PAGE SIX
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1923
ert Frost at his lightest. Mere music inig of Russian literature as intensely
- of words does not make good poetry. gloomy. The better-known Chekov
I can see nothing but childishness in leaves us with a sense of futility.
How could life annoy me Dostievski with the melancholy mor-
t Any osore? bidness of existence. Chekov is a son
L dof the eighties, when surrounding
Life: alhedwdow life was horror-stricken. People
And a csosed dor. made attempts to adopt a philosophy
CARROLL LANE FENTON. of life to fit the brutal political and
social environment. That was the
time of no hope, of shilly-shallying,
SMR. BUNIN AGAIN otears; it was the Age ofcFutility.
I MR BU IN A AIN But Bunin,, in this little collection
Keith Preston, himself a reviewer variety for their pains. Poe in his of stories, is not concerned with the
of books, evidently knows the ways stories accomplished a little, and so THE DREAMS OF CIIANG, by Ia Russian characteristics of this futil-
of his kind. Should anyone doubt Mr, did Oscar Wilde. But all of them are Bunin Translated by Bernard ity and passive resistance. Even in
Preston's familiarity with the process outdone by leht, wo achieves re- Gullert Guerney. Alfred A. the eight remaining stor s, which are
of literary criticism, let him read , su ts that are very lit rally uncanny. Knopt, 1l. $.ssiament, the philosophy of the Russian,
this: He has a good yarn, of course, and Ivan Bunin does not belong to the which is as dreary as their vast
I took up the book at midnight it helps him out greatly, but his real school of realism predominant among steppes, is missing. Inthese stories-
As the clock was striking the hour, achievement lies in style. It is that, Russian writers of the last fifty years. ,An Evening in Spring," "Aglaix,"
And the moon o'er Greenwich Village not plot, which lifts THE FLOREN- j He is a product of the revolutionry "The Grammar of Love," "A Night
Lit up the ivory tower, TINE DAGGER far above the ranks period of Russian literature, which Conversation", "A Goodly Life," we
of the ordinary, uand makes it a mys; may roughly be said to extend from get glimpses of Russian village life,
I the '90's to the revolution of 1917. Yet with the moujik, the merchant, the
ThIs revtew of it was done, _____ryta _____th __rue_. he is of the old school, and belongs a"gymnasia" youth as the principal
to the atmosphere of ancient tradi- characters. Those precious features
I had lunched and had my nightcap, tions on which he has been reared. He of Russian literature-the qualities of
Ere my cuckoo clock struck one! j SWEET VERSIFICA- is not a modernist, and does not use depth, earnestness, simplicity-are
As the ironic author might say, # TION the artificial means of symbolism, ini- present in these little sketches. But
cuckoo criticism! I pressions, or decadence. But he Baunin is detached in his attitude. He
SECOND CONTEMPORARY VERSE I cannot avoid the influence of his time. does not live the life of the village,
I'm-wella e of the fact that it ATOLGY, edited by CharlesIlts works, esecially his poems, are does not suffer the pain of its people,
I'm well aware h1colorful, and tinged with impression- does not share its visions. He is
has become unfashionable for anyone Wharton Stork; (E. P. Dutton & ims. merely an observer.
who rises, or tries to rise, to the Co., $3). Seven of the fifteen newly translat- "The Grammar of Love", a story of
heights of D. II. Lawrence, James "Contemporary- Verse' ranks with ed short stories, or sketches, which a nobleman's devotion to a moujik wo-
Branch Cabell, and Waldo Frank, to Miss Monroe's "Poetry" somewhat as come under the title of The Dreams of man, which last twenty years after
praise a mere mystery tale. But then the "New Statesman" compares with Chang are not what we would call her death, is perhaps the most sym-
I never was fashionable, so am free the "Liberator"-a milder, sweeter, nationally Russian, taking Turgienev, pathetic of the collection, although
to admit myself captivated by Mr. Ben less virile contemporary. For thoeChekov, Andreyev and Pushkin to be this, too, is objective. Here Bunin is
Hemt FlorentiDaggertsued by who cannot edurthe poery to "national". They are as versatile and on familiar ground, he feels more at
Hecht's Florentine Dagger, issued byr who cannot endure the poetry of cosmopolitan a group of stories that home, for he is, first and last, a noble-
Messrs. Boni & Liveright. Pleasure Kreymborg Sandburg, Simons, "Con- might have been written by a master man of the old regime. In "I Say
began with the cover, a beautiful af- temporary Verse" makes the best of Englishman traveling abroad. "The Nothing" as in "A Night Conversa-
fair of natural linen and black; it reading, as will this anthology. But Dreams of Chang", the tale of a sea tion", te gives us a lucid picture of
increased with a hasty survey of the for the life of me I can see little in it captain's degeneration, is a story of the brutality of the moujik, the ugli-
five illustrations by Wallace Smith, but pretty versification. There are Odessa-but the place is incidental. ness and misery of his existence, and
and culminated in the reading of the: four poems that may be really great The setting could have been Vienna, the bareness of the moujik soul. Bun-
or London, or New York. "Brethren" in has not Tolstoi's idealistic hope for
story itself. Not only is there origin- -those by Reese, England, Iluckfield' israLondoy or Nw o Ceytse, i to otaot'ssiditic hopenfor
nlitty and suspense in the plot and its, and Middleton.. There are others by is a story of a, native of Ceylon, a} the peasant's spiritual awakening,
woking-ou;es the y ntnds and V deetn. len Waretr h yrickshaw-man. "Gautami" is of the Be comes later in the century, when
working-out; the very 'sentences and S. V. Benet, Glenn Ward Dresbach. Himalyain Mountains; "The Son" is the tide of peasant propaganda had
words are of theiselves dark, threat- John Farrar, Joyce Kilmer, Lew Sa- distinctly French "The Gentleman passed, leaving only a few ripples in
ening, full of mystery. If we may rett, Sara Teasdale, and Harold Vinal from San Francisco" is American or its wake.
judge from the monthly output, al- tthat are good, though by no means ex-y English, or cosmopolitan. None of Of the collection, I would say "The
most anyone can devise a tale of ceptional; rest are rather mediocre. the stories mentioned are Russian in Dreams of Chang" and "The Gentle-
crime that will keep his readers guess- Clement Wood, who has written some character, yet the finesse of the ns- man from San Francisco" are the out-
ing till the very end. But to put the ,storng prose, makes a specialty weak of words, and the force and signific- standing.
suspense, the pure mystery into the showing in "I Pass a Lighted Win- ance of their meaning. Bunin is not well known in this
words of the story is a far more diffl- dow", a poem in the manner of Rob- We have been in the habit of think- (Continued on Page Seven)
cult matter. English is a poor lan-
guage at its very best, and its prosaic
dlullness does not encourage the writ-
er who uses it to indulge in syllable
painting. The old 'tyle Ipoets tried'
It, and few- of them succeed in get-
ting more that " inne of the pretty
BOOK RtEVIEWS1,
(Continued from Duge Five) }
those girls who sought "pagan love"
as he did were too respectable, too!
much divided against themselves to
make it real, while those who made
pagan love a vocation were too dull
and sordid to tolerate. Roger lost'
many of the illusions that had helped
him leave the southern town which
he hated, yet managed to pull through
and achieve an individuality of his
own. When Janet met him, he owned
a Village bookstore, and was doing
well in spirit as well as in substance.!
He's made a good fight, and won. j
The final section of the book con-
cerns the love-making of Roger and
Janet. Roger, who has ceased to be-
lieve in happiness, makes a rather
comical figure, albeit an honest one.
Janet converts him-at least to the:
point where he admits that they have
achieved something real.
From this it will be seen that Mr.
Dell has written a full story, and
one that has movement. It is better
than either "?Moon-Calf" or "The.
Briary Bush", for its characters por-
tray types and generations as woel as
individuals. One may question his
point that the modern girl is far more
determined, more capable, and more
certain of herself than is the modern
boy. But he cannot question the
truthfulness of Janet and Roger, for
they are real people, moving in a real
world with no strings either of the-
cry or plot that control their actions.
Ii if
A habit that
grows easier
with years
The habit of saving is one, once
started, that grows easier as
time goes on. It is like other
habits, hard to break once it has
been thoroughly fixed.
Unlike so many other habits it is
one that has entirely beneficial
results. It insures a wholesome
financial standing for you in the
community where you reside. It
disperses the spectre of poverty
and it makes you independent
after you have grown too old to
continue your work.
Begin today to form this habit of
saving. Resolve to save a def-
inite sum each m o n t h. The
pleasure of watching it- grow
will more than compensate you
for the small effort it will cost
you to forego a few of the un-
necessaries.
The Ann Arbor Savings Bank
UNIV ERSITrY AVENUE BRANCH
U.