CURRENT LITERATURE.
NEW FRENCH BOOKS.
Journal d'un Grinehu. Par Gyp. (Flammarion, Paris.)— It is impossible to keep pace with the energy and versatility of "Gyp," who marks every month with a new novel. But it may safely be said of the Journal d'un Grinchu that it is one of her latest, and that it would by this time have been forgotten had its interest not been kept alive by a libel suit and a verdict against the novelist. Truly, a novel which can be brought into Court on such a charge condemns itself, and this specimen would hardly be worth notice did it not reflect the lunacy which for the moment has taken hold of France. As though the daily Press did not contain a sufficient commentary upon the "Affair," the " Affair " must be made the material of romance, or rather, romance must discharge the duty of polemical journalism. The book, of course, is marked by a certain talent. The grinchu himself, an uninspiring member of the Nationalist, Anti-Semite party, whose wife receives the attentions of a Jew, is not ill-drawn, and recalls here and there the gay irony of " Gyp's " happier days. But the work is a novel only in form ; in essence it is a piece of careless journalism. Most of its paragraphs might have done duty (and perhaps did) in the columns of the Libre Parole, and its author had far more thought of her political animosities than of her craft when she composed this overweighted pamphlet. Once upon a time "Gyp" cultivated a humour, only too rare in her country, and thought it enough to amuse her readers, without any after- thought of politics or psychology. But the scandal which sub- merges France has killed is petit Bob, and there reigns in his place the tiresome monster of Anti-Semitism. Nor have we much hope for "Gyp's" future. That gifted lady has tasted the excitement of the Palais Bourbon, and doubtless ands it easier to attack the enemies of M. Drumont than to amuse her ancient admirers.
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