PAGE EIGHT TIE MICHIGAN DAILY 4PAIN THE WORLDJ OF BOOKS SUNDAY, NOV. 1, 1906 Inte lectuCl Considers South A Symbol Of Intolerant World PARRISH, Preoccupied With Man's, Relationship To Nature DISNEY Tells Harrowing Tale Of . Gore, Gloom and Murder Our Cousins, The English Here is one of the amusing stories told by Mary Ellen Chase, author of Mary Peters and Silas Crockett, in _her new book, This England. - COURTHOUSE SQUARE: Hamilton Basso. By LEON OVSIEW In Courthouse Square the South stands as a symbol of a world rife purchase of the ruined old Legendre mansion, the proudest remnant of the town's former splendor. Spurred by Pick Eustis and Dan Lamar the town rises in revenge upon the effrontery of the negro, and the defiance of the DEATH IN THE BACK SEAT by Dorothy Cameron Disney. Random House. $2. GOLDEN WEDDING, by rish; (Harpers). Anne Par- with intolerance and hatred; of a Judge. society ruled by prejudice and. steeped1 The problem set by the book may in ignorance. It is a world which best be stated in Hamilton Basso'sl has always hounded with a vindic- own words: "Are the legend and tive cruelty those independent spirits memory of man to perish in a bog of who have attempted to live life hon- mud and mire-the mud of intoler- estly and beautifully, and have ex- ance, the mire of hate?" And his an- pected the golden rule return from 3wer: "There is much talk of causes, society. but in the babel of voices we forget Such an idealist is David Baron- the only cause there is-the cause of* dess, son and grandson of other man, himself." Barondesses who stood armed against Here, then, is the problem of the society in defense of their liberty as modern world's ills as seen and as individuals to live by truth. But answered by an intellectual and an Macedon, the South, the world de- idealistic liberal. For him both fas- feated these men. Yet, disgusted cism and communism are unfree, in- with the shallowness and the trivial tolerant, and full of hatreds. In meannesses of New York, and ill in these directions man cannot expect soul and spirit by the tragic acci- to discover truth and beauty in life. dent which lost him his unborn child These are life-killing, leading man and the love of his wife, David comes backward into those dark ages before back to his native city, Macedon. fI-eason and idealism lighted the world. An author of some reputation, he Man cannot live, cannot create a plans to set to work upon the biogra- genuine civilization except that man phy of his grandfather, Edward 3e free and at liberty to guide his Barondess, who earned the town's life by these "stars" of reason and undying hatred by fighting with the idealism, by beauty and by truth. Yankee forces - because he believed This is a book to be read by those in abolition, honestly and sincerely. Whowish a vivid and remarkably co- In the family home on "Abolition gent expression of the solution that Hill" out "in the country" of Mace- the social liberal has to offer to the don, David is stirred and impassioned problems by which contemporary civ- by the figure of his father, mentally ilization is beset. It is a vigorous re- dead and spiritually beaten by the affirmation of the idealistic faith in town's revenge. He had dared, as man's ability to develop strong and Judge, to refuse to sentence an ille- clear-seeing individuality. It is an gally convicted negro. honorable faith with a tradition that In this Southern town, still living takes it straight back to Plato. But as it does in the mental environment it is also an intellectual's faith, and of the year eighteen sixty, David is no one better proves it than Basso an intruder. Surrounded by enmity, himself. In this novel of the South personified in Pick Eustis, the neu- which is so intimately concerned with rotic sex-starved editor of the weekly 'he manifold problems of the slave Macedon Mercury, Dan, Lamar, the population of the South, Basso can grown-up town bully, and a "nigger offer nothing to the Negro except the hater" of note, and Daisy Button- promise that he, and his fellow in- wood, the gossiping social leader of tellectuals, will attempt to save them Macedon, David is hurt and disgust- from the immediate harm offered ed. Tense and nervous, he decides to "them by the intolerant and the hat- leave the town at once. But the in- I(ng. To the Negro he offers nothing, exorability of events makes escape tolerance he wants for himself. But 'impossible. to this reviewer the weakness of the Alcide Fauget, the negro druggist book is its analysis. The problem must who had saved the life of a white remain; is intolerance the cause of child by a penknife operation and the breaking down of our liberal cul- who had so gained a certain measure ture, or is it itself the effect of a of patronizing recognition, had dis- deeper-lying cause, the economic sys- played the temerity to negotiate, Lem? Of this problem Basso has through Judge Barondess, for the, little to say. IT IS possible that the author of "The Perennial Bachelor and "All Kneeling" has decided to write the family saga to end all family sagas. At any rate, Anne Parrish's Golden Wedding has that effect. Miss Parrish has, when she wants By ARNOLD DANIELS A young New York couple, vaca- tioning in Crockford, Conn., drove in- to New Haven on a rainy evening to do a favor for their aristocratic oldl landlady, and reached home with a dead man in their rumble seat. But the dead man had shaved off his mustache a few days before, wore Crockford, however, is not a typi- reader has a definite feeling that he Englishman, who had been on a rie cal small town. Its people are as has helped in solving the crimes, and business trip to Canada and the vicious as novelists usually make thus the book is more than ordinarily United States, invited me to a con- them, and not particularly real. Small interesting. test. I was to write all the counties towns in the East differ greatly from Miss Disney's style is pleasant, and of England which I knew, and he as those in other sections. They have I easy to read. It flows along quite many as he could of the 48 states of acquired a mellowness and candorI .the Union. Since I have spent much which are charming, and every sec- I smoothly, and adapts itself readilym; ond housewife is not a gossip. Age I to the problem of presenting the en-i ness is the teaching of English liter- has added to the life of such towns a tire story through the mind of an in- ature, I necessarily know that Cum- L+A±n Hisniav n.rnthv niUJ v hay tnllinnv t40Jtj *Jvfl :----n in- ns is the teachin o E n t cel uain fulgilay. ^ l.Juluully Li1bi1Cy llaa li i .. , to use it, a razor-edged keenness, false glasses, and used an alias. And with which she can penerate to the because Mrs. Coatesnash, their land- core of whatever she inspects, and lady, and owner of Hilltop House, was lay bare its faults-and virtues. In in Europe, it is impossible to discover Golden Wedding she has substituted who the man really is. Into the rather a type of Victorian procedure which, confused situation are projected Les- ter Harkway of the Connecticut State carried to excess. leads readers to -. suicide. This is the constant habit of referring everything to Nature. The characters of Golden Wedding, the sensitive ones, that is, are always looking at our resembling butter- flies, bees, daffodils and whatnot. The other characters are forever ignoring or misinterpreting these things. It throws her study off center. She is writing about a success. Her Dan is the modern Midas who from youth suffers from the slights he imagines his poverty has brought him, and re- sentfully determines to redress the slights with the kudos money brings. Everything he does makes money; he foresees every panic, and' gets out in time. When agricultural machinery is the best outlet, he forces the factory- for which he works into making them. He works the railroad racket, and he foresees and utilizes to his ends the motor car business. He ends up fabulously rich, the keystone of an arch, the separate stones of which are the dependent members of his own and every other family he has touched. But he has married Laura, and Laura is one of those vacantly sensi- tive girls who resents her husband's preoccupation with business but de-t ; Police, and John Standish, Crockford Chief of Police. Then follow mur- ders, attempted murders, howling dogs and villians who chuckle at the plight of their hapless victims. It is all quite dramatic, and onf too many occassions melodramtic. For instance, "The door began to close, slowly and deliberately as it had opened. Fantastically, in the darkness, I heard a low soft chuckle." And what prevented the marauder, who later turns out to be killer and kidnaper, from adding, "You're in my power, m'proud beauty." Animal cupidity, perhaps. But the plot is interesting, and there is an ample supply of clues. By using a smattering of animal cupidity yourself, you may be able to solve the numerous murders before the book is, done. The young couple who are drawn into the mess through no fault of their own have a rather hard time of it, however, Jack coming pretty close to death once when his head is bashed in by an unknown marauder. There are many marauders in the tale, most of them not unwilling to commit mayhem of any sort, and this helps keep up interest. The two policemen who attempt to solve the series of crimes-three mur- ders, the cremation of a blooded mas- tiff and a suicide in Paris-are treat- pictured Crockford in an unfortu- nate light. She has been distinctly unfair. Aside from this, the background is well-suited to the plot. Hilltop House is a huge, lonely mansion, with 30 dusty, dark unused rooms andI three rooms which are used by Mrs. Coatesnash and her companion, Laura Twining. Early in the story, this gloomy place is left empty and deserted, and within it most of the book's action is centered. There Silas, the handy-man is brutally beaten to death with a'kitchen chair, and in the big refrigerator is found the body of Franklyn Elliott. In the old furnace is found a piece of bone which proves.later to be all that re- mains of Mrs. Coatensnash's pet mas- tiff. And the crimes are finally solved as the old mansion burns down. Had not the plot been worked out as well as it is, the solution might tax the reader's patience and im- agination. As it is, however, it seems quite logical, and it makes one wonder if these aren't pretty mad days, because it carries with it a defi- nite sense of reality. "Death in The Back Seat" (modernf America calls it the rumble seat) isl unique in that the persons who solve the mystery are, not brilliant de- tectives, are not tough reporters, are not retiring and scholarly, do not breed scotties, do not smoke long, perfumed cigarettes, and have not the faintest idea of who the murderer is until he commits -suicide under their very noses. And this is as it should be, because the case is a very com- plex one, and the murderer is very clever, and his motives are many and varied. r 3 telligent, emotional young woman. berland is in the Lake region, that This, also, is unique in the mystery Stratford-on-Avon is in Warwick- form of novel. The few weak points shire, and that Yorkshire does not in the book are successfully out- protrude into the English Channel. balanced by the good ones, and the My list of 30 out of the 39 English result is entertaining. Probably you counties was somewhat less than won't stop reading it once you have might- have been expected of me. started, and that is the acid test. Since he had never been before in any part of the United States, and since his mission while there had had to Best Sellers Of The Week do with New York business blocks, it may be that his performance was ex- GONE WITH THE WIND, Margaret plainable if not excusable. His list Mitchell. Macmillan. $3. of nine out of 48 was as follows: WHITE BANNERS, Lloyd C. Douglas. "L Vermont (which he pronounced Houghton Mifflin. $2.50. with a French accent). WHITEOAK HARVEST, Mazo De La 2. Susquehanna Roche. Little, Brown. $2.50. 3. California DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, 4. Philadelphia Walter D. Edmonds. Little, Brown 5. Ohigho $2.50.-6. New York ANTHONY ADVERSE, Hervey Allen. 7. Tex-ass Farrar & Rinehart. $2. 8. Virginia AN AMERICAN DOCTOR'S9.Ceaak" ODYSSEY, Victor Heiser. Norton. Most of Miss Chase's stories are $3.50. Y tmore complimentary to the English than this one. She writes delightfully LIVE ALONE AND LIKE IT, Marjorie of English characteristics, customs, Hillis. Boobs-Merrill. $1.50. and places as she has seen them dur- MAN THE UNKNOWN, Alexis Carrel. ing many visits in England. Harper. $3.50. WAKE UP AND LIVE, Dorothea Brande. Simon & Schuster. $1.75. Forthcoming Books AROUND THE WORLD IN ELEVEN YEARS, by Patience, Richard and I FOUND NO PEACE by Webb Miller. John Abbe. Stokes. $2.. Simon & Schuster. $3.50. INSIDE EUROPE, John Gunther. I'M LOOKING FOR A BOOK, Amy Harper. $3.50. Loveman. Dodd Mead. $2. termines to be the good wife. Laura ed more kindly than is usually has a gay father who drinks; a super- case. Standish, the small-town sensitive brother who can't do any- tective, is a pleasant character,v thing. Dan's father is slack, but his a lot of native common sense, mother is a hard-bitten small town Harkway, of the State Police,i business woman. His sister is a pleasant young chap, with fool, but endurable. sharp wits hidden under a bulky All these family stresses Miss Par- terior, rosy cheeks and a plea rish studies. Dan is another of those habit of blushing at the right ti Victorian capitalists. Laura spends - her time being sensitive. And nothing whatever happens, from page 1 to page 343. the, de- with and is a very ex- asing mes. 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