THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Usual
YOU TOO, by Roger Burlinga
lished by Scribner', $2.00.
Reviewed by Norma Bick]
"You Too," the title in itseil
cinating. The -fascination
half-way through the book a
without evident reason, it dies
the end of the first half the
stolid and usual. Occasionall
points drift in but there is no
the spontaniety of the first ha
The story deals with Gail, a
er who possesses a sense of
Through the death of his fathe
herits an income large enough
port him comfortably until hec
duce a novel. He goes to as
resort and falls in love with
who has a step-mother. The c
exhortations of the step-moth
Gail into advertising work. B
comes his god, producing bu
vocation. Gradually his work4
him so thoroughly that hen
his wife. Jealousy and dissen
low. Gail's wife leaves him bu
the book ends Gail is confid
he can win her again.
There is a definite force an
to the character of Gail. Mu
wife, is not consistent throughi
step-mother is admirable.
The best touch in the who
comes in the next to the lastc
Gail, despairing because his w
left him, decides to drown1
Just as he prepares for the p
gigantic yellow sign flashes ac
river, "It Floats." Gail's sers
mor saves his life.
POSION IVY
REJVIEW
Though the trills of feathered song-
sters, the deepening green of the fields
the wisp, has attracted people throug and all the signs of newly-awakened
.h..ag.,. Th ahicopea nrougfspring invite you to venture far out
the ages. The Philosopher's Stone is in the country, yet be sircumspect in
a hypothetical substance which, ac-; your wanderings for lurking in dis-I
re. Pub- cording to the mediaeval alchemists,y guise, the fateful poison ivy lies in
would convert all baser metals into wait or just such nature lovers.
:nell gold. To the wide and unremitting The tell-tale triad of leaves has not
f is fas- search for it'according to this inter- et elo-edl ot hedxo s weed,
extends pretation, we are indebted for the yet deveioped on the obnoxious weed,
nd then birth of the science of chemistry, as making it difficult for the novice to
.. Fthebirthofrhmanycieneoheins ry distinguish it, and in consequence he
b.From w l las for many inventions.n who stoops to pluck a crocus or per-
book is Later the elixir of life came to be an chance an early violet is liable to
y subtle extension in meaning of the Philoso- suffer great torment. A crocus or
olonger pher's stone. After the 13th century' violet is not at all exclusive in its
alf. a mystic and esoteric interpretationi siletin o neigbors nxouv mate how
dream- seems to have been applied to morals, detrimental the neighbor may be to
humor. the stone bringing the wearer wis- human hands or arms.
r he in- dom and virtue, purifying the soul. s
to sup- ; Mr. Larsen uses it as symbolic of the
can pro- faith for which the various characters
summer which people his pages are groping. It'
a girl is the strange byways of thought andCi:e m
onstant action into which these people are led
er force by their search that forms the nar-
unk be- rative of "The Philosopher's Stone".
unk his
absorbs]
neglects
Sion fol-
ut when
ent that:
d depth
riel, his
out. The
le book
chapter.
wife has
himself.
lunge a
ross the
e of hu-
Arcade
H- __ _In his latest motion picture, "Tri-
umph", Cecil B. De Milie returns to
Th Critics An*;the type of modern society drama in
which he scored his earlier and most
* idecided successes. Leatrice Joy, the
I __ heroine, is loved by two men. She
starts in the world of business as a
humble factory forelady and becomes
It is a singular fact that whenever a famed opera singer with two worlds
anything appears in literature which at her feet. And yet wealth and fame
contains any element of novelty or are not enough until-Fate tumbled
originality, there is the widest diver- one man, Rod La Rocque, from a mil-
sity among critics as to its value. lionaire's fortune to a park bench.
Some are for carving a niche for it Fate sweeps the rival, Victor Varconi,
immediately in the walls of posterity. from overalls to a limousine and per-
Others, in biting phrases, consign it fumed pajamas. But through the vicis-
to the garbage pail. A writer like Carl situdes of the two men's fortunes, one
Sandberg can precipitate more fights thing remains constant-their love for
than half a dozen Kaisers. Why is the girl. Upon which lover does Fate
this so? Why is there an almost finally smile?
unanimous lack of unanimity in opin- Pola Negri comes to the Arcade on
ion concerning anything which' has a Friday and Saturday in "Montmarte",J
touch of freshness, a taste of the orig- a picturization of Hans Muller's "The
inal? Flame."
The answer almost invariably comes
that no two critics agree upon a truly Ma.jestic
original work because no two human j "The Fighting Coward", produced
Empty Hands
EMPTY HANDS, by Arthur Stringer.
Published by Robbs Merrill, $2.00.
Reviewed by Robert S. Mansfield
At last a novel of adventure with
enough plot and general interest to
make it worth reading! Arthur
Stringer has avoided the college and
has journeyed as far as possible frm
the social whirl in seeking material
for his latest novel, "Empty Hands,"
and has built a book which does him
credit. I enjoyed "Empty Hands"
from start to finish despite the evident
impossibility of it at various points
in the story. Handling only two main
characters throughout the body of the
book, the author has stolen a point of
interest from the Greek tragedy, and
has made a success of it as well as
Dickens made his success through the
apparently nuimberles.s characters of
his novels.
"Empty Hands" is thes tory of a
man and a woman who are thrown to-
gether, cut off from civilization, as a
result of the man's attempt to rescue
the woman from drowning in a swift
mountain stream. Scarcely knowing
e ch other, and cast ashore far down
the canyon without even a vestige of
clothing between them, they face the
wilderness life empty handed. The
man is,,fortunately, a skilled woods-
man, and his progress in the fight
against the primitive conditions sur-
rounding them can be called nothing
less than phenomenal. Mr. Stringer
has stretched a ooint here, but his
minute description of every piece of
work accomplished by his hero dulls,
in the reading, the racr of hnpos-
sibility..
Claire Endicott and Shomer .Grim-
shaw are at the outset very unlike
characters to the casual glance. I
could not help but admire the mastery
of Mr. Stringer ,in bringing the':two
widely diffre ntiated minds together.
An athletic girl who is woefully in-
competent at everything but swim-
ming and similer sports and a man
who has spent his life in the undevel-
oped sections of the world as an en-
gineer, and who is undeniably a wo-
man hater, aren ot likely to under-'
stand each other nor feel particularly
enthusiastic ov'er the abilities of the
other. The building of the home in the
wilderness brings them closer to-
get her, and at the same time rein-
forces the iwall tha.t must come be-
tween them. Claire is the daughter
of the man who employs Grimshaw,
and he, with an unlooked-for restraint
feels himself laboring in his employ-
er's inteersts in saving his daughter
and trying to restore her to civiliza-
tion and safety. Claire has no such
enlarged. ideals, and when she finds
herself falling in love with her com-
panion acts much as one would expect
a primitive woman to act.
Mr. Stringer knows whereof hE
writes, and he describes scenes and
incidents in the forest life which could
be told by no one who was not famil-
iar with th'e subject. The story is sc
typically imaginative as to seem al-
most real. It is the first book of pure-
ly fictional adventure which has ap-
pealed to me, and I found it refresh-
ingly different from the recent run of
books which I have read. It is not a
new theme, but it is a new treatment
of an old one, and while it may never
be a best seller, it will provide active
interest, however brief, for those who
read it.
THE PRIZE NOVEL
nort n
Fat.ller
anid
r
_
a , IIv v
minds are alike. Yet, all of these same by the man who made "The Covered
critics agree on some things. They Wagon", James Cruze, and featuring
all bow to Shakespeare, Smollett, Ernest Torrence, Mary Astor, Noah
Fielding, Jane Austen, Dickens, Tho- Berry, Phyllis Haver and Cullen Lan-
mas Hardy, and a host of others. If dis, is showing at the Majestic today
human minds did not work alike to a through Wednesday. The production
certain extent this would never be so. is the Picturization of Booth Tarking-
There would be the same fights over $ ton's "Magnolia", a southern love
Shakespeare and Aristophanes that comery-drama. It is a story of the
we witness now over Vachel Lindsay Mississippi before the Civiil War.
and James Joyce. Richard Dix is featured with Lois
The commonest criticism of new Wilson in "Icebound", which comes to
writers is that people can't under- the Majestic on Thursday. The pic-
stand them. People say, "This doesn't ture was awarded the Pulitzer prize
mean anything to me," or "What's this for the best American drama of the
all about, anyway?. Their chief past season. Bartram and Saxton,
criticism, then, is not in what the who will be remember as having en-
writers have to say, but in their way tertained us with their song melodies
of saying it. But words, after all, are last fall at the Majestic will make a
nothing but symbols for ideas. They return engagement this week.
mean nothing in themselves. So,
when a writer has something new to Wuerth
say, he must give new meanings to Girls, here, there, everywhere. Short
his words, must twist and distort theni ones, tall ones; blond and brunette;
to agree with his ideas. The reading flappers and vamps-girls of every
public (including the critics) has be- kind and description! Picked by a
come used in the meantime to the old beauty expert! No wonder Harold
manner of expression. Then, when was "Girl Shy"-surrounded on every
something new appears it gropes # hand by such a crowd of pulchritude
blindly around in search of the key and pertness. And The Girl is Jobyna
to the puzzle. Finding the key, it Ralston, the little seventeen-year-old
lauds; failing in its search, it con- miss who starred in "Why Worry".
demns. (Continued on Page Fifteen)
Historical Non-Fiction
A trains The Limelight
I
I
. r .
Remember Mother! See her face beam with joy at your
thoughtfulness. Make her great; big, loving heart throb
with happiness---on this day set aside for her reverence.
Mothers don't ask for much in this great world---and too
often they get less. The older we get, the more we realize
this and how much we truiyowe them. Mother nature is
to get joy from gmivng---from self
look for anything in return.
safi ce.
eT don't
A LASTING GIFT
THE FABULOUS FORTIES. By
ea de innigerode; published byl
Plrtam, $ 3.50.l
Reviewed by Robert S. Mansfield.
Back to the days of P. T. BarnumI
back to the time of Dickens' visit to
kmerica, back to the decade when;
Vew York was beginning to feel its
;neatness and to form its "400", Meade
Winnigerode has carried his readers
,)ver three quarters of a century to
'iew the customs of their national an-
:estors. "The Fabulous Forties" is
-ell named,-they were fabulous in
io small sense of the word, and yet I
wonder, as I read the book, if our day
lnd age may not be as. easily made lu-
licrous some seventy-five years henceI
uiuman nature changes little, but
noral standards and habits of living
,hange with each sunrise, and theS
iuman nature of 2000 A. D. is very
ikely to laugh at the idiosyncrasies of
.he smug, self satisfied life of 1924.
From the drama of the period
hrough two presidential campaigns,
:ontemporary literature, habits of
'ome life, patent medicines and num-
)erless other phases of th'e life of the
1840s, Mr. Minnigerode wends his
seemingly aimless and highly inter-
sting way. He deals with the period
n a half amused, half patronizing at-
.itude, spicing the pages at pleasingly
°requent intervals with quotations
rom diaries, letters and newspapers
>f the day. Hand bills of entertain-
'nents are reproduced in fasimile, and
the more primitive methods of adver-
tising by appeal to what are now con-
sidered childish emotions are highly
amusing to an up to date reader.
The illustrations are all made from
woodcuts and engravings of the per-.
iod, and are fairly numerous through-
out the work. Fashion plates from
Gody's "Ladies Book", a magazine of
fashion of the period, are fully as ex-
aggerated and impossible as those oft
the present day. Historical cuts, evi-
dently from newspapers and maga-
zines, appear from time to time, ample
evidence of the sensational cravings!
DANCING." If, in 1844, one were "so
unfortunate as to have contracted the
low hat it of smoking, one must prac-
tice it under certain restrictions, at
least so long as you are desirous of
being considered- fit for civilized so-
,ciety."
Journalism of the period is quoted
freely, and the tendency to lengthy
accounts of festivities is well shown.
After reading several of these ex-
cerpts in succession, I feel that the de-
cade could well be called the "age of
the adjective."
Under the chapter hea: of "Prodi-
gies and Tambourines", Mr. Minnige-
rode has discussed the character of
the entertainments in the '40s. Negro
minstrels were particularly popular,
one troupe which planned a stay of a
few weeks at Mechanics' Hall on
Broadway remained there nine years
and eleven months. These troupes
went about under various high-sound-
h ing titles, among them:
CHRYSTY'S
far famed and original band of
ETHIOPIAN IINSTRELS
and the hand bills spoke of their
"unique and chaste performances" as
having been "patronized by the elite
and fashion of all the principal cities
of the Union."
With a vivid account of the gold
rush of 1849, Mr. Minnigerode brings
his book to a close. I closed the book
somewhat regretfully. It is non-fic-
tion, to be sure, but I feel that it
ranks in interest with that remarkable
non-fiction work "Galapagos" by Wil-
liam Beebe which has so taken the
literary world. "The Fabulous For-
ties" reads like a. series of short stor-
ies, but never neglects historic facts
for the sake of interest. It is a com-
preh'ensive treatment of a famous
period in the history of our country,
and deserves a wide reading by all
American citizens.
Support the University of Michigan
Fresh Air Camp! The cost of sending
one child to the camp for one of the,
lowers fade, even the thoughts of a telegram or letter die
away as time passes, but the returns from a few shares of
the Michigan Mutual Savings Association will remind her
.elk
on every dividend day of your thoughfuhness. Phone for a
representative to call and explain the difference between
risky "stock" a1d a safe security tblat we cen offer.
Cnly a limited umber of memberShips 1'emain. The
grw of the Michgan 1 utuaSavings Associahton
Ias been rapid in Ann Arbor, but the books will sil
be open for those who apply within the next few days.
Do not delay until it is too late, but see us at once.
M
Mutual
lfidmmmb ft Almtk
A s
J.
r Larsen's "The Philoso-
ne" which won the $14,000
prize is being sent to the
Alfred A. Knopf for a sec-
printing a week in advance
ion. Written in Danish, it
Phones 598. 64-M
121 E. WASHINGTON