Evening star., 1938-04-24

c Hills" (E. P. Dutton.)
vlduality, deep and unspoiled, speaking
with genius about ordinary lives Un-
der that treatment, of course, no life
is ordinary. Without 1t, all are.
The reviewer confesses that she has
done Mr.. Stuart much wrong in her
| mind heretofore. She tried reading
his short stories some time back, and
decided that he was just another smart
author. For his fiction, while delight
fully entertaining, is certainly made
to sell first Of all. The charming hill
billies OF his tales assuredly never set
foot on ground more material than
the fancy-haunted terrain of his own
mind; the Kentucky of his fictional
reporting lies we'll along the seacoast
OF Bohemia. That he makes up pretty
stories cannot be gainsaid. But that
they are what they have been loudly
heralded to be by critics pavement
Wise-that is, vertiable pictures of
mountain life-is only funny. The
reviewer, as it happers, halls from
the hills herself. Mr.. Stuart would
not be able to fool her on that score.
However, his autobiography redeems
the neat commercially of his fiction.
The life of the hills is in it, down to
the ground. The dreamlike beauty of
that land, its calm imperviousness to
man, the wonder-breeding quality Of
its horizon, the pathos OF the lives of
those grown old within that horizon
wonder still unslaked, the f1erceness,
the cantankerousness, the meanness,
the humor of its people-those things
are here, unprettified and unexag-
gerated. Commercially has no part
in it. 1t is as untainted as "Huckle-
berry Finn"
Well, it is now April in what seems
to be one more photographed year.
So far, this is the reviewers choice of
l938's life histories And she has a
feeling that it will still be in first
place come next December. If it is
not somebody will have done mighty
f1ne book IN the interim. She can
promise you as much as that.
SECRETS OF AN ART DEALER. By
J. H. Duveen. New York: E. P.
Dutton Co.
HE famous art dealer tells us here
some of the mysteries of his
trade, and manages to do so in a rea-
sonably interesting manner. It is q
strange world which he describes, to be
sure. The non-collector is hardly
aware OF it and one doubts that COL
lectors themselves know much of it.,
for while, as Mr.. Duveen makes
clear, certain punctilio is maintained
between customer and dealer, the
tactics used between rival dealers, as
he tells of them here, easily surpass
reasonable imagination. The admin
istering of knockout drops, the use of
disguises, the raising of checks-these
are only a few of the practices Of
which he calmly writes. Apparently
nothing is unfair in the securing of
the worlds treasures and dealers not
only accept the condition, but admire
the one of their number who works
the sharpest tricks.
Mr.. Duveen tells us about it in
terms of his own career. His book is
divided into chapters in each of which
he relates some striking experience
which he has had in his pursuit of his
precious merchandise. While his work
is not important in itself, it is an in
teresting document on human acquisi-
tiveness and the ingenuity with which
men will chase after their particular
hobbyhorses.
THE SPECTER. BY Maxim Cork.
Translated from the Russian by
Alexander Bakshy. New York:
D. Appleton Century Co.
THIS is the last novel to have come
from the pen of Maxim Cork
before he died. It is not finished
thing; its author was still working
on it at his death. As 1t Is now pub
lished, its final chapter is incomplete
and its contains number Of lapses,
repetitions and inconsistencies which
certainly Cork would have smoothed
out in final draft. However, 1t is
sufficiently clear. 1t is the story OF
the drift Of Russian politics from 1906
to 1917 and Is the final volume OF
the tetralogy "The Life Of Clim
Samghin.''
It is one of those novels in which
the only living quality is its authors
passion. The characters are nothing;
they are mouths which speak the au-
thor's opinions. Beyond being vocal
they have no human attributes ed
most of the time the reader is unable
even to remember which one is w.llcn
But Gorki's opinions, even in the
mouths Of lay figures, are flaming with
conviction and strong with urgency
He is trying to give picture here Of
the movement of Russian thought o.
1t looked to q proletarian intellectual
a man whose critical mind kept him
from being swept into any school o1
thought and who therefore saw the
whole trend Of the time. In other
words. it is Cork talking to himself
trying to tell Us what he thought abou,
the decaying forces Of old Russia ant
the rising strength Of the revolution
In this endeaSor the book Is . sue.