im Morgendrauen
34. Soie
box 6/1
n, Kr enetenenetense etete te etet dr enenenstene hre ene etetenenene.
BRIEFER MENTION
Tus Drer Exn, by Patrick Miller (1zmo, 318 pages; Harcourt, Brace:
Sz.ço) is a beautifully wrought novel, eloquent and ironic, composed
with an inner harmony which pervades and makes responsive the mind
of the attentive reader. The note on which it closes—The discoveries
people make of happiness are the miracles of the world'’—is but the
ultimate flowering of its theme. What Henry James might have done
deviously, Mr Miller has done directly, without the loss of a single nuance
or the least slurring of sensitivity.
Tut Bxsr Shokr Sronirs or 1027 and the Yearbook of the Ameliean Stott
Story, edited by Edward J. O'Brien (12mo, 460 pages; Dodd, Mead:
Sz.go). Mr O'Brien is, one fears, grievously handicapped by his material;
for if any one thing jumps to the eye, in this selection from the magazine
short stories of the past year, it is ihe comparative poverty of the fiction
here presented. For the most part, these are Treadable'’ enough stories.
Technically adroit, and even, in some instances, expert, they move with
sufficient spirit to a sufficiently gratifying climax. But of life—Life!—
they contain scarcely a trace. Mr Hopper comes pretty close to it in
When It Happens, and Miss Le. Sueur has something of an individual
understanding in Persephone. What strikes one about the other stories.
however, is their singular remoteness from any of the essentials of the
human spirit. The world they evoke is that special and, it must be ad¬
mitted, singularly barren world which exists only for the superficial
entertainment of the habitual reader of magazines.
Davsazak, by Arthur Schnitzler (12mo, 204 pages; Simon & Schuster:
H1.J0). If we have any fault to find with the story by this Viennese
master it is that the plot 13 too swift, too firmly and pitilessly executed,
to allow us time to do anything but follow with increasing anziety the
fate of its unlovable hero. Mr Schnitzler’s unique place in European
literature has been once more confirmed.
In Harer Enpise, The Collected Lyrics of Louise Imogen Guincy (iame,
10g pages; Houghton Mifflin: Hz.go) first issued in 1000 and now re¬
issued with the addition of certain previously unpublished poems, a reader
has the impression of lyric gifts well ordered and developed, but natively
somewhat confined. There is much that is admirable here, much skill
and style. Further, one is by no means prepared to think the poems not
well felt. Yet it would seem that better than well the lyric should
be felt both massively and intensely. And from this point of view limita¬
tions secm to start forward. As the poems are somewhat less than unique
in language, so they appear somewhat less than sovereign in feeling.
34. Soie
box 6/1
n, Kr enetenenetense etete te etet dr enenenstene hre ene etetenenene.
BRIEFER MENTION
Tus Drer Exn, by Patrick Miller (1zmo, 318 pages; Harcourt, Brace:
Sz.ço) is a beautifully wrought novel, eloquent and ironic, composed
with an inner harmony which pervades and makes responsive the mind
of the attentive reader. The note on which it closes—The discoveries
people make of happiness are the miracles of the world'’—is but the
ultimate flowering of its theme. What Henry James might have done
deviously, Mr Miller has done directly, without the loss of a single nuance
or the least slurring of sensitivity.
Tut Bxsr Shokr Sronirs or 1027 and the Yearbook of the Ameliean Stott
Story, edited by Edward J. O'Brien (12mo, 460 pages; Dodd, Mead:
Sz.go). Mr O'Brien is, one fears, grievously handicapped by his material;
for if any one thing jumps to the eye, in this selection from the magazine
short stories of the past year, it is ihe comparative poverty of the fiction
here presented. For the most part, these are Treadable'’ enough stories.
Technically adroit, and even, in some instances, expert, they move with
sufficient spirit to a sufficiently gratifying climax. But of life—Life!—
they contain scarcely a trace. Mr Hopper comes pretty close to it in
When It Happens, and Miss Le. Sueur has something of an individual
understanding in Persephone. What strikes one about the other stories.
however, is their singular remoteness from any of the essentials of the
human spirit. The world they evoke is that special and, it must be ad¬
mitted, singularly barren world which exists only for the superficial
entertainment of the habitual reader of magazines.
Davsazak, by Arthur Schnitzler (12mo, 204 pages; Simon & Schuster:
H1.J0). If we have any fault to find with the story by this Viennese
master it is that the plot 13 too swift, too firmly and pitilessly executed,
to allow us time to do anything but follow with increasing anziety the
fate of its unlovable hero. Mr Schnitzler’s unique place in European
literature has been once more confirmed.
In Harer Enpise, The Collected Lyrics of Louise Imogen Guincy (iame,
10g pages; Houghton Mifflin: Hz.go) first issued in 1000 and now re¬
issued with the addition of certain previously unpublished poems, a reader
has the impression of lyric gifts well ordered and developed, but natively
somewhat confined. There is much that is admirable here, much skill
and style. Further, one is by no means prepared to think the poems not
well felt. Yet it would seem that better than well the lyric should
be felt both massively and intensely. And from this point of view limita¬
tions secm to start forward. As the poems are somewhat less than unique
in language, so they appear somewhat less than sovereign in feeling.