Cynic Bromfield—Healthy Wiley first novels on the new season's lists offer an interesting comparison in The Green Bay Tree* by Louis Bromfield and The 'Education of Peter by John Wiley. They show admirably the tremendous difference in Which exists between the War and that just younger, and by generation I mean a "college generation." Both of these young men are sensitive— artistic, well-bred. They spring from more or less the same environment , and they are both, perhaps, Naturally, fond of over-sophistication. Yet, in a sense, these books are a hundred years apart. The Education of Peter is a simple, straightforward story of undergraduate life at Yale, with its "disappointments and hopes, its minute joys and sorrows. It is not Concerned With the difficult issues of Ilife, not with shifting sex moralities. The Green Bay Tree is cynical, incisive, a Stifle weary. It is the book of a young man steeped in France and the War viewpoint
Bromfield went to the War via Cornell and Columbia. He served in the french Ambulance, then in the Army He returned to America) wrote Several novels, which he never Offered for publication, married into a Conservative New York family, works at present in a responsible post in a prominent publishing firm. Yet to talk with him means that you at once sense the restlessness, the uncertainty, the strained nerves of the War generation.
John Wiley went through Yale much 'as does his hero Peter. His book isn't quite fair to Yale in regard to its attitude toward the literary man—but that's another matter. Had young John Wiley, New York reared, fond of dancing, Who has tried his hand at reporting.— and will probably be a successful Writer—had young John Wiley (who saw military training only in its earliest stages—his Freshman year) been to the War in any capacity whatsoever, he could never have written The Education of Peter, Yet, his is a fresher generation, a healthier generation, an unhurt generation — a generation that should accomplish much.
I can think of no better way to understand this curious break in the continuity of modern development than to compare these two novels,
J. F.
"America" Complex
William A. Brady, theatrical producer, accused the Metropolitan Opera
Company of an anti-American complex. And Metropolitan Business Man- ager Edward Ziegler was quick to recite the convenient story of Rosa Ponselle. As everyone knows, Ponselle was born in this country, discovered in a New Haven cabaret.
Geraldine Farrar, Mary Garden, Emma Eames are recognized as Americans, and Mr. Ziegler added a new name to the American collection — "Queena Mario."
Queena Marion Tillotson, born near Akron, Ohio, was called upon last week to substitute for Bori, famed singer. And later she sang, by her own right, the leading role in Rigoletto. Mr. Ziegler protested she had changed her name for euphonic reasons, and not because she thought a name with an "o" on the end would be to her operatic advantage. Anyway, says Mr. Ziegler, "Queena" couldn't be anything but American.
Groom, Bride