M. Maurois Disappoints
My American Journal. By Andre Maurois. Translated from the French by Joan Charles. (Falcon Press. r is. 6d.)
THIS odd production has an odd title. For it is not, or is only in part, an " American journal." Part of the book does, indeed,-deal with the months M. Maurois spent at the University of Kansas City where; both with town and gown, everything was up to date and highly civilised. This truth is elaborated at excessive length. Then there is another " journal," written after M. Maurois had returned to Paris after six years of exile and, apart from a little minor gossip about the Academie Francaise and a little trivial political comment, there is nothing to note here. Then there is an account of a lecture tour in Switzerland where M. Maurois seems to have been unduly surprised by the culture of the " Suisse romande." To this can be added a feeble fable and some collections of aphorisms which those borrowed from the common stock are of the same devastating banality as those invented by M. Maurois. This farrago is badly edited and is translated into American at a level ranging from the competent to the ludicrous. There may be many readers who must have every example of M. Maurois's literary output printed and translated. To them this book can be recommended but certainly
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