BAIN, FRANCIS WILLIAM. Substance of a dream. il *$1.75 (3½c) Putnam
19–19598
The author disclaims all responsibility for his stories which he says come to him “suddenly, like a flash of lightning all together.... I never know, the day before, when one is coming: it arrives, as if shot out of a pistol.” (Introd.) This exotic Hindu tale is half love-story, half fairy tale, and depicts in the extraordinary queen, Táráwalí, a being half male half female. It is in three parts: On the banks of Ganges; The heart of a woman; and A story without an end.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
+ Bookm 51:240 My ’20 450w Lit D p91 S 4 ’20 1300w
“Those who have read Mr Bain’s other Hindu stories will not need to be told of the unique place he now occupies in the world of letters. Here the exigencies of space will permit us to say only that ‘The substance of a dream’ is a worthy successor to the other and earlier volumes.”
+ N Y Times 25:145 Mr 28 ’20 600w N Y Times 25:190 Ap 18 ’20 20w
“‘The substance of a dream’ will please those whom the other books of the author have pleased. It is very feminine; sensuous to the point of orgies of kissing; sensual with soulhuntings and langours and faintings; fleshly in artistic ecstasies; and psychological in imaginative suggestion.”
− + Review 2:682 Je 30 ’20 280w