Books: Novel Without Words

GOD’S MAN, A Novel in Woodcuts— Lynd Ward—Cape & Smith ($3).

Novel-readers, relapsing despairingly to the cinema, relapsing disgustedly to novels again, may have wished sometimes for a novel without words, a cinema without moving pictures. Here it is.

In a series of 138 woodcuts, of which every picture helps to tell the story, the allegory of an artist’s life is unfolded. The pictures are obvious enough, and placed in such obvious sequence that even a novel-browser may read both tale and fable aright. The artist comes to a strange land, gets into difficulties from which he is rescued by a mysterious masked figure. End of Part I. The artist comes to a city, paints pictures, is taken up by a patron, lionized, supplied with a mistress. End of Part II. He is happy with her until he discovers she is mercenary. This tragic realization merely amuses her. He rushes out, sees a nightmare of cheap love everywhere, goes crazy, ends up in jail. He escapes, is pursued, chased over a cliff into a river. End of Part III. He comes to himself, safe, in the mountains; a goat-girl has saved him. They marry, they are happy. Comes a baby. End of Part IV. One day the masked stranger reappears. The artist waves goodbye to his wife and son, goes off to paint a picture for the stranger. The stranger unmasks. In horror the artist falls to his death; the unmasked stranger turns his face. It is Death.

Author-Artist Lynd Ward has woodcut an effective book. His pictures may not please artists, but they will hold the novel-reader, eager for a story. In parts the treatment is strongly reminiscent of German cinema—e.g.. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But the book is a tour de force; novelists will have little competition from such “novels.”