BOOKS: A Son at the Front–

A Son at the Front*

A Faithful Picture — Perfect Wax-Work— Twice-Told Tale

The Story. When George Campton was growing up, his parents, John and Julia, like true Americans, never imagined that the accident of his having been born in France would have much part in shaping his future destiny. But that was before 1914, when theorists had definitely decided that a serious European war would be an economic impossibility.

The War came and found George in his twenties liable to immediate military service with the French Army. His parents, long divorced, found one common point of reunion —their mutual desire to keep him as far away from the front as possible— a desire in which they were aided and abetted by Julia Campton’s second husband, the millionaire Mr. Brant, who idolized George. John Campton had become a famous portrait-painter— Julia, as Mrs. Brant, had at last attained the riches and social success she craved— but what reality life possessed for each of them was bound up with George.

They did their best to save him, but he was too much for them. War worked its partial estrangement. He got to the front, was wounded, recuperated, wentback, was killed. For John Campton that seemed at first to end things completely. Later the realization came that this much was true— that in spite of circumstance and accident, at least the boy, when he lived, had been completely his— Julia, Mr. Brant, the others, had at best had only a reflection of him. He, his father, had had the reality.

So, unconsoled but not wholly broken to the ground, he set about beginning the only task that remained for him— the designing of a monument for George’s grave.

The Significance. A compact, well constructed novel, written with Mrs. Wharton’s unfailing deftness and giving a faithful picture of War-time Paris, A Son at the Frant, can hardly fail to attract a considerable audience. And yet it seems a curiously lifeless book. The characters seem shadowy and unsubstantial;the exact, neat detail, lacking in any real significance; the tale, twice-told. To your reviewer, coming, as it does after Mr. BritUng, Sonia, Le Feu, Three Soldiers, One of Ours and Through the Wheat, A Son at the Front appears like an exhibition of perfect waxworks, meticulously constructed, displaying every external appurtenance of life, but without a single spark of vitality.

The Critics. New York Tribune: “If this were the year 1915 or even 1917 instead of the year 1923, Mrs. Wharton’s novel might not seem so profitless an endeavor.”

The New York Herald: “By far the finest and most perdurable novel in English that has as yet come out of the War.”

The New York Times: “So far she has done nothing that equals it.”

The New York World: “The War is really outside the pages of A Son at the Front…. It has nothing to do directly with toils of battle. . . .Intelligent criticism will recognize this point of departure from the novel purely of the War.”

The Author. Edith Wharton (nee Jones) is a New Yorker by birth and a cosmopolitan by inclination. She was born in 1862 and has been in the literary limelight for almost 25 years (her first book, The Greater Inclination, was published in 1899). Most of her novels, which include The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, The Glimpses of the Moon, deal with the so-called upper classes at home or abroad, but her masterpiece, Ethan Frome, is a grim little tragedy of character laid in a New England village. For a number of years she has resided in France. She is a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

Good Books

The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:

THE SINGING BONE— R. Austin Freeman—Dodd Mead ($1.75). Fourshort detective stories—the first three told from an unusual point of view, for one first follows the criminal through the commission of his crime and then traces out the clues that lead to his detection. The detective concerned specializes in microscopy and captures one canny villain from the infinitesimal evidence offered by the hair of a camel. Among the best of this year’s crop of Sherlockings.

THE LIFE OF CESARE BORGIA— Sabatini— Brentano ($4.50). Iron men in “an age of steel and velvet” — the growth, rampage and decline of the Borgian Bull— in the fields of Renaissance Italy— a biography that for color, excitement and human interest ranks with the best of Sabatini’s adventurous novels, but a biography which displays throughout a steadfast adherence to historical fact. Sabatini does not attempt to whitewash the terrific Cesare, but he does explode a number of usual errors concerning and flimsy accusations against him. Life in the Borgia home was not, as is commonly supposed, just one cup of poison after another. But, nevertheless, as Sabatini describes it, it seems thrilling enough to shake the nerves of a human fly.

THE RED-BLOOD—Harold H. Armstrong— Harper ($2.00). Dr. Wellington Dennison McNicol was a doer — go-getter — a red-blood — from his youth up. Handicapped at the start by poverty, illegitimate birth and the surroundings of a decayed Canadian village, he never faltered in his ambitions— to marry the girl he wanted, to make money, to be a Great Man. And, like an energetic person he achieved his aims. Middle age found him wealthy, married to a girl far superior to his original intended, and the father of a family to carry on the red-blood tradition. But he would be Mayor of Detroit, and the professional politicians got him when he started to take himself too seriously; his children turned out unexpectedly, as children do; he ended, a punctured balloon— rather wondering why. There seemed to be no answer except that life was a queer affair. A sound, capable novel.

Garland— Fuller

Aren’t We Nearly Ready for a Revival of Romanticism?

Hamlin Garland has recently re-turned from a Summer in England, where he lived quietly in an apart-ment and hobnobbed with English men of letters. Their attitude toward us, he says, has changed enormously. He encountered everywhere the greatest cordiality.

Hamlin Garland, broad-shouldered, powerful, with his mass of iron-gray hair, is one of the gayest and yet most dignified of our older men of letters. He has the faculty of understanding and being interested in the moderns, mixed with a splendid detachment that is unusual. His two autobiographical volumes form, I suppose, one of the classics of our age. His novels, sketches and stories are filled with rugged beauty and the spirit of adventure.

From his conversation one gains an impression of homely words exquisitely arranged.He is proud of his family—his daughters are both accomplished— in fact,one of them is to appear in Walter Hamp den’s company at the National theatre, Manhattan.His wife, a sister of Lorado Taft, the sculpter, is a gracious hostess and a beautiful woman. She is the heroine of A Daughter of the Middle Border and the frankness and yet good taste with which Mr. Garland describes his life with her is one of the high points in literary autobiography.

With Hamlin Garland, the other day, was Henry B. Fuller, come on from Chicago for a visit, perhaps to live in Manhattan permanently. Fuller, whose delicately conceived novels and verses are ranked high in contemporary literature in spite of the fact that he has written vers libre, would probably be considered by the sex-ridden rebels of the new writing a Victorian. He is far from that. This shy, small, smiling little white-haired man is a volcano of opinions and ideals. He reads The Dial— which is often more than I can do. He follows current writing avidly. He admires the best work of his younger contemporaries, yet, with his background of culture, his fine sense of proportion, he deplores the unnecessary vulgarities that make much of present-day writing. Tell me, readers of TIME, don’t you these days turn away from a new “realistic” novel with a certain feeling of weariness? Aren’t you nearly ready for a revival of romanticism? Take my advice, then, turn to the pages of these two men. You will find in them not only the romantic and the beautiful but a realism truer than the real.

* A SON AT THE FRONT—Edith Wbarton— Scribner ($2.00).

*Cesare Borgiu (1476-1507), of poisonous reputation, Duke of Valentinois and Romagna, son of Pope Alexander VI. An archbishop at 16, he asked (at 22) that he be permitted to renounce the priesthood and his father granted it ” for the good of his soul.” He died in battle (at 31).