SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude subsequent review.]
The Amateur Archangel. By T. C. Crawford. (Oxford : Basil Blackwell. 5s.)—Mr. Crawford's The Amateur Archangel begins hopefully. The narrator finds himself at an outdoor Paris restaurant in the company of a man of remarkable appear- ance and of still more remarkable conversation. This man casually remarks that he is the creator of the world, and it later appears that Jean Columb was indeed, as he asserts, a species of super-being who was an apprentice world architect. He had grown too clever to be taught, and thought he would do a little creating on his own. The result was the world. The other architects, the master-builders, to cure his vanity and incompetence, send him to live in his own home-made world, and during part of his period of exile the War is raging. The book is the working out of his theme. There could hardly be a more delightful plot, for Mr. Crawford is a true mystic, but unfortunately, like many mystics, he has let his parable run away with him. He controls it imperfectly, and the reader receives an agreeable but incoherent impression.
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