THE MIRROR or POOLS—Alfred Neumann—Knopf ($2.50).
Publishers always have some reason for publishing what they do. Authors' reasons for writing what they write are vaguer. In a letter to Publisher Knopf, Author Neumann defiantly admits why he wrote this historical-romantic farce: "Because I wanted to fight against the general and my personal depression, and because in hard and bad times there is always one tragicomic feeling in place—gallows humor." Seekers after belly-laughs need not apply! Author Neumann's humor is fun but it is gruesome.
Heinrich, enormously fat, drunken, gluttonous Duke of Liegnitz, was a contemporary of England's Queen Elizabeth, but he never gave her a thought until his last legs were wobbly. Only thing that kept him from drinking his duchy dry and getting himself kicked out was his timidly pessimistic Counsellor, Schweinichen. But when the Duke, for a joke, tried to get his ugly wife to sit at the same table with his practically naked mistress, it was too much. The Duchess would not; the Duke slapped her; she went to the Holy Roman Emperor and told on him. So Duke Heinrich found himself deposed. Then began a picaresque and piggish progress as the Duke and his rapscallion retinue sponged their way around Europe. The Duke failed notably to have himself made King of Poland. He failed to stir up Germany against the Holy Roman Empire. Though he made enough of an impression on the Counts Palatine and Conde to get on their army payroll (which was all he wanted), he did not conquer France. Finally he thought of marrying Queen Elizabeth. But instead he went back to Liegnitz. lived in harmless drunkenness until patient Death came to deflate his monstrous belly.
Eternal Irish
THE COLOURED DOME—Francis Stuart —Macmillan ($2).
Though some Irishmen have learned to write English very well, the language is even less native to Ireland than it is to the U. S. The typical Irish writer wears his English with a difference. Racial bias toward tragic fancy, racial prejudice against successful fact give the Irish writer a peculiar angle on even plain Saxon themes. Author Stuart's theme is patriotism—which to an Irishman is partly like politics and partly like being in love. His tale, which starts realistically enough and wanders through dirty Dublin streets, ends toward the stars.