Evening star., 1949-03-27

49, q RAAASSAAV SAAoPOSAs A4AV
ing: A French View" Mr.. Peyre
comments:
But mediocre historical novels,
standardized volumes written with
an eye to the passivity of the
Book of the Month Club sub
scribers Zone dares not say
readers for the monthly selec-
tions are more often prominent
ly displayed in the living room
than actually opened, lay ser
mons peppering Christian ethics
with Freudianism and promising
peace Of mind or a well-adjusted
love life, often make up the only
reading matter purchased by men
and women who once went
through college"
AS for poetry, Prof. Peyre adds,
when any is published by leading
monthlies and quarterlies, it is
"timidly inserted between two long
prose articles so as to appear in
nocuous and seems to have been
selected by superannuated dev-
otees of Longfellow and Edna st.
Vincent Millay." Meanwhile, "the
reading public is deprived Of one
of the most potent means of
knowing and sensing the world in
which it lives, Of the keenest tool
for understanding mems behavior,
motives and aspirations-litera-
ture."
He takes critics to task for writ
ing too much about the past and
not enough about contemporary
writer's, whom they often ignore
or dismiss with: "Posterity must
judge" If more critics would dis
cover worthwhile writers in their
day. he contends, "the reputa-
ton Of those men would begin at
once instead Of having to wait in
purgatory for so years."
And what, after all. is posterity?
The author cites as examples:
'The posterity of Donne, of
Pope, of Shelley, Of Tennyson
changes its mind on the great
ness, or the relative eminence, of
these poets every 80 years." And
the posterity of the novelists
Meredith, Hardy, Galsworthy,
Stendahl. Flaubert and Lott, like
that Of the composers Wagner and
Tschaikovsky and of the painters
Bouguereau, Rousseau and Cezanne
has uttered contradictory DEGREES
within our own memory"
The book brings other stimulat-
ing essays, dealing with Aristotle
and Coleridge as critics, the con-
dition of criticism in Italy and
the philosophy of criticism. The
contributors include John Grove
Ransom. Allen Tate, Benedetto
Croce and r. P. Blackmur. There
is a foreword by Elliott Coleman,
chairman of the department of
writing. speech and drama at. the
Johns Hopkins, and an introduc-
ton by Huntington Cairns.
THE CHRISTMAS TREE
BY Isabel Bolton. (Scribner's;;
S2.75.)
Miss Bolton, who presents her
second novel. has an unusual way
of writing. It is highly effective
for her purpose. which seems to
be to expose the psyches of her
characters with a minimum of
irrelevant chatter and conven-
tional masquerading.
Such economy of literary de-
sign is remarkable. indeed, these
days when authors are so Wordy
that their novels might weIl be
sold by the pound. Sometimes, as
in the first part Of THE Christ
mas Tree" a characters mind ap-
parently is wandering aimlessly,
but these vagrant journeys turn
out to have a direct bearing on
the person and on the drama to
come.
The little group depicted in this
novel are people you probably
could do without knowing, and
yet you're likely to remember
them, even If with aversion. The
chief member of the cast, Hilly,
the middle-aged woman who has
put up a gorgeous Christmas tree
in her New York apartment for