19 MARCH 1904, Page 23

The Taskmaster. By Alphonse Courlander. (Duckworth and Co. 6s.)—For sheer

unredeemed brutality and sordid realism it would be difficult to find the equal of this book. The reader will grant

that the story is to a certain extent "powerful " ; but the people described are so revolting that there really seems no reason why any author should force his audience to spend a couple of hours in their society. The familiar argument of "art for art's sake" hardly applies here, for the book is too crude to be called art at all. It is, of course, impossible to deny that there may be people like these in the world, but that does not render it essential that they should be described in fiction. A sewer may be a very necessary and sanitary waterway, but one does not take a pleasure- boat along it.