Evening star., 1938-05-15
By Mary.Carfer Roberts.

something mas 10 De done aDOut
IL it. And this present week sees
such an accumulation in your re-
viewers Office. There are books there
that she has been meaning to get at
for time so long that it will hardly
bear remembering. Admirable books,
no doubt, too, deserving of prompt.
admiring notices. But, alas, whether
Mr. Einstein admits it or not, there
is limit to time and also a limit
TO space. Only so many books can
possibly be read in a week And, if
10 times the number could be re-
viewed, only SO many reviews can be
published. Arriving in critics Office,
these brave creative outreachings of
auctorial souls are subjected, alas,
10 the hard rules of materialism. The
reviewer would love to be Argus and
read book with each pair of eyes
or with each eye, for that matter.
But she is not Argus. And The Star
could not publish those reviews even
II she were.
But this week she is resolved to
be scrupulous and to do a noble Job
OF housecleaning. She will bring down
from the shelves those long-accumu-
lating volumes and go briskly through
them. Only little space can be
given each. of course. Even those
works which show themselves to be
expressions of immortal genius will
have to be treated cavalierly. at least
as far as lineage goes. But they
will be mentioned Their publishers,
their authors and their authors Sis
ters. cousins and aunts will no longer
have occasion to send the reviewer
pathetic little notes wistfully inquiring
whether or not the copy was received?
So much, at least, will have been
accomplished. And, on the reviewers
shelves space will duly be cleared
for one more accumulation.
Well then, prominent among the left
overs by reason of its size Is Dorothy
Childs Hogner's Westward High
Low and Dry" published by E. P.
Dutton %. Mrs. Hogner, the writer,
is the wife of Nils Hogner, the illus
TRAITOR Her book is one of those
things given over to describing a trip
around America; with her husband
she motored through the Southwest,
observing scenery and what are known
as native types. She tells us that
the country out there is immense,
rough and deSerty, and let's us know
that she and her husband are swell
pals and pretty brave about rough
Ing 1t. She bubbles about as much
as lady travel-writers usually do when
they confide their great adventures
to the public. Well, there has lately
been great number of these chummy
travel tales all embroidered with
Americana, and one more seems un-
likely to do bit of harm. The re-
viewer gives Mrs. Dorothy Childs
Eogner her blessing.
NEXT in order on the shelf is a
book of short stories by William
Carlos Williams called Life Along
the Passaic River" 1t is published
by New Directions of Norfolk, Conn,
a forward-looking outfit which seems
to favor the social-scene sort of
literature. Well, Mr.. Williams stories
are of that genre, which is to say
that they use extremely short SEN
tences or extremely long ones and
are grim, gritty and given to impart-
ing the amazing news that all men
are not equal, that life is full of
Irony and that disillusion lies sneer-
tngly in wait. For what they are, they
are perhaps better than ordinary.
People who like the type should find
these satisfactory.
Another book on the shelves is "The
Aud Sinner" mildly pleasant little
thing by Cowan Harper, published by
the Macmillan Co. 1t is a story of
Ulster, Of a citizen who returned to his
native village after years of absence
and annoyed his old neighbors i'm
mensely by refusing to confide in them
concerning his life in foreign lands.
1t is a good picture of village cur
iosity and conventionality but per-
haps treated in a sWeetiSh vein. Still
1t is pleasant little book.
Gerald Warner Brace, whose novel
OF the New England Coast, THE
Islands" received considerable praise
two years ago, has brought out in re-
cent weeks a second work of fiction
called The Wayward Pilgrims" 1t
Is published by G. P. Putnams Sons |
1t is story of two lonely souls, a
professor and a runaway wife, who
meet in the hills of Vermont and find |
what is called sympathy and COM
panionship together. The book is
intelligent but made to order 1t is
really an author talking to himself |
and so his characters lack life as men |
and women and become merely eff
cient mouthpieces. But, as said, it is
intelligent enough.
The history of Greenwich House, the |
well-known settlement in New York's |
Greenwich Village section, has re-
Gently been told by the woman who
for many years has been its leading
spirit, Mary K. Simkhovitch The
title of the volume is "Neighborhood,
and the publishers are w. w. Norton
& Co. Mrs. Simkhovitch tells her
story in the manner of the complete
social worker. seriously single-mind-
edly and whole-heartedly. 1t is a good
history.
A
one which is an exception to the
hard rule propounded above relative to
the bubbling propensities of ladies en-
gagged in confiding their adventures
to the public in print is Nancy john
stones Hotel in Spain," published by
rLongmans Green. Mrs. Johnstone,
with her husband, an American news
, raner man undertook tn rim hotel
) on the Spanish coast near BARGE:
Iona. Neither of them knew any,
thing about business, but they managed
their establishment in cheerfully
= untroubled manner Notwithstanding,
and this book is the account of the
venture and Of the queer guests whom
at various times they put up. Mrs.
Johnstone does not write particularly
we'll; indeed her grammar is some
times rather more personal than con-