Fiction
Out of This Furnace. By Thomas Bell. (Jarrolds. tos.6d.)
The First American Gentleman. By Branch Cabell. (The Bodley Head. 78. 6d.)
Women Will Be Doctors. By Hannah Lees. (Murray. 7s. 6d.) Arise From Sleep. By Elizabeth Dehehanty. (Heinemann. 8s.6d.)
OF the novels listed, all from America, Mr. Thomas Bell's Out of This Furnace easily earns first place by reason of certain solid virtues. Like Kapstein's Something of a Hero, it covers three generations of a family and the industrialisation of America. TI title is symbolic, for it is not merely the sttel furnaces which chang but the Slovak peasants, fleeing from the difficulties of Europe, ii new difficulties ahead : it takes more than time for them to beco absorbed into the life of America. Mr. Bell describes the exploi tion of immigrant labour with vigour, sympathy and understandi of the " hunkies " whom he presents sharply and without sent mentality. The narrative opens in the '8o's with the arrival George Kracha in the States. After some misadventures he fin his way to a little colony of his compatrio:s in Pennsylvania, whe he earns ten cents an hour working as a ganger on the Iilway. Ev so, he is in time able to send for his wife. Then he goes to wo as a labourer in the blast-furnaces. Kracha prospers and becom a butcher, but a designing widow-woman hastens his downfall, after the death of his wife he returns to the mills. Kracha's daught marries Mike Dobrejcak, they both have visions, but both victims of the crushing economic system. It is their son Dob who becomes a skilled worker, who profits from their struggle his own. Mr. Bell has painted a grim picture of the American st industry, of the strikes and lock-outs, of company police and milit intervention, but he believes in the spirit and courage of humanity and this gives warmth and colour to his narrative.
One can imagine that even the most faithful and ardent of Mr Branch Cabell's admirers will feel vaguely disappointed by his late: effort, The First American Gentleman. He will find the &mili. mannerisms, the heavy ironies, the tiresome vulgarities and th affectations of learning all here once again, but time and eve-, have faded them sadly, they have lost their glitter and become ratht drab and thin in the process, so that even the author himself seem more than a little fatigued.
The history is of Nematton, Prince of the Ajacans, the demi-g son of Quetzalcoad, who once lived benevolently among the Tolt in- the golden age of the world. Quetzakoatl, according to M Cabell, came back from the heaven called Tapallan to live in th country, known later as Virginia, with his son. Cortes landed Vera Cruz in 1519, eight years before the birth of a son to Charles of Germany, who was to become the notorious much marn Philip II of Spain. It is during the reign of this latter monar that the story is placed, Nematton comes under the influence Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles. He is sent to Spain to the co of Philip, who presently packs him off to Mexico as ambassad By the time he arrives there Don Pedro has fallen in disgrace, he advises the young man to return to his own people as soon he can. After many adventures he reaches them, and together th retreat as far as possible from civilisation. Mr. Cabell's deliberatel stylised manner can hardly be said to suit either the ferocious co quistadors or the aborigines they so strenuously plundered.
Women Will Be Doctors is the old familiar success story plac against the unfamiliar background of a city hospital, and might w have been called Amanda Makes Good. The slangy meretricio heroine thinks of love while giving an anaesthetic: the patient, young unmarried mother, dies. Amanda then goes into a flat sp I and retreats to bed, where she is able to recall in comfort the wh course of her professional training. She decides that she is tough enough for all the dirty work of doctoring, but hopes to fin her course and dodge some of the necessary unpleasantness at same time. Her doctor fiancé is in complete agreement with her, does all he can to foster the project. He likes clinging help! women. But another doctor on the hospital staff (also male) tak a hand in the game and tells Amanda a few sharp home tru There is a local catastrophe with terrible consequences, and t entire hospital staff are called on to help the victims. At this t true Amanda flies to the top, and she copes with everyone, includ the injured, the old love and the new. A few days later she performing in*the operating theatre with the new young man help her. By this time we have reached the last chapter, and lea the heroine blissfully contemplating a future in which kisses a vivisection share equal importance. The writing is slick, and t romantic passages noVelettish, but the life of the hospital is do in a convincing manner. And what a super-film Hollywood make of it all.
Arise From Sleep might be described as a suspense novel, readers of own Ethel Lina White will be familiar with the dev Just before the outbreak of war, a young woman sails from Amen on an Italian liner in order to bring home a maiden aunt. Pa Marshall is the proud possessor of an exquisite emerald mount in a ring. The stone excites the cupidity of Mr. Paganini, p of the S.S. Ducca degli Abruzzi,' who, besides being a very sinis
Fascist agent, is something of a lapidarian. Several unpleasant incidents take place during the voyage. Paula and a young man, Robert Warburton, whom she had once met casually in America, join forces : they befriend a shy terrified little Italian professor, and agree to smuggle some money, brought for an underground cause, into Italy. The professor is then murdered. Paula and Robert are shadowed after they land. They part company, and then the girl finds her aunt has already left for France. After many adventures, during which Paula loses and regains her emerald, she and Robert reach Paris en route for America and wedded bliss.
JOHN HAMPSON.
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