation of what art is. For it has
never lain in gathering facts-no,
not since 'omer smote his celebrated
Tyre.
All this is by way Of damning the
present book. 1t Is novel OF occu-
patton, the occupation being mother
hood. 1t is the story-if it can be
called a story-of a household in
which woman four times q mother
waits the birth of her fifth child
1t is concerned exclusively with the
effect Of her maternity-on the SER
wants, the children and the woman
herself. The reviewer will grant that
1t portrays the matter conscientiously:
that is not the point; 50 do the clam
digging works quite often portray
their chosen occupation with metic-
ulous exactitude. The point is that
description of an occupation is
not work Of art. And serious
novel should be work of art Or it
should show a tractable disposition in
that direction, at any rate.
There is, Of course, the ancient
psychosis of the race toward maternity,
a state Of mind which from the
beginning of time has prevented
human beings from viewing birth with
nationality. Those who today are
enslaved by this OLD chain may object,
saying that the occupation Of moth
erhood is not like any other one; that
it contains an emotional element which
gives it peculiar nobility; that it is,
in short, sacred. The objection is
not critically valid. A novel given
over to description Of the details
OF feminine parenthood is no special
artistic case, for the reason that spe-
cial artistic cases do not exist. Sub
ject matter cannot be entered as
plea for unusual consideration. Al
novel must be about life, and not
just about what people do. A good
work can be written about clam dig
gers, to be sure; but it is not good
because 1t Is accurate or because
it is about clam diggers. It is good
because it is about the lives of people.
They happened-no more-to be of
that occupation. The present novel
is not about a woman who lived and,
in the course of her life. happened
to be mother. It Is about a mother
who, apart from her motherhood, ap-
parently did not live at all. Moreover,
it Is jerkily written and strives very
obviously after effect. An efiort-and
misdirected at that.
I KILLED FOR THE LAW. BY Leo
w, Sheridan. New York: Stack
pole Sons.
A CERTAIN macabre fascination
= will probably carry those who take
this book up on to its end It is moth
ing less horrifying-and less fascinat-
ing-than the story of the career of
Robert Elliott, public executioner for
the States Of New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Ac-
tually. 1t is the story of those crimes
the protagonists Of which Mr.. Elliott
has electrocuted. The Snyder Gray
murder, the Irene Schroeder case, the
cases Of Robert Edwards, Richard
Bruno Hauptmann and still more
headline-making malefactors are re-
told here. chapter by chapter but with
the emphasis always on the manner
in which the condemned one went to
his earthly end. 1nterspersed from
beginning to end, however, are little
paragraphs telling us, tenderly, how
Executioner Elliott Is just q regular
fellow after all. man devoted to his
home, a faithful husband, admirable
father and-above ala conscientious
workman who puts his heart into his
Job 1t is unlikely that Mr.. Leo w.
Sheridan has meant to be as ghastly
funny as he sometimes is. When he
writes. however, practically grooming
as he does 50 that Mr.. Elliott lets ab-
solutely nothing stand between him
and performance Of duty, that he is
tireless, selfless, earnest and unsparing
IN his efforts to give good service
then the reader is likely to find him.
self historically divided between horror
and amusement. A nice, grim little
piece of work, this-Mr. Sheridan
ought to catch quite a tidy market
with 1t.
THE LAST GENRo OR THE
STATESMAN WHO WESTERN
lied JAPAN. BY Bunji Omura.
Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co.
THE life Of the last Genro from his
birth In 1s49 to the present day
covers one of the most eventful periods
OF japanese history. And Prince
Saionji, the last Genro. has been iden-
titled with his country's history almost
from his birth, his first oficial posi-
ton having been held at the age Of 3.
Mr.. Omura has given US . most
pa!nstaking document Of this period,
from the Meiji restoration to the re-
cent military rebellion.
1t would be dinicult to reproach the