Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-08-29
Ride On, Stranger
By Kyle Tenant.

nltlldn.)
kyle Tenant, the gifted Aus
tralian novelist, belongs to the very
small group of fiction writer's who,
at present. are doing creative work.
She Is thinking. not just repeating
cliches, and her novels have the
appropriate quality, though in vary
ing degrees. Her work on Aus
tralia's itinerant workers, THE
Battlers." was a sure and finished
expression of mature attitude to-
ward life, an attitude of robust
humor which bespoke an ability to
look on the phenomena of exist
ence with courage and without the
need of sentimentality. In her next
book, Time Enough Later" she
attempted to portray the psychology
OF the woman who, by innate gifts
and not by mere necessity, is a
human being first and a sex crea-
ture only secondarily. The book was
not completely successful, for Miss
Tenant did not exert herself much:
she threw her idea into humorous
form and half her time worked at
the humor rather than the idea.
But in her present book she returns
to the theme and gives it more
thorough and serious treatment.
The result is much better novel.
though she still is below the level
she set for herself in THE Bat
tiers
Woman as human being is GER
tainly no new idea in literature, but
it has had timid treatment in most
of its manifestations from Homer
on. Authors have usually handled
1t in a relative manner, contrasting
the merit of humanity in half the
human race with that of sex fear
fully and obviously. Miss Ten
nant handles it as something to be
taken for granted, and it is for this
achievement that the reviewer calls
her creative writer. She is inter-
ested in woman as human, not in
woman becoming human. Her
heroine Is human figure in the
sense that male characters in novels
are generally human; she loves, but
she does not live to love. You have
only to try to think of another
heroine in modern fiction of whom
that can be said to realize how rare
the concept is with authors in this
supposedly enlightened era.
The story follows a girls career
through series of eccentric hut
nonetheless credible occupations.
The scene Is Australia, the time
modern. The girl is the daughter
of a poor country family. She is
sent to an aunt who runs a boarding
house in Headstown, where she
works as a slavey but also acquil es
some smatterings of education. A
phony healer turns up and per-
suades the aunt to marry him. The
girl. thrown on her own resources.
goes to Sydney and in her efforts to
support herself, enters a fantastic
sort Of half world which Miss Ten
nant portrays with magnificent
humor-a world of intellectual
quacks, parlor radicals, religious
fakirs, nudists. yearners, strivers.
radio artists. little magaziners and
what have you. The heroine, I'M
touched but observing, passes among
these peculiar fauna and is claimed
by each group in turn as one of its
own kind. She loves man whom
she knows to be fraud, she marries
one whose integrity she respects.
The war comes, and she cannot re-
spond to the enthusiasm, which, to
her adult intelligence is adolescent.
When her husband enlists, she is
left with her farm, sitting solidarity
beside her fire, symbolically ad-
hitting to her hearth a stray cat e.
pectant Of kittens. She does not like
cats, she does not want kittens, but
she Is used to taking care of the
weak and the useless. So she goes
on, without sentimentality, amused.
alone and free.
1t is a mature concept and we'll
carried out. Miss Tenant is a
writer who certainly calls for
watching.
American Empire in Asia?
By Albert Viton. (John Dav.J
This is the present weeks blue
print OF the future. In many ways,
1t comedies with the blueprints of
previous weeks. 1t holds that there
should be world organization after
the war, and that the aim of this or
ganization should be to see that
everybody on the planet is nicely
taken care of. 1t also holds that
there is to be no more political sin.