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 1 i r i 1 c 3 E 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 Every Banking Service Available Domestic - - - Foreign 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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