A Mirror to the States

NEW YORK IS NOT AMERICA--Ford Madox Ford--A. & C. Boni ($2.50).

The Book. A very smart Englishman who has dwelt here and there and everywhere cares more for New York than any other place in the world except Provence. But as for the rest of the United States--well, he can tolerate Boston, Chicago, Fort Wayne, San Francisco and way stations, but he cannot love them. He is, indeed, a little afraid to venture outside of Gotham. He has had such awfully upsetting experiences, you know.

For example, in Boston he was looking at a statue of George Washington and remarking civilly enough about it when an Irish policeman threatened to bash in his skull if the remarks did not cease. In the same place he was served oysters, sausage and mince pie for breakfast.

In Chicago his bedchamber was besieged at an impossibly early hour by a group of frantic students bent on interviewing him.

On a transcontinental train he was exposed to a lady from Boston who insisted on his admiring the vast open spaces against his will, who subjected him to a spirited defense of prohibition.

Somewhere in Indiana another Irish policeman called upon him in the dead of night to express thoroughgoing hatred.

New York--his New York--is not like that. New York, ever-changing yet remaining the same, with its appalling buildings and tremendous wealth, jams of humanity and traffic, noises, shadows, has everything, good and bad. By accepting the good and rejecting the bad, one may achieve a fuller satisfaction in living there than anywhere else in the world--except Provence.

The Significance. Ford Madox Ford had a perfectly glorious time writing New York Is Not America. Readers (who do not move their lips in the process) will greatly enjoy reading it. So much is easy for the reviewer. To proceed is not so easy since the path is well-nigh blocked by the temptation to employ fatal banalities such as "sparkling wit," "astounding sophistication," "keen insight," "compelling humor," "perfection of style," other trite terms beloved of the jacket-makers. Mr. Ford fairly bounds through these 300 pages of praise to "his" New York, good-humored condemnation of other less favored localities. In bounding he lands unexpectedly on an immense variety of topics which he disposes of to his own quite evident satisfaction and with vast hilarity. It might be argued that "his" New York is not New York, that his prejudices are extravagant. The fact remains that "his" New York is as authoritative as anyone else's New York, that his prejudices are not without foundation of truth, and that Mr. Ford--here they come-- has made full use of his perfect style, sparkling wit, keen insight, et al, in evolving the most amusing book of the waning year.

The Author. Ford Madox Ford was born in Merton, Surrey, England. He is the son of Francis Hueffer, one-time musical editor of The Times, grandson of Ford Madox Brown, painter. His first book, a fairy story called The Brown Owl, was written when he was 17. Two years later he wrote Shifting of the Fire, his first novel. In 1897 Joseph Conrad suggested a period of collaboration and for ten years they worked more or less together, evolving jointly The Inheritors and Romance. In 1908 Mr. Ford started the English Review, periodical extraordinary, which numbered among its contributors Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, William James, W. H. Hudson, John Galsworthy. In July, 1914, he finished what was to have been his last book, The Good Soldier, joined a Welsh regiment as lieutenant, and went to the front. Returning from the War with health impaired, he wrote two novels in anger which were not published. He intended to write no more. He changed his mind, however, and in 1922 commenced his famed series dealing with England and the War, Some Do Not, No More Parades, and A Man Could Stand Up. The fourth and final novel of this sequence, The Last Post, will be published in January. Mr. Ford is one of the last Tories, lives in the U. S. and Provence, feeling that because of the War England will not be normal until another generation has grown up. His name, Hueffer until 1919, was changed for family reasons to Ford.