SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2741, 8 April 1916, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION

"THE IMMORTAL CYMASTS." The curiously entitled novel, "The • Immortal Gymasts," .by Miss Marie Cher (W. Heinemann; per George Robertson and Co.), may be commended as an. exceptionally bright and readable 6tory, in which those favourites of our childhood, Harlequin,,/ Pantaloon, ■ and Columbine, . appear, in semi-natural eemi-supernatural guise,' and! play a highly benevolent part in the love affairs of some pleasant young, people, all of the modern; time. The story is a ourious but quite fasoinating admixture of fancy and realism, and-contains some delightfully odd characters, such as a philosophic "sandwichman, who plays Harlequin; a Pantaloon who is, though keeping a creamery in a. London back street, an _ ardent, and, in his way, cultured bibliophile; and an eocentrio Oxford' scholar, who deems it his duty to give up. his Fellowship and devote himself ,to establishing a "fantastic Ccademia" in a London slum,, where be teaches Greek (if you please) to ipupils attracted more l>y the master's bribes of odd shillings than from any desire to acquire classical lore. It may bo that the love story of the three pairs of young, people will mainly interest the average novel; reader, but the quainttiess of the setting and > the humorous touches with Which certain of the minor characters are drawn will be for many others the chief attraction, in this highly original and charming story. "STILL JIM." . "Still Jim," by'Honore Willsie, author of. "Heart of the Desert" (Fred. A. Stokes Company; per D. 0. Ramsay nnd Co.), is a vigorously-written, high-ly-dramatic, and interesting story of a young American engineer, who goes out West to control an irrigation scheme of great extent and' importance, and through. his sterling honesty comes into violent conflict : with the, representatives of a, big land and' financial trust. At the same:time, the man's unbending firmness and desire to study thev interosts of the State, as well as those of. the individual, makes him for a. time persona ingrata with a certain section of the very farming community which, in the long run, the enterprise will most materially benefit. Complicating the general position of difficulty is the young engineer's secret love for a lady who, in the East, had preferred a young man of Greek parentage, who, becoming a financial magnate, develops cue of Jim's bitterest foes. _ A special feature of the story, which, it is almost needless to say, ends with happiness for Jim and the much-tried Sara,' the love of his youth, is the insistence laid' by. the author upon the grave future danger to the United States which, so he considers, will result from, the admixture of alien blood in the 'pure Ameri-. can stock. So-long, however, _as such types as that of the 6trong-willed, reserved, but clean-living, plucky _ hero are present, the alien element will always be undermost. But of its capacity for a certain degree of mischief, no one who reads this exciting story can doubt.

"THE GROWN OF, LIFE." "The Crown of Life," by Gordon Arthur Smith , (Scribner's Sons; per George Robertson and Co.), is a welltold, amusing, and, in places, ■ dramatic, story of life in Boston and Paris. The heroine, Ruth Holworthy, is beautiful, fairly well, off, and decidedly uncon" ventional, alike in her views of life and her conduct—a Massachusetts emancipee in fact. She flirts shamelessly, but eventually, is Tathor cruelly punished by a fashionable Parisian playwright, who "comes very near to ruining her life. Fortunately, however,' she finds out what a pitifully contemptible creature the fellow really is, and consoles herself with the love of an eccentric but honest fellow, a young Bostonian professor, who rescues' her from ; the dangerous environment of la ville himiere. Tho book is -well written, the Parisian scenes in particular being very brightly drawn. Ruth's rival for > the affections of the much-too-fascinating Rene 1 ' Dairies, a Miss Pamela Burke, and her vulgar but good-natured "poppa," a professional politician of the "grafting" type, are both excellent minor characters. BLIND UNDERSTANDING. The leading characters in Maude Annesley's "Blind Understanding" (Duckworth and Co.; per- Whitcombe . and Tombs) are a fashionable young idler who marries a silly young widow for her money, and soon after his wedding finds that, by lier second marriage, she has lost her fortune; and a young lady, who is tho daughter of a wealthy baronet, whoso library the disappointd fortune-hunter is called in to catalogue. The two young people fall in love with each other, but when, the poor little widow is conveniently disposed of by pneumonia, the young lady, who has come to believe lier lover is as dishonest as well as he is weak and self-indulgent, bccomes engaged to another .man, whom, in a fit of cccontric charity, tho hero had once materially befriended. A threatened, but prevented, suicide; the enlightenment of the young lady as to the hero's innocence, and of the devo-' tion of his love: renunciation 011 the part of tho. friend; and you can guess the rest; Tho hero is distinctly a nrewar type, a well educated young fellow, spoilt by luxurious tastes, the sort of man who to-day would be "making good" at the front. THE WOMAN'S HARVEST. In "The Woman's Harvest" (Werner Laurie) Miss (or Mrs?) Anna Floyd .takes as a central motif the upheaval

of society caused by the war, and in particular the sex problem involved by the tremendous disproportion of women to men; which will certainly bo one result of tho great struggle. The story deals with a period two years after the war, and, according to tho publisher's note on the cover, "forehadows the astounding change which tho decimation of our young men must entail on tho social life of England, and on women in particular." I should bo sorry to think, however, that this particular forecast, as the story is called, is likely to he fulfilled, for the author draws, I prefer to believe, a prophetically libellous picture of the young English women of the afterwar period. The, story, the exact plot of which I do not think it' desirable to give even in brief, is not ill-written. As a study of unbridled sensuality, 'twere better had it been left unwritten. It is certainly not suitable for indiscriminate perusal. >