Judge — April 16, 1932 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

AN APRIL WEEK-END In THE AQUITANIA TO BERMUDA APRIL 3 : TAURUS A fanciful Bull, fighting red hibiscus blossom APRIL What are those four-day gaps which so regularly appear on the cluttered en- gagement books of the socially sought? They're the Cunard week-end cruises! | For those most in the know have made it a habit. Again they are sailing away... where April showers only flowers and golden sunshine . . . where flying fish spangle Gulf Stream waves. To those who appreciate subtle refine- ments and seek their pleasures with good taste, the AQUITANIA is familiar and | faultless. Whatever be your desire, Cunard luxury includes it, Cunard service lays it deftly before you. Would you exert yoursell in merry sport, dance or swim, play games? Or would you merely bask in the warm sun, breathe tonic air, dine delectably, and sleep soundly until noon? You will find it all... and so much more! . «on this Cunard week-end cruise. Reservations are strictly limited, rates ex- tremely low. Let April begin the beneli- cent habit . . . a sea-going week-end once a month... under Cunard opera- tion and management. Sail on the queenly AQUITANIA to Bermuda! No passports required Book thru your Local Agent No one can serve you better Sailing April 22, (Fri. 11 P.M.) Return April 26, (Tue. morning) *50 uP CUNARD opinions. J UDGING tHe BOOKS ; VERY time we get a new book by John Dos Passos we feel like a wood-louse, a mother-beater and a watery-eyed dry agent combined. Such masochistic sentiment arises from the fact that we know Mr. Dos Passos to be about the most sincere, gentlest and kindliest person alive today, with a heart of gold, full of sympathy for his human fellows. He burns with a desire to do noth- ing but good and clean up all the Augean id in the world. And he also has recently been given to writing the dullest books going. So when we lay books we know we are going to read something that reflects this gosh- awful human decency. To be mean to them, to tear them to pieces is just not in us. Nor can we hate them with a good honest loathing. At least that would enable us to look the author square in the eye like a little man and take.a chance on getting one on the beezer for It's awfully sad. Which gives you a rough idea of how we feel about “1919,” hot off the pre: It is a sequel to “42d Parallel, dud of yesteryear, a number we barely struggled thru. It is presumably another hunk of American Life in a giant tetralogy which Mr. Dos Passos hopes to make his life work. As such it aims to cross section our capitalistic society and shows how the heavy hand of our materialistic id has been laid on the American spirit, crushing it into futility and nonentity. As we say, Mr. Dos Passos can write, but sheer writing isn’t enough. What and whom he is writing about should count, too. Since we have no complaint about his choice of subject and his purpose we feel the blame lies wholly with whom he is writing about. His characters, in so many words, are bloodless. They seem like empty skins stuffed with old copies of the New Mass reacting to an old fashioned radicalism. They were modernism itself a few ago but even triangu outmoded. Or maybe bored with the Good. hands on his our we're just M ORE cheerfully we give “Magnolia Street’ by what from here looks like a Jewish Dickens, one Louis Golding. A rambling, long striding affai it covers three periods in modern Man- chester, England, eight families on a street in the ghetto thereof, several binfuls of Jewish characters, not to mention their fortunes, nose- and-destiny shapes, vital facts, minor you details and comfortably s great facilit in writing. wherewithals. This ized stunt it does with and journeyman skill There is no high purpose to the feat either, ide from giving you a ge canvas, crowded with life, or as we better critics say, mighty sweep. No out- standing ghetto type or characte is omitted, and if these run to cli at least they are well-drawn clichés and you can’t work up a pound of beef over that. In other words, in “Magnol reet” you are getting a combination of Zangwill, “Street Scene,” “Humoresque,” the Victo- rian rambler-dickens-novel not to mention “Abie’s Irish Rose”—all for the price of one admission and you can’t say that's getting magno- lia. Incidentally there’s something for the Christian trade, too. “Mag- nolia Street” is so named because it edges the ghett one side is all Jewish, or herring, the other all Christian, or ham F you can get by the lead poisoning in Vicki Baum's “And Life Goes On” you still have the story. Very roughly, it’s all about a doctor in a German industrial town whose great life work is to find a cure for the lead poisoning the townies suffer from, contracted at the factories. The good gizzard schnitter brings a snufly old gent suffering from the disease into his own house just to have a handy human guinea pig around to prod into. aturally, the doctor’s wife, being beautiful and sensitive has quite a thin time of it, taking care of Old Snuffly. So when a powerful German capitalist steps into her life and Tempts her, it is quite a neat little struggle for her. Lead Perzening or Riches, which shall she choose? Well, anyhow, not to cut it off while you are still teeter- ing to know how she came out, she has a couple of good hot scenes with Moneybags and tells him must go his wv and Memories, she to her great work as first assistant wiper in a clear case of lead poisoning. And, of course, after the debacle, Life Goes On, and where are you? Out $2.50. It grows more and more obvious that Miss Baum did our de force in her “Grand Hot and is just forcing now. They say she is the Kathleen Norris of Germany and maybe that explains matters better. The Book of the Month Club selected it and why they didn’t pick Liam O’Flaherty’s “The Puritan” or any number of other strikes around beyond us. —TeED SHANE comicbooks.com