Life — October 14, 1926 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

HE demand for books which [ readers “simply cannot put down” must always and inevita- bly exceed the supply, so i gre: pleasure this week to announce a new volume of short storics by W. Somerset Maugham. It is published in London by Heinemann, a fact which you must confide to your bookseller, and it will well repay any slight effort he may have to make to get it. ‘The stories are about English people who live in the Malay Peninsula and in Bornco, and the legendary signifi- cance of a specimen of the native flora 1 given them their group title, “The Casuarina Tree. I should like here and now, inasmuch as the pre- ceding paragraph needs no corollary, to point out something about Mr. d um which is not spoken of at all when his writing is under discus- sion. His warmest ad- mirers thrill to his great knowledge of the world and of human nature, to the savoir faire of his characters, to the inspired economy of his — style. They can almost count, too, on a splendid exhibi- tion of a closeted skele- ton, The negligible minority who lift an oc- casional eyebrow at Mr. Maugham — the people, for instance, who did not see the point of “The Painted — Veil” —wonder how any writer can con- cern himself so deeply with the seamy side of psycholog Their atti- tude is that it is not quite the thing to be so inter- ested in what is to be found under boards, As a matter of fact, Mr. Maugham is a great evangel. He is more efficient in showing up the goblins that will get you ‘if you don’t watch out than most of the law and many of the prophets, The secret of his tre- Life RRR EPPA CREAR Ft Life and Letters mendous bid for interest is his con- viction that if a writer concentrates upon the adornment of his tale, the moral will take care of itself. The bulk of his fiction to date should literally frighten us into being bet- ter boys and girls. I can think of no better contemporary publicist for the fear of God. _J AVING sct down in these col- umns that Charles Brackett’s ck-End” was, if caviar to the (which it so obviously tried to be), applesauce to at least one daughter of the regiment, [am happy now to place a neat stamp Office Manager: you'ne LATE AGAIN, MISS JONES, WIIAT’s Your EXCUSE THIS MORNING? Miss Jones: TUE MINUTE HAND ON MY WATCH GOT BENT. of approval on his new book, “That Last Infirmity’” (John Day), in which he records the progress of a social climber as one having author- ity and not as the usual scribes who attack that theme. Of course, you will have to swallow the astonishing panorama of a bricklayer’s widow marrying her four daughters otf be- yond her wildest dreams of cli, bility, but stranger things have hay pened at Newport. And w you believe it or not won't make any difference, because Mr. Brackett sticks to the comedy of the various situations, which he handles deftly, The special genius, coupled with her Celtic charm, which guides Aloysia McCarthy in her steady upward march is by no means so far-fetched as it sounds. Don't forget that the ma- jority of the lovely things which draw us into New York shops to-day were deliberately selected in Europe by women who i cash girls, Nor does the fact that the story goes completely Democratic at page 257 matter much; if hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, a social climber who really meant busi- ness might actually thrust an unsuitable applicant for her daughter's hand into a donjon tow Infirmity ly and pleas- atever Mr. Brackett may mean by it SINCE I began to write ** about books, my in- tercst in mystery fiction, which was negligible at first, has developed steadily until now, when a large consignment ar rives from the publishers, I search it through in the bright expectation of finding a jacket featuring a smoking revolver or 4 gentleman. stretched out (Continued on page 39) comicbooks.com