THE MICHIGAN DAILY
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1935
IN THE WORLD OF BOOKS
Coffin Novel Is Etched Sharply
On Maine Coast Background
SOLN4 E:Draws Timeless Characters
In Rugged Westmorland . .
These Made Russians Laugh;
Even Capitalists Will Chuckle
New
lives to a climax. Will believes he
sees his mother yielding, and when
his father fails him once more, the
boy moves in his own way to save
them, and a tragic way it is.
The narrative style is swift and
fluent. Often Mr. Coffin employs
the stream-of-consciousness method,
and this turning inside out of the
mind of Will, the boy, and Will,
the youth, is handled delicately and
sympathetically. The situation be-
tween Will and his mother becomes
a kind of modern Hamlet motif,
growing in psychological intensity to
the crisis.
Besides Will, who is finely drawn
through the subjective method, the
other characterizations are not deep.
Uncle Frank, who has inherited the
integrity of his forbeairs without
their ambition, Cousin Rupert, the
coarse voluptuary, Mrs. Prince, meek
and pretty, these are all pictorial
only, and somewhat superficial.
A storm-scene of rare power and
violence opens the narrative, and
closes it. Mr. Coffin's native de-
scriptive gift lends itself in no small
way to the beauty and impressive-
ness of the whole. Particularly mem-
orable are the passages conjuring
up the fragrant past:
"The old people had walked their
cleandecks in white linen and
watched the brown monkey-men of
Malasia stowing in the chests of frag-
rant tea. In days of sunlight, in days
like the inside of a rainbow. The
showers forever hanging on the
mountains, making triple rainbows
that covered half the sky, and the
melting feet of the rainbows tunning
the mountains where they touched
them into mists of melted gold. Great
colors and great nights. Great bus-
inesses, great men. They had lived
in the heart of a rainbow."
The tale of this disinteg-ating
household, etched sharply against the
austere background of the New Eng-
land coast, while not a great book,
deserves a rank of distinction among
recent novels.
A CRITICAL ESSAY
By LELA DUFF
It is strange that one of the most
excellent English novelists of our
time should have been so largely ig-
nored. In America the name of Con-
stance Holme is almost unknown,
even among book-lovers, while in her
own country, if dearth of critical ma-
terial is any criterion, she has not
fared as well as she deserves. Great
honors have sought her out, it is
true. The Splendid Fairing was
awarded the Femina-Vie Heureuse
prize in 1920-21. With even more
significance the Oxford University
Press has republished seven of her
eight novels in the World's Classics
series, singling her out among all liv-
ing women novelists and putting her
name with a very limited number of
great names of the past, Jane Austen,
the Brontes, George Eliot and Mrs.
Gaskell.
The life of this novelist seems as
inconspicuous and as far removed
from widespread public scrutiny as
are, unfortunately, her novels. Hid-
den away in the removed beauty of
Westmorland, she no doubt pursues
the busy routine of her leisure-class
characters. The wife of a resident
agent of a great estate (Mr. Fred-
erick Burt Punchard), daughter,
grandchild, and great-grandchild
of gentlemen similarly employed, she
has had an unusual opportunity to
know intimately the lives of the in-
dividuals of both extremes of the so-
cial scale whom she interprets in
fiction.
The name Westmorland is destined
to be linked with that of Constance
Holme as indissolubly as is Wessex
with that of Hardy. A quiet county,
it has been as yet uninvaded by the
noises and confusion of the machine
age. Through vistas of green it looks
out to an arm of the sea and back
to the mountains of the Lake Dis-
trict, with a river swirling down the
midst of it to join the two. Deep in
the inner being of Constance Holme
are a love of the soil and an exulta-
tion in beauty, and the soil and the
beauty of Westmorland completely
fill her need.
Definitely located in space as her
novels are, there is no attempt to
fix them in time. Except for the oc-
casional intrusion of an automobile
or a telegram, the same story might
have taken place in those surround-
ings in any decade of the last cen-
tury. The individual characters,
sharply as they are drawn, are as
timeless as the sheep or the fells
they graze on. In this rugged and,
scenic backwater, world - shaking
events hardly penetrate and, once
they have passed over, seemingly
leave no more impression than the
print of a yesterday's motor-car on
Westm-orland's tide-swept beach.
Publishing eight novels during the
dozen years that include the great
war, Miss Holme is as oblivious in
her writings of that great turmoilas,
a century earlier, Jane Austen was
of the Napoleonic upheaval. In an
age, too, when writers have been
prone to flounder in experimenta-
tion, she has found new inspiration
in conventional forms, in old beau-
ties, old wonders, old standards, and
-- I am glad to say -old decencies.
Though endowed with the exquisite
delicacy of understanding of Jane
Austin, Constance Holme has curbed
her native wit and has viewed her
tragic mood. She has cared sincere-
ly for each of them, and by so doing1
has elevated their affairs, howeverl
commonplace, above the trivial. She
has a sweep of imagination, too, that
related her to Emily Bronte. One's
primary impulse, of course, is to
compare her with Hardy, not only be-
cause of the definite and secluded
locale, but also because of the dark
tinge of impending disaster so fre-
quently shadowing the story and the
tender sympathy " with which she
views the struggles of her brain-chil-
dren. However, I should say that
she has made them of sterner fiber,
so that even while one pities them,
one can admire them. Among Amer-
ican writers one turns to Willa Cather
for a comparison. Different as are
the time-hallowed green hills of
Westmorland and the recent, un-
shaded expanses of Willa Cather's
plains, one sees in both women a
delicate perception, a reserve, an apt-
ness of phrase, and a warm sense of
beauty that makes one think of them
as kindred spirits.
* * *
..s one examines the eight books,
one is impressed with their surpris-
ing variety, in theme, plot, and char-
acter portrayal. This little world of
twenty miles square verily contains
a cross-section with infinite possi-
bilities for variation, and one feels
that Miss Holme has by no means
exhausted her vein.
One notes in retrospect, too, cer-
tain abilities that run through the
whole group. Miss Holme's diction
has a precision and a beauty that is
very satisfying. One traces an echo
here and there to Shakespeare and
the Bible; while a judicious use of
the homely Westmorland dialect
gives the page flavor, a restrained wit
makes it stimulating, and a play of
fantasy often leaves an impression
of poetry.
Constance Holme is one of the few
writers of our time whom the dis-
criminating and sensitive reader can-
not afford to miss.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The seven novels
of Miss Holme which may be obtained
in the world's Classics series of the
Oxford Press are Crump Folk Going
Home, The Lonely Plough, The Old
RoadFrom Spain, Beautiful End, The
* Splendid Fairing, The Trumpet in the
Dust, and The Things Which Belong.
He Who Came will be included in the
series next spring.
RUSSIA LAUGHS by Mikhail Zost-
chenko. Boston, Lothrop Lee and
Shepard, $2.00.
By WILBERT HINDMAN
The fine thing about this book is
that Zostchenko writes of the people,
not of the policies, of the Revolution.
Zostchenko, as army officer, rail-
way conductor, bookkeeper, agent of
criminal investigation, instructor of
rabbit and poultry husbandry, car-
penter, and shoemaker, had a kaleid-
oscopic career which thoroughly ac-
quainted him with the typical Rus-
sian who appears in his stories-a
proletarian sadly encumbered by the
bourgeois complications inherent in
his nature. The earnest credulity,
the simplicity often merging into
bumpkinism, the passionate dishon-
esty ,and the primitive intellectual in-
terests of these people are traits con-
vincingly and entertainingly revealed.
In this collection are stories of in-
dividuals living in cramped quarters,
conscientiously grousing about the
rationing of floor space by the house
committee; of personal slovenliness
and environmental dirt; of family
quarrels and neighborhood strife.
And to relieve situations which might
otherwise be wholly drab, there is
always a quirk of humor, however
sardonic, as in "Poverty," when the
landlady, finding that electric lights
reveal dinginess, bugs, and dirt not
noticeable in the illumniation from
kerosene lamps, ingeniously remedies
the situation by cutting the wiring.
Zostchenko's writing is directed to
the Russian masses primarily; it is
significant that they accord him
sweeping popularity. Although from
a conventional viewpoint the book is
artistically and technically spotty,
the direct humor is appealing and
there is an effortless authenticity in
the characters and incidents that is
unusual and revealing and wholly
pleasing.
ADVERTISEMENT
CUATEMO, LAST OF THE AZTEC EMPERORS
By Cora Walker. New York. Dayton Press. 60 Wall Street
A COLORFUL BIOGRAPHY
In writing the biography of CUATEMO, whose destiny it
was to witness the complete downfall and perish with his
empire, Miss Walker has woven an interesting romance in
which she has brought to play the customs, laws, social life,
and wealth of this remarkable civilization.
-COLUMBUS COMMERCIAL-DISPATCH
A GOOD PURCHASE
If you are looking for a good book with which to while away
the hours of the night, CUATEMO is a good purchase.
-THE JACKSON DAILY NEWS
Erudite Professor Of Stanford
Puts Literature In Its Place
I!-...
FIRST NATIONAL BANK
AND TRUST COMPANY
Established 1863
Oldest National Bank
In Michigan
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LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
by Albert Guerard; Boston, Loth-
rop, Lee and Shepard, $3.00.
By MARY SAGE MONTAGUE
Albert Guerard, a Frenchman by
birth and American by choice, is now
a professor of comparative literature
at Stanford University, a fact which
is more than evident in his book. For
while the discussion is rich in allu-
sion and example, one sometimes
wishes that the author had a little
more to offer from his own point of
view, and a little less book larnin'
to draw from. Every bold premise
is followed by a wealth of opinion
from six or seven great wiriters,
and the conclusions that are drawn
seem rather to be a summation of
these opinions, than any congictions
of his own.
The book "attempts to state a
problem and define a method. The
problem is ... To what extent is lit-
erature conditioned by society. The
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STUDENT ACCOUNTS INVITED
Under U. S. Government Supervision
Member Federal Reserve System
ANN OUNCI NG.... !
method is resolutely pragmatic and
comparative." The first of the four
divisions of the book considers the
statement of Taine's that "all litera-
ture is influenced by race, environ-
ment and time." And with this as
a working basis, the author evaluates
each factor, interpreting it in terms
of American experience.
The second division of the book
and that whicn seemed the least val-
uable, is entitled Homo Scriptor:
The Author as a Social Type.. Here
for some seventy-five pages the au-
thor concerns himself with a refu-
tation of old beliefs. Everybody
seems to think, according to Profes-
sor Guerard, that "tue artist or poet
does not submit willingly to con-
ventional discipline . . . he yields
without sufficient resistance to all his
impulses." Only a select and learned
few realize that this is popular fal-
lacy.
In the remainder of the book,
which is devoted to the public, its
reception of, and influence on, liter-
ature, the discussion gathers force
and meaning. Save for a short and
not too successful digression on a
literary Utopia, the author seems to
have something to say. But even
here there are misconceptions; he
says the poets will denounce the age,
but at any definite scheme of reform
they will shudder. What about Ezra
Pound and his monetary system
which he so earnestly defends? And
again, he speaks of the faint-hearted
publishers who dare not lead; suffice
it to mention the publishers of Ger-
trude Stein.
The last chapter, The Prospcet for
American Literature, sounds a note
of hope. In spite of our handicaps
such as: "the brevity of our national
existence; our superstitious rever-
ence for standards; natural selec-
tion, in the formation of our people,
of men who did not place culture
foremost . . . the artistic tempera-
ment is resurgent. All our alibis are
fast losing their validity. We shall
have to produce masterpieces or know
the reason why."
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