THE MICHIGAN DAILY THE MICHIGAN DAILY www Books and Writers .www , After College NMl1EN C(EMElNT. By Ernest Brace. Jarper & Brothers. 1924. $2.00. As the purveyors of romance avoid at relatively uneventful area fol- wing on courtship, so have the prac- loners of the poplar "college novel" mly eschewed the unromantic year er graduation. Romance does not ten upon Clisillusionment; and it evident from the nature of its pur- se that the college novel, even the ost successfully realistic, is spang- d with youth's Illusion. Mr. Braces's Commencement is a llege novel in the respect that the thor hails evidently from an insti- tion of higher education as does s hero. Yet it departs from the stom of tricking out therfamiliar 'mula of romance with the newer d smarter idiom of college and col- d$ ways and means. Those readingI the almost inumerable pages of Ilegiate fiction now coming from c press must sometimes wonder at becomes of the hero after four gauded years. It is not too much say that this is it. Perhaps the best that can be said r Mr. Brace is that he has sensed' e possibilities for a story in the oblematical year that begins with mnencement. He has had the cour- e, if ,you want to call it that, to en his story outside the sideshow graduation exercises. Gregory .rumm is launched in life and the legiate elms know him no more fore the initial chapter is done. is is a new field-so far as I am are-an interesting one, and one tich Mr. Brace has not exhaustedl th the crop of fiction he has >l' On it. Based on the notorious Franks' mur- der case, it is a sordid affair indeed. Out 0 The West Here Dr. Lewis waxes'most didactic and expatiates upon the error of giv- ing youths too much money and un- employed time. But be that as it SALLIE'S NEWSPAPER. By Edwin may, Sallie breaks her engagement to Herbert Lewis. Hyman-McGee, Jim. Why the crime should in any Chicago. 1924. effect the matrimonial projecttis most I difficult to detect. Only on the last We may count this among that mul- page does Sallie remark, "I am the titude of non-significant novels that daughter of cousins, and cannot be have recently come out of Chicago. sure that my children would not be 'he first chapter loses us in a maze neurotic. I am still worth more than ,)f family relationships more discon- two millions and if I had children I uerting than the opening verses of would probably ruin them." With the New Testament. Thereafter we these words, Sallie informs Jim of mush through the slush of three hun- her intention to remain single. Jim, dred pages of irrelevant commentar- that persistent lover, appears as hard les on current events, irrelevant dis- hit by thisannouncement as if he had sertations on theology, innane dia- just read that the Tsi-Chung troops logue, and insufficiently motivated ac= had captured Ying Yang. And thus tion. True, there are spasmodic the story ends on the same page, with flashes of a certain literary capacity Sallie going to England to spend her as displayed by Dr. Lewis in his best two millions and Jim getting a posi- work, "Those Above Trench", and tion as hired man on a farm. "S allie's Newspaper" is pervaded by a' No chiaracter was' a real, thinking, good sense of the local Wisconsin at-s mosphere but we count the pages of talking person but rather an auto- this latter worth to the end. s maton, sometimes running to type but The locale-the small town of d.- as frequently expressing the most Thk localetheGrsmayrognoSeg- hetrogenous ideas. Their matter of ankuin the Green Bay region of factness was boring except on certain Wisconsin.t occasions when it became so brutally The thread of the tale, as it cam n frank as to hold the attention. best be ferreted out of an amazing k array of complications and loose con- Dr. Lewis should be commended on structions-Sallie Flower, the last of the clever way in which he used the wealthy and respected family of newspaper articles in the "Sun" to Flowers, returns from California to carry on the narrative and relay de- the village of her nativity in. Wiscon- tailed information to the reader. On sin to manage her inherited interests. the whole, however, the technique is Among these interests is the Segan- poor and the sequence of action il- ku "Sun." So in this connection she logical. And so this very poor plot is thrown into contact with Jim capsuled in a middling-fair literary Fletcher, the young editor. Propin- style comes out of the west for the quity breeds a mutual. affection but world's attention. Dromillard Schmit, an ambitious -Frank Deans. young business executive and man about town, casts his hat into the The Stepladder, published by the ring and provides Jim with the most Order of Bookfellows (Chicago) con- keen competition. After much in- tains two items of local interest: The trigue involving some twenty-five announcement for publication of The chara~cters, Dromillard is eliminated Legend of the Book by Eloise Street and Jim is on a clear road to cap and Gilbert Doane, a history of book- ture the rather homely, but attrac- iaking in blank verse; and an article tive and wealthy, Sallie. But a hein- about the poetry of Richard Kirk who, ous crime committed by two young one edited the Gargoyle's forebear, men change the course of events. The Wrinkle. Historically Speaking CITADEL. By Joseph lusbtand; pub. lished by 'Houghton Mifflin Co., $2.60. "From the high bulwark in the waist ofathe brig, John Bush watched the boat of Monsieur Samatan pull steadily toward the shore."- Taking a mental half-titch on my imagination, I waded (figuratively speaking), into the yarn of history, romance, adventure on the high seas and the court of a Negro king. Even- tually I laid the book aside and tried to trace the plot through in my mind. An hour later I was still trying. Citadel is like that. It holds your attention, interests you, and leaves you only with a vivid panorama of sea fights, toiling slaves, duels, moon- lit gardens, death rings and wild rides at quite indecent hours of the night.) The plot is quite a simple one-thatf it, it follows the expected course and closes with the conventional fade-out, but it loses footing as the mad es- capeds of the characters whirl them from peril to safety and back again.c John Bush is an interesting char- acter with the luck of a second Leif Ericson. Born a Quaker, he leaves; home by request, the reader infers,I and the plot opens with him in the! port of Le Cap in French Haytian San Domingo in the last month of 1814. As a vivid narrative history of San Domingo at that time, the book is a masterpiece. The rule of terror under the Negro king who could neither read nor write is depicted with a grim reality. The 'duel on the rimi of the citadel fortress ofthe king is con- vincing enough, but the escapes of the hero at times border on the disgust- ing. Miracles of that sort are to be expected when one picks up a novel of some diminutive foreign nation and her stalwart American savior, but the Graustarkian heroics seem out of place in the historical novel of Mr. Husband. The story may even be a true one, for truth is oftenestranger than fiction, and under that definition, Citadel may be written from fact. The heroine, Mademoiselle Virginia, wholly feminine, charmingly helpless,! adds the required universal touch- the "whole world's skin" sentiment evidently necessary to the success of. an historical novel. There are some parts of th'e storyl i which are vague and hard to under- stand. One wonders how Huggett gets, back to Le Cap, and how Virginia makes her final escape undetected. The whole tone of the work is tinged with excitement, so that these uncertainties go unnoticed until the reader thinks over the story. Scribner's announce that Arthur Train, in preparing to write "The Needle's Eye," which is about the. West Virginia coal fields, studied the situation for two years, "reading every report about soft coal and the bituminous coal situation." la MARTIN HALLER 112 E. Liberty Street A group of occasional piec. s---Furniure you can use---and it looks ihell -ST Merchandise With Merit 1111 South University Ave. Phone 1160-R EAT' H-ERE TODAY M - YOU Will enjoy our Sunday evening . SpeGials_ Open at 4:00 P.:M. Hot Waffles Chicken "A LaKing" Salads Sndwiches, etc. Ar _b or_ _t _ TIn n AoState Street etilmI!!lltiilm lliliIil iiliiili!!itiill #!l ii li~ in ~ liim iiiii!#llili iiHi Spine",- D 3k Ouaint and useful Desk with graceful turned legs and large writing bed. Unusually con- venient drawers and com- partmrents Very reason- ably. Wmidow Seats This cot forms a most ples- ing window seat. Can >e ex- touded into a full sized bed. Secretary A three-shelf compartment for books, long drawer and plea 'f of pigeon holes. In true Eat xy American style. ,Both decora- five and useful ti Jl Mlr. B3race is only an average writer nd he is further handicapped by hav- ng not settled in his pwn mind the -A.ues of the world of busiless in viich,'the cpilege man finds himself, n graduation. He. has turned his )ack'on the easily dramatized univer- ity scene with the drama and variety f its hot-house life, the world of alues with which he is no doubt nore familiar. The four years of chool are comparatively united tow- rd a definite goal; an individual, moving; through them., goes in certain onventional ways. After commence- Went this unity departs from his life nd from his soul; he is a ship afloat n an' uncharted ocean. All the train- ig of his immediately past four years apparently at variance with the equirmeents of his present circum- ances. It is a period tangled and >nfused by subtle inhibitions, a dif- cult material for a beginning writer. The handling of this material in ie present example is not remark- ble; the" author's style is common- ace, obstructed by a frequent infel- ity of phrase. His people are not ifornied with the breath of art that ould make them individuals instead the types they are. Their actions :c interesting and remarkable; how-' er", for the saving grace of the book: at it is the story of a college man ter college. tiaie311111ll1a1a1{!{caaaaQalilt !{113lii 1 1 {1 {{1111 111 {tal11111111111 H li III 111111111111 w{I BUT TER, EGGS, CHEESE, FRUITS AND VEGETABLES w -2276-R 2140-J S w Vimdsor RIe j Quaint sturdy and simple ig this Windsor Rocker that canj be used in aJlmQt any rqo m j the house. I- You'l Want .I STUDENTS: e announce this fall a high quality 1e of Stilts and Overcoats at S$24.50 and $29.50 ailored to your individual measure [th the guarantee of complete tisf action. Also, Water-proof Topcoats from $12.00 to $30.00 Small Deposit with order. INTERSTATE TAILORS, American Hotel ,all or Phone 123 for Appointment i i it Sictures of The Illinoi~s FOR CHOICE FOOD TUTTLE'S LUNCH ROOM Giamne for your Memory book A good kodak Will materially Help you to get 338 Maynard 'i Them. Then -El Don't Forget Let us develope The films. 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