Journalist Bennett

THE SAVOUR OF LIFE--Arnold Bennett--Doubleday Doran ($2.50). Mr. Bennett has a grievance. People tell him he is a greater novelist than journalist, and he doesn't like it, because he has more fun being a journalist. So he writes a great many essays on a great many subjects to prove that a good modern novelist is essentially a journalist. But the fact remains that none of his journalism is as good as Clayhanger or The Old Wives' Tale.

The great many subjects in the present collection bristle with further grievances--none of them new; flimsy partitions in European hotels; doctors' persistence in dealing with symptoms rather than causes; England's refusal to adopt the efficient decimal system; U. S. film kings; man's servitude to alcohol; young authors (stream-of-consciousness school) who do not write like Mr. Bennett.