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The Significance. What Mr. Dos Passos set out to do was, obviously, to draw a portrait of Manhattan. He has done a good job, an impressive job. The book is fragmentary and disconnected, told in little scenes, shuffled up almost indiscriminately. One may live in Manhattan for years without ever knowing more than two or three of the types he presents (although the people he presents are nearly always more than types—they are individuals), but the fact that a Manhattan dweller may not see his town as Mr. Dos Passos does, merely shows that the writer has done a thorough job.. The spectacle is unsavory, but it is strong and there is no other like it.
The Author. It was in 1921 that this young Harvard man, John (Roderigo) Dos Passos, first made a splash in the literary puddle with Three Soldiers, a realistic book about the War, a book that made war look too nasty to suit certain parties, although others looked upon it and recognized the ugly face of a monster they had met. Since then Mr. Dos Passos has wandered into poetry (A Pushcart at the Curb) and into essays (Rosinante to the Road Again) as well as continuing in the well-beaten track of the novel.
Spies
THUNDER ON THE LEFT—Christopher Morley—Doubleday, Page ($2). It is a children's party, Martin's tenth birthday. The imaginative little fellow invents all sorts of games for his guests: "Stern Parent," "Quarrelsome Children." Then Phyllis, one of the girls, says that grown-ups have a wonderful time. Wouldn't it be nice to be grown up? Martin has an idea for another game, "Spies"—to find out whether grown-ups really have a good time, so as to know whether one wants ever to be grown up.
It is a score of years later. There are the same children—grown up— at a house party. There is Phyllis, the wife; there is George, her husband (and who is he but little Martin grown up?); there is Joyce, the little girl whom Martin liked— and besides there is Martin, in body a man but really little Martin never-grown-up. Then begins the game of "Spies." Martin, the child, sees them, their petty annoyances, troubles of the spirit and of the flesh brought on by the loss of childhood's simplicity, and his meeting them with that simplicity puts them all in strange confusion. Little Martin in a man's body learns and learns. But just before he learns the final tragedy of growing up, the game is over; mercifully the clock turns backward.
The smoke of candles is still blowing off birthday cake, the children are being taken home and Martin is spared the full knowledge of what he is growing up to. And grown-up Mr. Morley in his own wistful type of fantasy has played the theme of lost childhood.
Gallery
A GALLERY OF CHILDREN—A. A. Milne—McKay ($3.50). The author of When We Were Very Young (TIME, Jan. 19) recaptures hearts with these diverting stories for children. The book is one of those big, square, thin books, meant to be read while lying on your tummy, on the floor, in the flicker of firelight. Exquisite pictures, in color, by H. Willebeek Le Maire perfect its charm. There are twelve tales. You like each one best, as you read it, and re-reading them repeats the experience—either backward or forward. Typical verse:
Diana Fitzpatrick Manleverer James Was lucky to have the most beautiful names.