THE SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DECEMBER 8, 1928 491 misleading, since the communities observed most to perversion, her own marsh-fire— plans, the misled police affirming the crimes life in his own eyes and the worWs, un­ were selected from only fifteen states, and her indispensability to Michael. to be a murder and a suicide. But Jimmie suspected of being a half-caste. Ill-treated ten of these were in the South; moreover, The story of this bitter, flattering, pos­ thinks otherwise, and makes it his business by his tutor he runs away to Shanghai, and these were for the most part small commu­ sessive woman, would alone fill a novel, but to discover what hidden relationship the there, under the guardianship of an Ameri­ nities which, as Professor Steiner indicates, she shares the stage with all sorts of other abduction of Bobby has to the dual mur­ can consul, friend of his late father, at­ do not represent the ascendant unit in Amer­ people, for one gets also the tale of ders. Jimmie demonstrates the futility of tains youth, distinguishes himself at the ican civilization. The advantage of ana­ Michael's wife in her narrow struggle for entrusting the responsibilities of Sherlock university, becomes a leader of the students' lyzing- the processes of smaller communities personal freedom; the conflict throughout to a fellow of ordinary mental calibre party, agitating against the foreigners, takes is obvious: the forces of control are more childhood and young manhood in Michael's instead of to an intellectual super-man. prominent part in the mass demonstrations. direct and simple. And, the facility gained son, who early comes to know of the At the height of these activities, the secret in such observations should, of course, be strained relations between his parents; and SON OF THE TYPHOON. By JAMES W. of his mixed parentage is revealed to him­ useful in diagnosing our larger urban com­ many, many others. Mrs. Farnhara deals BENNETT. Duffield. 1928. $2. self and his followers, utterly discrediting munities where the forces are more obscure with real problems, but she lets them beset Having resided long in China and in­ him and leaving the unhappy youth in the and baffling. less real people and she solves them in time timately observed the native inhabitants in lowly status of a despised Eurasian. The for a half-happy ending. relation to the foreigner, Mr. Bennett's LITERATURE IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. By book presents a convincing picture of China Porter Landes MacUntock. University of story has verisimilitude, understanding of to-day, and the underlying antagonism, ROGUES FALL OUT. By HERBERT Chicago Press. $1.85. Celestial character, and grasp of the re­ beneath the surface of Hen-li, between his THE JUNIOR GRAMMAR. By Maude Btirbank ADAMS. Lippincott. 1928. $2. public's contemporary international prob­ two opposing racial strains is plausibly sug­ Harding. Marshall Jones. $1.08. Once more the exuberant London bar­ lems. But apart from these obvious points, gested. RIVULETS OF PROSE. By Walt Whitman. rister, young Jimmie Haswell, essays the we have not found the tale a particularly Edited by Carolyn Weill and Alfred F. Gold­ role of amateur crime investigator, a part noteworthy one. The hero is Hen-li, son of BRIEF CANDLE. By NORMAN VENNER. smith. Greenberg. in which, compared with the regulars, he a mandarin's daughter by her reluctant mar­ Bobbs-Merrill. 1928. $2.50. Fiction seems a mere tyro. Little Bobby Maitland riage to an American sea-captain. The Norman Venner had a splendid idea for vanishes into the clutches of kidnappers, latter dies in a typhoon prior to the child's "Brief Candle," but the novel lives up to THE MYSTERIOUS AVIATOR. By while his sick, wealthy grandpa is being birth, and Mei-an, the mother, rears him it only in part. Even so, the book is well NEVIL SHUTE. Houghton Mifflin. 1928. craftily bled by swindlers. These villians from infancy as a full-bred Chinese and above the average in achievement. Two $2. contrive the killing of two men in the bed­ in complete ignorance of his farther's racial questions have long since become classic We found nothing mysterious in the room of an inn, for interference with their identity. Thus Hen-li passes through early (^Continued on next fage') aviator, but what still perplexes us is why (he author spun out to full novel length materials which could have as readily fitted into half that space. In a nutshell: An ex-officer of the Royal Air Force, his life disrupted by the late war, hires his flying tt^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^t^^^^^^^^^^^^^i talents to the Soviet Government, under whose orders, from his plane, he takes nocturnal pictures of English coast fortifi­ cations. A forced landing in his native country brings a meeting with a former brother officer, confession of the treasonable 4 mission, and acceptance of temporary hospi­ tality in the other's house. Latent patri­ 'Twas otism awakes in the renegade, and when his the night photographic plates are stolen by communist after Christ- spies, he and his host set out separately on mas and all a wild chase of the thieves to northern Italy. That's about all we need to tell, for there thru the house, isn't much more to the story, and though the family sat read­ the tale is not badly written, we saw slight ing as still as a mouse. justification for writing it at all. Their books had been SURVIVAL. By EVELYN CAMPBELL. bought with particular Dial. 1928. $2.50. care, for St. Nicholas The advantages of having one's reach exceed one's grasp are not always apparent: wantedhis presents to wear; a case in point is Evelyn Campbell's "Sur­ Alicia the artist lay snug vival." The novel has an unusual and in­ in her bed, while pictures of teresting beginning. Very slowly, granting only a hint at a time, and thus sharpening obelisks danced through her the reader's curiosity, the book moves from head. The book she was read­ the opening sentence, "The charge against ing (by Monsieur Capart) gave the defendant is dismissed," through several picture and text for the Nile and pages of quivering detail before the situa­ tion becomes clear. A woman has been ac­ its art} And William, his thoughts quitted of being an accomplice in the mur­ on a higher degree, was learning the der of her husband. This woman's strug- route to a grand Ph. D. by reading a gle for spiritual survival is the theme of the novel. She leaves the court room volume that sparklingly told how stripped of all possessions save a little cabin French Culture invaded the Puritan in the Carolina mountains. Here amid fold.^ Alicia's sister (a little bit daring) hardship and adversity she makes her fight against evil and intolerance and for love reclined at her ease while her mind went and charity. Her understanding of these afaring from Gongora^ strange and draw­ terms has nothing new in it and lacks any ings satiric to the poet's gay songs in the Ro­ depth or color that one might hope for manesque Lyric* And Father, most proud from a character of her experience. This surface evaluation of life mars the latter of his business man's mind, was perusing a part of the book and leads only to a com­ book that he thought was a find. It told how ing together of the woman and a man t he cotton mill came to this section through which is replete with the stereotyped, even to movie captions about finding life to­ Gregg^—and it helped him explain the election. gether. While Mother, most liberal one of them all, who hated to see Modern Liberty fall, was pleased with her MARSH-FIRE. By MATEEL HOWE FARN- HAM. Dodd, Mead. 1928. $2. gift, a book, which she said, was the best on thesubject she Mateel Howe Farnhara, daughter of "The ever had read.* So absorbed were they all that the y jumped up Story of a Country Town" Ed. Howe, won in fright as the clock rang out twelve: Is it that late ? GOOD NIGHT I the 1926 Dodd, Mta.d-Pu:torial RevUiv prize with her novel, "Rebellion." That 'Lectures on Egyp­ book, the story of the love—and misun­ derstandings—between generations, showed tian Art by M. that Mrs. Farnham did not take her pen in Jean Capart, $5 hand lightly. "Marsh-Fires" is further ^America a nd proof of this. There is plenty of story French Culture, by in both books. Mrs. Farnham handles situation with great ease, but never far be­ Howard M. Jones, $5 low the story lies the disastrous impact of ^Gongorismand the Golden Age by E. K. Kane, $3.50 •personality on personality. That is the *The Romanesque Lyric by Philip S. Allen, with author's paramount interest. verse translated by Howard Mumford Jones, $4.50 The intertwining of character and in- :fluence is even more complex in "Marsh- * William Gregg, by Broadus Mitchell, $3.00 Fire" than in the earlier volume. The 'Liberty in the Modern World by George Bryan elusive marsh light that draws travelers Logan, Jr., with foreword by John L. Lowes, $2.00 from their safe course in the vain hope of warmth is followed by more than one per­ son in the novel. In particular, Michael Fielding, the young hero, follows it. Over­ riding the reluctance of a girl of nineteen, he marries her, thinking to rest safely and Jiappily \n her love but only to find that marriage and love are not at all synony­ mous.