O'FLAHERTY THE GREAT. By John Cournos. (Knopf. 7s. 6d.)—This remarkable
novel seems to have been suggested by the well-known story about Leonardo da Vinci, that a " model " who came to sit to him for Judas Iscariot turned out to be the same man who some years previously had been chosen to represent Christ. Mr. Cournos argues that there is something of Christ and of Judas in us all, and that in most characters a precarious balance is maintained between the divine and the devilish. We are introduced to a triumvirate of young men—two poets and a sculptor. One poet sits to the sculptor as Lucifer, while the other is modelled as a " Saint." But, through the subtle interactions of the three personalities, Lucifer is transformed into a dreamy ascetic ; the " Saint," who is brought into contact with a scheming and voluptuous woman, lapses into violence while the sculptor, who at first is the detached and cynical observer of life, ends by becoming the most truly, because most practically, religious. The actual characters and situations of the book are exaggerated ; yet it is an essentially true reflection of life that we are given. Mr. Cournos is a thinker as well as a fine literary artist, and his story is not only absorb- ing both as narrative and dialogue ; it also glows with the inner light of vision.
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