Northern Triangle

A MAN SCANS His PAST--M. Con-stantin-Weyer--Macaulay ($2.50).

Every year one talented man, usually young, writes a novel which France's Goncourt Academy immortalizes. This, Author Constantin-Weyer's novel, is the 25th to win the prize. A Man Scans His Past tells a story as much of prairies and snows as of death and love in Canada. Poetic descriptions of nature are lavishly strewn over a French horse-trader's trek from the U. S. to Canada where he sells his herd; then his mush onward by sled and dog, to the frozen Northwest for furs. On the way back death comes to his companion ; and, though freighted by the corpse in a wolf-country, he battles his way back to the girl he loves, Hannah O'Molloy. They marry and there is a child. But the Frenchman finds his culture and cleanliness offended by her narrowness and rusticity. Then an Irishman elopes with Hannah. The Frenchman pursues them into the wilderness, is glad to find death instead.

Author Constantin-Weyer's past includes 14 eventful years in Canada as farmer, trapper, woodsman, horse-trader, fur-trader. His novel is less eventful than-his life, more in a spirit of stylistic brooding.