Men Like Dogs*
Men Like Dogs-
THE DOGS--Ivan Nazhivin--Lippincott ($2.50).
To write about human beings from any non-human viewpoint is to rob human affairs rather terribly of their importance and security. Important and terrible enough from mankind's viewpoint, the overturning of the social order in Russia becomes truly horrible when considered as the dogs of Russia may have viewed it. That is what Author Nazhivin does, with tremendous effects of comedy and insane tragedy. He sharpens his point by endowing the dog-characters with the traits of the human animal as variously found in Russia. Also he uses this psychological trick in reverse, and the book's title might have been Men Like Dogs.
There are the Prince's favorite pointers, Dobrynia and Svietlana, gentle aristocrats to the tips of their fine tails. In a nearby Moscow woodyard lives Siedoi, a shaggy grey proletarian with a kind heart and a world of curiosity. His bitch, Sudorga, has the heart of a trollop. It is neither sad nor surprising when Siedoi, already a widely traveled dog, leaves her and roams away. Vaguely he is yearning for the beautiful Svietlana, whom he used to see through the gates of the Prince's mansion and whom he once ... a dizzying memory!
Svietlana's pups are born at the Prince's country estate. And of course, Siedoi having been the father, there is a great scandal. But nothing can be done and the old Prince is kindly and forgiving, even to the rascally assistant kennelman Peter who left the gate open. And the summer passes with great happiness and much excitement, for it is known that the Grand Duke Nikita, the Tsar's viciously cruel old uncle,/- has invited himself to hunt with the Prince in the autumn. He is coming with his whole hunting train--a set of rakehells mostly from the cavalry --and his best hounds and horses, his finest borzois with their terrific jaws for slaying the hounded wolf.
Siedoi in his wanderings finds old Grigorii, a human companion of his youth. Together they perform the task of herdsman for the village on the Prince's estate. Thus it befalls that Siedoi does occasionally see lovely Svietlana again. Meantime he makes the acquaintance of various village dogs, Katok, the all-around hunter who belongs to the peasant boy Fedka; Riabtchik, the practically insane watchdog; and Tsygan, a watchdog who absolutely is insane, having lived always and only at the end of a chain in a dark stall.
The Prince's dogs outdo the Grand Duke's in the hunt. Enraged, that fine gentleman flicks an eye from one of his hounds with his whip and gets toweringly drunk after dinner. It is unpleasant to think of him as commander of all Russia's cavalry and, later, of all the Russian armies. For even the dogs are conscious that something unusual, something dark and dreadful is coming to pass--the War, entered into by the Romanovs to gloss over their moral and mental shortcomings. To a dog like Siedoi, excitement is always welcome and off he goes to the front with Fedka. They are taken prisoners and live for a while in Germany. Then back they steal into Russia as heroes and Siedoi becomes more and more the main agent of the plot. He sees the wounding of the Man Cock, the handsome fiance of the Prince's daughter Sonia; he sees the rascally Peter robbing the dead and wounded. At home, as the War goes worse and worse for Russia, he sees and feels the pinch of starvation begin, and the happy band of dogs at the dump heap grow quarrelsome until they are all, save Siedoi and mad Tsygan and a big brute called Pirate, shot down to conserve food. He sees the rising of the villagers and peasants, His Majesty the People led by the now legless rascal Peter, and their march upon the Prince's estate, where they hang the Prince's dogs one by one (including lovely Svietlana!) and then hang the Prince and rape the maid and after ransacking the house, set it on fire. Life is then all confused and hungry and bitter and terrifying. Siedoi travels hither and yon--"His Excellency the Inspector of Railroads" he comes to be known as-- until one day Fedka, who has withdrawn from the topsy-turvy People's world to live and hunt in the forest with Katok, finds his old friend Siedoi lying under a bush, staring at the morning sun with unwinking eyes, gladly dying. Thus ends one of the most articulate books of Russia, of human and other natures, yet written in the Tolstoi vein.
The Author has described himself as follows: "I was born in 1874. My parents were peasants--serfs. Then my father made a successful career as constructor of railways and I was born in easy circumstances, almost rich. I attended the Middle School at Moscow but that did not work. I am too lively, to independent, too much an anarchist. I have traveled much. I have tried to study in European universities but I have not succeeded. Tolstoi partly congratulates me on this and I think he is right.
"I began to print my books at the age of 18 years but they were foolishness. Now my volumes appear in foreign translations but, having lost everything during the Revolution, I am very fatigued and I only dream of finishing my life in the immense forests of my country. But entrance to my country is interdicted by the imbeciles and brigands who govern it."
Author Nazhivin is already famed for his Rasputin, the U. S. edition of which he has repudiated because Publisher Alfred A. Knopf cut it down from 1,450 pages to a mere 750. The Dogs is much shorter, only 336 pages.
What a Town!
THE LITTLE TOWN--Heinrich Mann-- Houghton Mifflin ($2.50).
Unless you were told, you would certainly never think Heinrich Mann was brother to Nobel Prize-winner Thomas. Their books are poles apart. Thomas's are quiet, philosophical, analytic; Heinrich's loud, nightmarish, operatic. The Little Town is like a garish and improbable opera played at top speed, with singers, chorus and brassy orchestra all blaring at once for dear life. The effect is sometimes uproarious, sometimes deafening, occasionally sinister.
It was a complaint frequently heard in the little Italian hill-town that nothing exciting ever happened there. When indefatigable Lawyer Belotti arranged for the visit of an opera company everyone licked his chops, looked forward longingly. When the company arrived the town went wild. Business boomed, stood still or went backward, according to whether you were
Innkeeper Malandrini, Lawyer Belotti or dour Priest Don Taddeo. The whole town turned itself into a fiesta, mass meeting, audience, riot. Chorus-girls were billeted everywhere; their sleepless generosity played hob with respectable burghers, set a fad that was followed even by hitherto respectable housewives.
Lawyer Belotti, self-constituted leader of the worldlings, and Don Taddeo soon, came to grips. The lawyer wanted to show the actors the town's chief relic, an ancient bucket; but the priest had the key, refused to give it up. Feeling ran high; there were fist fights; the fortunes of war wavered. In desperation Don Taddeo even set fire to the inn where Sin kept wakeful nights. In the end he surrendered the key, confessed himself beaten; the bucket was displayed. After four Dionysiac weeks the opera company departed. Shouted Lawyer Belotti: "What are we? A little town. What did these guests bring us? A little music. And yet--we have felt enthusiasm, we have striven, and we have made a little progress in the school of humanity!" With cheers the whole populace escorted the company a few miles on their way; and in the deserted square nobody saw what happened to Singer Nello and his mistress Alba except the mysterious woman who watched everything from her shuttered window.
Good, Quiet Fellow
OUT OF SOUNDINGS--H. M. Tomlinson --Harper ($4).
H. M. Tomlinson has never been accused of arson, no London bobby has ever arrested him for setting the Thames on fire. A solid citizen in literature's republic, he is known, liked, admired by other solid citizens. Primarily an essayist, a ponderer, his earnest musings appeal to lovers of quiet English and of quiet English sense (which has in it a touch of the lyrical, a dash of the salty). This book of essays and sketches should cause no fluctuation in Tomlinsons, which should remain steady, safe.
In Out of Soundings Tomlinson writes on: skiing in Switzerland, a launch trip in the Malay Archipelago, Sea-Dog Frobisher and contemporary worthies, an overnight voyage in a wrecking tug, the talkies, an old man who loses his identity on a train, Thomas Hardy, et al. Whether you read him for the first time or the 20th you will probably admire his musing, sombre earnestness. Whether it bores you or sustains you depends on whether you like pipe-smoking, solitude, reflection.
War Anthology
BEST SHORT STORIES OF THE WAR--Ed. by H. C. Minchin, Andre Maurois, Arnold Zweig, Coningsby Dawson; Introduction by H. M. Tomlinson--Harper ($3.50).-
The late great War is still a little too close to be recollected in tranquillity; as yet no epic, prose or verse, has attempted to put it between covers as Thomas Hardy put the Napoleonic Wars in The Dynasts. But this anthology of War stories is a step in that direction. These 66 short stories, by French, German, British, U. S. authors, whether or not they are the best stories of the War, at least give a more representative picture than can be found in any one novel, poenij history.
A few-of these stories (notably those by Erich Maria Remarque, H. M. Tomlinson, Andre Maurois) are really excerpts lifted from longer books, but most are full-length. They cover: The Home Front; Behind the Front Line; In the Front Line; Battle, Raid & Patrol; The Lighter Side of War, et al. Some of the authors: John Galsworthy, W. Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, Andre Maurois, the late Joseph Conrad, Edith Wharton, Laurence Stallings, John W. Thomason Jr., the late C. E. Montague, Leonard Hastings Nason, "Saki" (the late H. H. Munro), Henri Barbusse, Liam O'Flaherty.
Sophistry
THE SOPHISTICATES -- Gertrude Ather-ton--Liveright ($2).
"Sophistication" is a fighting word, like "sense of humor." Gertrude Atherton, who resents pseudo-sophisticates, in The Sophisticates has attempted to do them sophisticated dirt. The book is also to all intents a murder story.
Old Julius Abbey was not the kind of husband-a young wife likes. He had money, social standing (in his small Middle-Western city), a cold but irascible disposition and no charm. Melton knew nothing when she married him, but she learned fast, soon scared Julius with threats of scandal into letting her live a fairly independent life. They shared the same house, but inhabited different parts of it. Some nights Julius gave stag dinners. Other nights Melton held her salon. Melton's devotees, calling themselves sophisticates, had a high old intellectual time; despised Julius, thought Melton the world's most wonderful woman.
Then one night Julius Abbey was found dead after one of his stag parties. When an autopsy disclosed arsenic in his stomach everyone was sure Melton had murdered him. Even her sophisticates thought she was guilty, but they were loyal, only admired her the more. Things looked black for Melton at the trial, but at the last minute a dying man's false affidavit acquitted her. The sophisticates were overjoyed, had a higher old intellectual time than ever. Three of them wanted to marry her and take a chance on being her next victim. Of Melton's three suitors, only Manufacturer Jim had doubts of her guilt; when Melton finally ran away from them all he was sure he knew why, was sure she was innocent after all. In Manhattan he found her at last, convinced her he was not enough of a sophisticate to love a murderess, made her admit she loved him.
The Author-Gertrude Franklin Atherton was born in San Francisco and lives there now, but headed East as soon as she could. Her reason: "I did not know much at that age but at least I knew enough to know that I could learn little of the world in California; and know the world I must if I would be a novelist." Long-time sojourner in France, she was madea Chevalier of the Legion of Honor (1925) for her services in the War. A prolific writer, she has written 37 books in 40 years. Some of them: Rezanov, California, Black Oxen, The Crystal Cup, Dido, Queen of Hearts.
/-Actually, Tsar Nicholas' second cousin. *New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular retail price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City. *Published Feb. 5.
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