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THE MICHIGAN DAILY

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20.19-23

..... ..:.THE..M.CHIGAN...AILY. S..DA.,.S ...E...R......1923

Books and
Writers

Elk

I:I

SHOUTED it very mildly. The truth is that not a
FROM GREY TOWERS hasgis free fron "gross rhtorical
GREY TOWERS, A Campus Novel, expression, "their midnight-oiled
Anonymous. CovIel-MeGee Co. faces"! When to breaks like this are
12sm. $2.00 added a spineless story, a pseudo-so-
This is a book which should not phisticated dialogue, and an infantile
have been written, yet which once tendency to call names, nothing can
written cannot be ignored. Most lit-' save Grey Towers. The sooner its
erary works for whose production obituary is written the better.
there is no adequate and legitimate Reviewed by Lisle Rose
excuse, meet with the indifference they
deserve; but Grey Towers is destined
for a time to survive its faults and A PICTURE GALLERY
even to command attention. OF THE JUDGE
The reason for the book's present THE JUDGE
popularity is plain. Muckraking, for By Rebeeca Wet,-Doran, 1922. 0.
the past twenty years America's favor- Miss West first appeared on the lit-
ite indoor sport, has been raised even
to an art hy the anonymous author James" which is a manifestation of
of Grey Towers. We know what to the sincerity of a young author, a
expect the minute we read in the lurid noble first attempt, and a display of
blurbsthemastarngtheling exotenSe a developing skill in style. The book
turs th mas frm the lacks insight, but shows appreciation
trts of our university life, and theI and almost adoration of a favorite
like. We are not disappointed. With author.
a bitterness and spleen which (what- "Every mother is a judge who sen-
ever brave ethical catch-words the tences the children for the sins of
publishers may vent) are entirely per-
sonal, she pitches mud at all the well-
known professors of the University of
Chicago, and then, to give us our
money's worth, daubs a few of the
struggling young instructors-and
their wives. All the characters in
Grey Towers, it seems,-except the
sainted heroine, Joan Burroughs,
daily fracture the ten commandments
and Mrs. Post's Laws of Behavior.
The author appears in doubt which
transgression is the more serious. At
any rate, she is resolved to let no
fault, however small, escape portrayal
and censure. She has analyzed the
academic mind at Grey Towers and
found it full of conceit, jealousy,k e
meanness. She would convince us'
that zeal in research is discouraged;
that students are regarded only as
machines; that all the men on thecom e
faculty are at heart the blackest of
rakes, restrained only by base fear;
in short, that the institution is rotten 1d k o
mentally and morally. We behold stu- and K uw
dents avid for knowledge groping
helplessly while their professors bick-
er with each other and make after
each others' wives. Woeful scene of
gloom and desolation, relieved only
by the idealistic Joan, who at the lastMO T FT-E
is herself forced to succumb to the MOST OF THE
powers of evil. An impressive pic-
tre, certainly, if we can forget one BENEFIT OF TH
important fact: that the world per-
versely refuses to divide into two re- LKE TO SAY TH
gions, blackest black and whitest
white. The indictment is far too gen- THE BEST PLA(
eral: some of the professors must es-
cape the Stygian fumes.
And then, there is Joan. I own to
an ineradicable suspicion that she is
what used to be quaintly called a per-
fectibiliSt, the modern term for which
isprig. She is a combination of Cora
Harris, who proudly avers in the
satevepost that she read Horace for
self-improvement at the age 'of thir-
teen, and of Dr. Stuart Sherman, with
his rant about the glorious, destiny
of the Mid-Western University. Ob-
viously any modern Joan of Arc who
prances forth on a milk-white steed to
lead the forces of Idealism, is riding
for a fall. Joan, in whom It requires
no great astuteness to perceive the
intrepid author, gets just what is coni-
Ing to her.
The other characters are "created." 1 1
Try to make any of them walk the
streets of a real city and he would ""
collapse. The author's co-eds are even 1
more sleazy. Her society lads are at
tenuated Fitzgerald and diluted Doro-
thy Speare. Than which there is no
more damning indictment.
Undoubtedly there is need for a
novel of this kind, a novel whic shall
satirize the numerous fault of our
educational systems; but it should not
be as childishly personal, as shoddily 1 1I
written, as Grey Towers. Not the
most favorable critic can discern in
all the two hundred fifty pags one
just description, one happy image, one
vitty phrase That is, indeed, putting -

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WE'VE BEEN SERVING THE BEST
FOR YEARS

1' .

in-
to
juainted
you better

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