Judge — May 17, 1930 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE Phases, vignettes, glimpses of that fourteen miles of island between the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers ly been given in. thousands of novels. Hundreds have been written in the at tempt to catch the surge and swirl of that mad and mighty maelstrom that is New York. And some have done it—but only for a tiny section of the city. Manhattan” covers it all. Simply, directly, in style so unobtrusive that there seems to be no style, this book spreads the city bef It is a book peopled with an aston- ishing number of characters—after the fashion of Dickens or Thackeray yet so deftly are they handled, so in herently are they ail a part of the hook’s "pervading mood and_ spirit. that the most erabbed and meticulous critic could not cavil at any one of the dramatis persone as a supernumerary. From Adams, the broker in his Wall street office, to Zolotos, the little cobbler in his tiny shop, they they play their indispensable roles in the great drama that the book you, It does more than es into their homes, their office and shop, follows Adams. to his club, finds Zolotos at his attic restaurant among his cronies. Epic is, as I have suggested, a much overworked word in the critical vo- cabulary, but “epic describes this The reader will find it an open sesame to the romance that hums and beats and rings with the » the “Bill, you better quit this job, you're getting to look more and more sympho the like a monkey.” kindness, love and hate of the The Book of the Year ook reviewers are supposed to | be a sour saturnine race, wield- ing typewriters whose ribbons © you. » the sorrow, the jo: j are dipped in prussic acid, Were this true, reviewing would be a far easier task, since a real enthusiasm could be ; SS a ae registered with mild superlatives. But when every second published volume | is tremendous, primal, mordant, pro- { { found, trene elegant and grand; how is one to use any of these adjectives in appraisal of a genuine event in publishing? he t, tidal, epic, cosmic, k is difficult, particularly slume so significant as “M hattan,” which calls for authenti superlatives. But no superlatives authentic, now, because they have been lavished on everything from a brochure on sanitary carpentry to an outline of metaphysical positivist Of “Manhattan,” then, dignif with i 4 eon proval must take the place of baily- . hoo. But here, ladies and gentlemen, Newzy Manniep Bass Viot Praven—Good Lord! Emma must be | is A BOOK, in the baggage car. 4 comicbooks.com