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ZAMACOÏS, EDUARDO. Their son; The necklace. (Penguin ser.) *$1.25 (3½c) Boni & Liveright
19–18640
Two stories translated from the Spanish by George Allan England. In the first, an honest, faithful, industrious locomotive engineer marries a young girl of provocative beauty. In his zeal to get on, and to provide properly for her in case he should suddenly die, he insists on their taking as boarder a friend of his who is fond of “wine, women, and song.” Not until three years pass does he learn that his friend has been too intimate with his wife; and although he knows it must cost him his home, his delight in his wife and his gay little son, he kills his deceiving friend in a duel. After twenty years in prison he returns to a wife hardened and made ugly by work, and a dissolute son. He is happy again, prosperity comes; but another duel occurs through no fault of his, in which he is killed by the son who is not his son. The second is a passionate story of the power of a courtesan over a young student from the country. The translator contributes an appreciative estimate of the author.
“‘Their son’ is a novelette of a very high order of merit. The action is rapid, the pathos bare and virile, the observation of circumstance exact. ‘The necklace’ is more hectic in atmosphere and the theft of the jewels is somewhat wildly conceived.” L. L.
+ − Nation 110:sup488 Ap 10 ’20 150w
“The themes of both of the novelettes are antique, but the style is direct, simple and vigorous. Here is a book worth reading.” A. W. Welch
+ − N Y Call p11 Mr 21 ’20 280w
“We predict for Señor Zamacois a high appreciation among American readers.”
+ N Y Times 25:39 Ja 25 ’20 750w
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
Review 2:111 Ja 31 ’20 150w
“This author has been compared to both Balzac and Maupassant; but it seems to us that his nearest double in French fiction would be Anatole France, with whom he has in common a fine irony which directs the thought of the reader to fundamental ills in present-day social relationships.”
+ Survey 44:352 Je 5 ’20 200w
ZANELLA, NORA. By the waters of Fiume. *$1.35 (*3s 6d) Longmans 940.3436
20–4795
“This little book purports to have been written by an English girl who married a young Italian of Fiume just before the war. The husband had to serve as a conscript in the Austrian army, and was shot for refusing to fire on the Italians. The wife survived him only a few months. Whether or not the story is true it represents faithfully enough the Italian sentiments of the majority of the people of Fiume and their sufferings during a war in which all their sympathies were with the Allies and against their Austrian and Croatian oppressors.” (Spec) The facts of the author’s life are told by her sister, Madame de Lucchi, in an introduction.
“You can tell what Fiume is like by reading the early pages of this book.”
+ Boston Transcript p4 My 26 ’20 260w Spec 123:446 O 4 ’19 100w
“It is a moving record of love, expressed with great exuberance.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p534 O 2 ’19 70w
ZILBOORG, GREGORY. Passing of the old order in Europe. *$2.50 (4c) Seltzer 940.5
The author has lived through the war as an observer and is not writing an academic treatise or a book based on authorities but claims merely to be analysing his own experiences. It is his conviction that “in the course of the struggles of the present-day world, humanity has developed a very serious disease.... The disease is mob psychosis. The contagion was carried by the war, by revolution, by political lying, by diplomatic betrayal, social disturbances and moral suppression.” (Introd.) The book concerns itself with the diagnosis of the disease and the possibilities of restoring health. Contents: The impasse of politics; The debauch of European thought; The morass of war; The recovery of revolution; Revolutionary contradictions; Additional contemplations; Light and shadows; Consequences and possibilities.
Boston Transcript p1 N 27 ’20 420w R of Rs 62:558 D ’20 120w
“It is an important contribution, full of apposite citation from an unusually wide range of knowledge and personal experience of penetrating criticism and suggestive generalization. This message just now deserves a wide hearing.” B. L.
+ Survey 45:320 N 27 ’20 560w
ZIMMERN, HELEN, and AGRESTI, ANTONIO. New Italy. *$2 (3c) Harcourt 914.5
(Eng ed 19–264)
The authors say in the foreword that Italy’s glorious past stands in the way of comprehension of her present, that she is still for the average Englishman and American the land of the renaissance and the Risorgimento, or the country of the picturesque brigand and lazzarone, while in fact the modern Italian is not a romanticist but a positivist, not an excitable, emotional individual but a reflective one. The great change that has come over the people, especially during the last twenty years, has surprised even the nation itself into knowing itself for the first time. The endeavor of the book is to give a short, synthetic view of Italy as she was at the outbreak of the war, as she is today and as she is likely to be after the conclusion of peace, for Italy’s entrance into the war marks the end of the book. The three main divisions of the contents are politics, civil questions, and Italy and the great war. There is an index.
Ind 104:67 O 9 ’20 50w
“They know and love the old Italy, and they have packed much valuable information into their book, despite haphazard statistics and recurrent bellicose homilies on the war. There is need of an authoritative book on new Italy; this is not it.”
+ − Nation 111:161 Ag 7 ’20 220w
“The book provides a certain amount of guidebook information about Italian history, education, industry, etc. But, as an interpretation of ‘New Italy,’ it is a total failure.” A. C. Freeman
− + N Y Call p11 Ag 1 ’20 580w
“The volume as a whole is thoroughly satisfactory, and our only regret is that its brief compass does not permit a fuller development of the subjects with which it deals.”
+ N Y Times 25:14 Je 27 ’20 700w + Outlook 125:542 Jl 21 ’20 80w
“Miss Helen Zimmern and Signor Agresti have tried to explain modern Italy to English readers, and their survey is both compact and intelligent. The writers have not quite got to the root of Italy’s discontents.”
+ − Sat R 125:848 S 14 ’18 1050w Spec 121:231 Ag 31 ’18 1400w
“So far as it goes it gives a clear outline of the progress of Italy. But her present developments are among the most interesting in all Europe, and this book, ending the survey where it does, hardly prepares us to understand them.”
+ − Springf’d Republican p10 S 23 ’20 280w
“She has written numerous books on Italy, and she has written better ones, not a little better.” F. O. Beck
+ − Survey 45:73 O 9 ’20 370w The Times [London] Lit Sup p383 Ag 15 ’18 110w
ZOOK, GEORGE FREDERICK. Company of royal adventurers trading into Africa. $1.10 Journal of negro history, 1216 You st., N.W., Washington, D.C. 382
20–4623
This monograph is reprinted from the Journal of negro history, (April, 1919) and is a contribution to the history of the slave trade. The time period covered is 1660–1672. Contents: Early Dutch and English trade to West Africa; The royal adventurers in England; On the west coast of Africa; The royal adventurers and the plantations; Bibliography; Index. The author is professor of modern European history in Pennsylvania state college.
“On the whole Dr Zook has presented a clear and straightforward account of the company’s activities and relationships.”
+ − Am Hist R 25:541 Ap ’20 550w + − J Pol Econ 28:523 Je ’20 400w
ZWEMER, SAMUEL MARINUS. Influence of animism on Islam; an account of popular superstitions. il *$2 Macmillan 297
20–8879
The object of the book is to show how animism, the superstitious belief in spirits, witches and demons, on which all pagan religions are founded, still controls Islam in its popular manifestations. Mohammedanism, as an outgrowth of paganism, Judaism and Christianity, is characterized as a religion of compromise, that has easily yielded to the pagan survivals in the countries over which it has spread its influence. That these superstitions are popular expressions that have nothing to do with the monotheism of Islam, does not make them less pernicious. The contents are: Islam and animism; Animism in the creed and the use of the rosary; Animistic elements in Moslem prayer; Hair, finger-nails and the hand; The ‘Aqiqa’ sacrifice; The familiar spirit or Qarina; Jinn; Pagan practices in connection with the pilgrimage; Magic and sorcery; Amulets, charms and knots; Tree, stone and serpent worship; The Zar: exorcism of demons. There are illustrations and a bibliography.
+ Booklist 17:139 Ja ’21 Lit D p102 S 4 ’20 1600w N Y Times 25:17 Jl 4 ’20 1000w
“His book is well worth reading.”
+ Spec 124:54 Jl 10 ’20 160w The Times [London] Lit Sup p407 Je 24 ’20 120w The Times [London] Lit Sup p723 N 4 ’20 150w
[2]. This book is mentioned for the first time in this issue.