raumnovel1
33 J. . enenenenententnchene e
Fand ideh
ject. The book has Aue
vantage of being practicable for
hdme usc.
M. F. W.
M. th0
orles.
wm #Foreign Shelf
ad¬
most
mong
Schnitzler’s
ie/to
Also
Latest Novel
hans
Traumnovelle, by Arthur Schnitzlcb.
S 10
(S. Fischer, Verlag, Berlin.)
em¬
Reality is never solely reality, and a
dream is never just a dream; one is
1
always pars of the otner. This is the
theme of Schnitzler’s latest novel,
fen¬
Dream Story.“
A young Viennese physician exgeri¬
ences, in a few hours of the night, all
the opportunities of love that he has
missed. The daughter of a dying pa¬
tient; a good-natured, decent prostitute;
a young girl, the daughter of a cos¬
tumier, and finally a masked and
naked dancer in a mysterions night
96
club tempt him, and try to lure him,
a
each in her turn, until the point is
reached where the young man is rendy
ted
to leave his wife and child in order
7he
that he may go forth in search of the
scemingly more potent loves.
9.
But'the fantasies and -nightmares
disappear with the approaching day¬
light, and he returns to his daily work
#at the hospital. At home he tells his
wife of the happenings of the night.
Andwhat shall we do?“ he finishes
bis story.
Be thankful that we escaped the
he
adventure, the actual ones and the
imaginary oncs.“
Are you sure of it?“ he asks.
Hhr¬
As sure,“ says she, Tas I believe
that the reality of one night, and even
1
the reality of a life, does not express
its inner truth.“
beßzt¬
And no dream,“ he adds, “is solely
and a dream.“
Schnitzler develops this difficult
VAlIs'
problm and deseribes an #nbelievable
episode so convincingly that the read¬
Ter cannot help but believe. The plot
is laid in Vienna, and one can often
recognize houses in which the episodes
take place. Schnitzler is a Viennese,
and knows and understands Vienna
better than anyone else does, He loves
7Mthe old buildings, the narrow streets,
gcodithe famous“ Prater“; he loves the peo¬
andple of Vienna, he knows their customs
1, hi
and habits, and he knows how to por¬
ings.
tray them masterfully.
weck)
HIENRT J. WERNER.
that
hile,
The Literary Review published ev¬
cago
tock¬
ery Friday in-The Chicago Evening
with
Post, 31.35 s vear
GAS
A. Kx
box 5/7
204
TIIE NEN
was more real, his reality or her dream? The next day, de
termined to be untrue to her, he sees, or tries to see these
women again. And here we come upon the heart ofethe
story, upon a strangeness new even for Schnitzler, the way
in which Albertina’s infidelity, in a dream, makes Fridolin
incapable of being unfaithful to her in fact. Each time that
he fails there is another, a commonplace explanation, but
the true explanation is his wife's dream. Perhaps—who
can say ?—her drcam is the reason why he never secs the
fourth woman again, the unattainable woman, alive?
Dream and reality—but there is, after all, a kind of reality
we do not question, or confuse with dream, and the story
ends on this note:'So they lay silently, dozing a little,
dreamlessly, close to one another—until, as on every morn¬
ing at seven, there was a knock on the door; and, withthe
usual noises from the strect, a victorious ray of light
through the opening of the curtain, and the clear laughter
of a child through the door, the new day began.?
My objections to“ Rhapsody'’ are naturally to those
places in it which lessen my pleasure while reading. The
love-and-hate mixture, as dear to Schnitzler as to Barrie
his laughter-and-tears mixture, is rather explicit. When
Schnitzler tells me that love and hate are the same thing, I
expect the share of representation to be large, of assertion
to be small. And I do not like the secret gathering in
which the masked nud onc of many masked nudes, saves
the unbidden guest’s life at great cost to herself. That
Sudermann, had he imagined this scene, would have liked
it, may not matter. But, to me, my feeling that Suder¬
mann could have imagined it matters a good deal. Or is
this merely a way of confessing that the American reader,
that heavy object, is sometimes heavier than he thinks?
P. L.
Three Poets
The Guilty Sun, by Jumes Daly. Pittsburgh: Folio
Press. 41 pages. 52.
Selected Poems. With a Preface on the Nature of
Poetry, by Arthur Davison Ficke. Neu York: George
H. Doran Companp. 241 pages. 52.
7 P. M. and Other Poems, by Mark Van Doren. Neu¬
York: Albert and Charles Boni. 89 pages. 61.75.
VHE GUILTY SUN“ is a first book of poems, but
4the clear, stripped form and the native ring of the
music are the work of a poct who has already passed his
apprenticeship. There are less than thirty poems in the
book, and some of these are slight, but even the most frag¬
mentary have a purity which makes them hard to forget.
The following, for example, is a complete poem:
Vour words will be for no other ear
Upon the earth, but your words
Will never be lonely.
Come, and name the blackbirds
Once more, and cry to me:
Vou name the nimblest of the pale deer!“
The simplicity of this defies analysis. It-is as sure and
complete as any other living thing. Its exquisite lightness
of mood, however, is not typical of the whole volume.
In other poems, more difficult than the above, the reader
will find emerging an intensity which is essentially of the
mind. It is the hard, sensitive passion offan ardent mind
struggling with its own consciousness, lonely and frequently
close to the terror which the realizationof-solitude-###
## t V. 1 etinet from that of anyone else
33 J. . enenenenententnchene e
Fand ideh
ject. The book has Aue
vantage of being practicable for
hdme usc.
M. F. W.
M. th0
orles.
wm #Foreign Shelf
ad¬
most
mong
Schnitzler’s
ie/to
Also
Latest Novel
hans
Traumnovelle, by Arthur Schnitzlcb.
S 10
(S. Fischer, Verlag, Berlin.)
em¬
Reality is never solely reality, and a
dream is never just a dream; one is
1
always pars of the otner. This is the
theme of Schnitzler’s latest novel,
fen¬
Dream Story.“
A young Viennese physician exgeri¬
ences, in a few hours of the night, all
the opportunities of love that he has
missed. The daughter of a dying pa¬
tient; a good-natured, decent prostitute;
a young girl, the daughter of a cos¬
tumier, and finally a masked and
naked dancer in a mysterions night
96
club tempt him, and try to lure him,
a
each in her turn, until the point is
reached where the young man is rendy
ted
to leave his wife and child in order
7he
that he may go forth in search of the
scemingly more potent loves.
9.
But'the fantasies and -nightmares
disappear with the approaching day¬
light, and he returns to his daily work
#at the hospital. At home he tells his
wife of the happenings of the night.
Andwhat shall we do?“ he finishes
bis story.
Be thankful that we escaped the
he
adventure, the actual ones and the
imaginary oncs.“
Are you sure of it?“ he asks.
Hhr¬
As sure,“ says she, Tas I believe
that the reality of one night, and even
1
the reality of a life, does not express
its inner truth.“
beßzt¬
And no dream,“ he adds, “is solely
and a dream.“
Schnitzler develops this difficult
VAlIs'
problm and deseribes an #nbelievable
episode so convincingly that the read¬
Ter cannot help but believe. The plot
is laid in Vienna, and one can often
recognize houses in which the episodes
take place. Schnitzler is a Viennese,
and knows and understands Vienna
better than anyone else does, He loves
7Mthe old buildings, the narrow streets,
gcodithe famous“ Prater“; he loves the peo¬
andple of Vienna, he knows their customs
1, hi
and habits, and he knows how to por¬
ings.
tray them masterfully.
weck)
HIENRT J. WERNER.
that
hile,
The Literary Review published ev¬
cago
tock¬
ery Friday in-The Chicago Evening
with
Post, 31.35 s vear
GAS
A. Kx
box 5/7
204
TIIE NEN
was more real, his reality or her dream? The next day, de
termined to be untrue to her, he sees, or tries to see these
women again. And here we come upon the heart ofethe
story, upon a strangeness new even for Schnitzler, the way
in which Albertina’s infidelity, in a dream, makes Fridolin
incapable of being unfaithful to her in fact. Each time that
he fails there is another, a commonplace explanation, but
the true explanation is his wife's dream. Perhaps—who
can say ?—her drcam is the reason why he never secs the
fourth woman again, the unattainable woman, alive?
Dream and reality—but there is, after all, a kind of reality
we do not question, or confuse with dream, and the story
ends on this note:'So they lay silently, dozing a little,
dreamlessly, close to one another—until, as on every morn¬
ing at seven, there was a knock on the door; and, withthe
usual noises from the strect, a victorious ray of light
through the opening of the curtain, and the clear laughter
of a child through the door, the new day began.?
My objections to“ Rhapsody'’ are naturally to those
places in it which lessen my pleasure while reading. The
love-and-hate mixture, as dear to Schnitzler as to Barrie
his laughter-and-tears mixture, is rather explicit. When
Schnitzler tells me that love and hate are the same thing, I
expect the share of representation to be large, of assertion
to be small. And I do not like the secret gathering in
which the masked nud onc of many masked nudes, saves
the unbidden guest’s life at great cost to herself. That
Sudermann, had he imagined this scene, would have liked
it, may not matter. But, to me, my feeling that Suder¬
mann could have imagined it matters a good deal. Or is
this merely a way of confessing that the American reader,
that heavy object, is sometimes heavier than he thinks?
P. L.
Three Poets
The Guilty Sun, by Jumes Daly. Pittsburgh: Folio
Press. 41 pages. 52.
Selected Poems. With a Preface on the Nature of
Poetry, by Arthur Davison Ficke. Neu York: George
H. Doran Companp. 241 pages. 52.
7 P. M. and Other Poems, by Mark Van Doren. Neu¬
York: Albert and Charles Boni. 89 pages. 61.75.
VHE GUILTY SUN“ is a first book of poems, but
4the clear, stripped form and the native ring of the
music are the work of a poct who has already passed his
apprenticeship. There are less than thirty poems in the
book, and some of these are slight, but even the most frag¬
mentary have a purity which makes them hard to forget.
The following, for example, is a complete poem:
Vour words will be for no other ear
Upon the earth, but your words
Will never be lonely.
Come, and name the blackbirds
Once more, and cry to me:
Vou name the nimblest of the pale deer!“
The simplicity of this defies analysis. It-is as sure and
complete as any other living thing. Its exquisite lightness
of mood, however, is not typical of the whole volume.
In other poems, more difficult than the above, the reader
will find emerging an intensity which is essentially of the
mind. It is the hard, sensitive passion offan ardent mind
struggling with its own consciousness, lonely and frequently
close to the terror which the realizationof-solitude-###
## t V. 1 etinet from that of anyone else