Judge — January 24, 1931 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

AUDGING“BODKS ore Merperer Invisince,” by Philip Wylie, is the story of a man who figured out a scientific way to make himself invisible, in order to get revenge on the wolves who fleeced him in Wall Street. After he’s done the trick, he’s able to knock off people and then stand around watching the bulls (Oops, sorry—flat-feet) dis- cover the bodies. The book makes a pretty fair thriller at that, once Mr. Wylie gets the literary urge off his chest with some lush description in his first chapter. But he irks readers like bluff old Shane with his unerring in- stinct for tony words instead of five- cent ones. For example, he's one of the increasing horde of young writers who, not content with having their heroes use lighters (that work) for their cigarettes, have to call them There is also one laugh Wylie that fine old synonym for “hock”—"hypothecate when he mez “hypothesize.” Well, he’s young yet and he isn’t trying to imitate Hemingway. U pton Sincuair, the Pasadena Pink and apostle of aerated raisin- w vegetable roti, paper-bag cookery and sundry squawks for the single tax, hay doped it out that the decadence of ancient Rome paralleled today in—guess where by my aunt's grandmother's. 1 drops—Indianapolis! On this charm- ing conceit he hangs his latest ph for so reform which the usual ism is thrown into a stew-pot contain- ing a plot in which the hero's car turns over during an automobile race and he wakes up under a chariot in the Colosseum. »o he lives in Rome until his brain lesion heals, when he snaps to in—of all places—Indianapolis! en he is a sadder and wiser man, uses stew is be wild dingus The Roman parallel involves a lot of inflammable stuff about holding down the workers, bootlegging among the Seven Hills and other modern tic-ups. The book will sell the customary million in Germany and smells a little as if Upton wouldn't mind hearing some bids for it from Walter Wanger and Ad Zukor. What old Upton is going to do when he's thru cleaning up the world’s ills we hesitate to think on as being too awful. snappy Sema Lacentir’s “The Ring of the Léwenskéld. and to save you from finger-pointing, you don’t pro nounce it anything but “Levensheld: which we © on genuine Swedish- maid authority — is a fairy-tale for men and women who are only kiddies grown up. Like all fairy-tales, it is « profound thing at bottom, detining good and evil, and it will leave you, if you eat it up, with the sense of self- righteousness that a good old-fash ioned moral purging always d It is one of those semi-fantastic books of the Scandinavian school, welded of flourish and romantic treat- ment in which magic and almost any thing else is plausible. It is also a splendid example of the Swedish ten dency to bulge in literature by taking volumes to get the idea across. it took only three for this par- ticular dodo, we are moderately con tent, altho we aren't quite sure that Dr. Lagerlof is. She might easily have run on with a few volumes more. She's hardiy made par for the cours: This, then, is the story of a ring that was stolen ‘way back from the grave of General Lowenskilds. It brought misfortune to those who pos- sessed it: at first purely physical pun ishment, such as poverty, fire and death, and in later generations psy chological pants-warmings. Four mag nificent characters stalk thru it all, and tho they are festooned overmuch with a pen given to fancy scrawl, and curlicues, they emerge as actual and convincing as anything our Hem ingways ¢ These are K. Arthur, af. bleman with a Jehovah complex; Charlotte Lowenskéld, wil ful and passionate; the Baroness Ekenstedt, one of those witty, debo- r dames one encounters in novels nd on the stage but never in real a Svard, the ant whom K. Arthur marries because he thinks s has been selected for him by none other than God himself, The book has over 800 pages, which would lead you to suspect rightly that it is the January choice of the Liter ary Guild that believes that big books are good books and issue such w: loads as “Success” and “R. v. R yocar Lee Masters, having heard 4 of Witter Bynner, quickly donned his mandarin coat, scanned fifty old laundry tickets and turned out “Li- chee Nuts,” one of those things of phonce Chince poetree, evidently done in one bleath at one slitting. It might be described as Lee Masters dipped in bird’s-nest soup, covered with a generous portion of Yar Go Main and finished off with a couple of cum- quots. In still other words, nuts, and we don’t mean Lichee. comicbooks.com