Life, 1926-11-25 · page 26 of 44
Life — November 25, 1926 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents **book reviews** rather than political cartoons. The content critiques two contemporary novels: 1. **"Introduction to Sally"** by Elizabeth (Countess Russell) — The reviewer finds it disappointing compared to her earlier work "The Enchanted April." The heroine Sally is criticized as implausibly beautiful and inarticulate, with an uninteresting husband who is a "smug and stupid Cambridge student." 2. **"My Mortal Enemy"** by Willa Cather — The reviewer admires Cather's writing style but finds the protagonist Myra Henshawe less compelling than her previous character Mrs. Forrester. Henshawe is described as fundamentally selfish and sharp-tongued. The **illustration** at bottom depicts a formal testimonial reception, likely satirizing the radio announcer who has said "er" a million times — a joke about verbal tics and broadcasting conventions of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TRODUCTION TO ALLY,” by “Elizabeth” (Doubleday, Page), while pass- ably readable, is a disappointment be- cause it falls so far below the stand- ard of its author's past perform- ances. I had supposed that it was impossible for the Countess Russell to write a negligible book, but she has come very close to so doing, and my feelings are much the same as those of the baseball fans who couldn't bear for Christy Mathewson to be sent to the mound in those later days when opposing batters occa- sionally scored off him. My prin- cipal reaction is “Shades of ‘The Enchanted April’! There was a book for you! The main point in this new story's disfavor is the sheer improbability of its heroine. Sally was so beautiful that she could not go out without col- lecting a crowd, and she hadn't a single “h” to her conversation. Her parents, small shopkeepers, had been THE EMI Life and Letters eam forced to hide her during her adoles- cence, and unfortunately the first young man to discover her and obtain a monopoly by means of a marriage certificate is a smug and stupid Cam- bridge student who does not project any liveliness into the business. Neither does his mother, who is even smugger and stupider, and we could all do nicely without her suitor, the vulgar Mr. Thorpe. In fact, it is not until Sally gets accidentally mixed up with the nobility that the proceedings take on any of their creator's real flavor, and the reader hegins to feel that at last he is tread- ing on familiar ground. To judge from the title, we are to hear more of Sally. But not until she has disposed of her husband and mother- in-law, I hope. They are just as horing to me as they were to Sally. V 7ILLA CATHER has written another novel as short as “A Lost Lady,” but not nearly so good. A TESTIMONIAL The reason why “My Mortal Enemy” (Knopf) seems something of an anti-cli s that the woman who is its central character is not so interesting a type as was the vulner- able Mrs, Forrester. Perhaps there might not even be a comparison if Miss Cather had not followed the same narrative method. And how! This is as good a time as any to con- fess that the way Miss Cather writes positively thrills me. It all seems wasted on Myra Henshawe, who, in the crude and last analysis of the reviewer, was nothing but a selfish woman with a sharp tongue and a + vile disposition whose occasional flashes of charm and generosity were the outcome of bad sportsmanship and to whom nobody but exactly the kind of little boob who is doing the - reminiscing would have given a sec- ond thought. Her husband, when he learned that she had given his six new dress shirts to the janitor’s son, (Continued on page 36) ECEPTION ON THE OCCASION OF HIS HAVING SAID “ER” A MILLION TIMES. comicbooks.com