Life, 1925-04-16 · page 24 of 36
Life — April 16, 1925 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine reviews three contemporary novels and features one cartoon. The reviews are critical commentaries on books by W. Somerset Maugham, a collaborative anthology called "Bobbed Hair," and W.B. Maxwell's work. The cartoon at bottom, titled "The Gay Nineties," satirizes early photography and fashion. It depicts a photographer struggling with an old camera tripod while posing a formally dressed family group. The caption notes that "Phineas has fallen for the new 'camera fever'" and attempts to photograph the family before church. The joke targets the 1920s nostalgia craze for 1890s aesthetics—the "Gay Nineties"—and mocks both the awkwardness of early photography equipment and the pretentiousness of families dressing elaborately for photos. The character "Esther" returning from New York with a fashionable cape represents modern style contrasting with the outdated photography attempt.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“THE PAINTED VEIL," by W. Somerset Maugham (Doran), gets off to the most thrilling start of the year, with a pair of co-respondents breathlessly wondering who, if anybody. came upon the porch and turned doorknob, and what, if anything, he With this poignantly intimate bedroom scene as a point of departure, the author develops a story which ought to make everybody who reads it a nobler and purer citizen, As publicity for the fear of God, it is matchless. For it was Nitty Fane's husband, of course, who tried the door, and his sar- donic method of dealing with her in- fidelity is one of the most painful things in fiction, Life as the wa sin is always more cruel than death, and here is an instance where the woman paid and paid and paid. There was one saw. Beg eee PHINEAS HAS FALLED START TO CHURCH. ESTHER, ON THE LIFE - Life and , Letters SS terrible moment wherein I feared she would succumb to formula and enter a convent, but Mr. Maugham didn’t fail me, as I might have known he wouldn't. The background is Eurasian, and Mr. Maugham’s treatment characteristically spirited and intelligent. How much better evangels the sophisticated gen- tlemen make, by the way, than the Harold Bell Wrights of the profession! (If “The Painted Veil” doesn’t startle you into being better boys and girls, I can almost guarantee that it will make you reread Goldsmith's Elegy.) WENTY literary celebrities have collaborated on “Bobbed Hair” (Putnam), with the evident intention of raising the tresses on the reader before letting him know whether those of the heroine had been cut off as a crucial THE GAY NINETIES contribution to the plot. Carolyn Wells starts the story rolling, Alexander Woollcott gives it a healthy push, and G. B. McCutcheon, Louis Bromfield, Rube Goldberg, Frank Craven, Elsie Janis and exactly thirteen others come tumbling after in rapid succession. God pity poor opium smugglers on a night like the one they concocted. HERE is no doubt in my mind that W. B. Maxwell is the greatest novelist writing to-day, and it is re- grettable that, through his misfortune in having had four different publishers in America, his works have not been more widely exploited in this country. Every time I write about a new book of Mr. Maxwell's, I take occasion tocom- mend to those who have not read them (Continued on page 32) MERA FEVER” AND IS TRYING HIS HAND AT A FAMILY GROUP ALL DRESSED UP TO IS THE VERY LATEST AGONY. TREME RIGHT OF THE GROUP, HAS JUST COME BACK FROM NEW YORK AND HER CAPE comicbooks.com