+ N Y Times p23 S 26 ’20 480w
“A charmingly simple story that has just enough of a plot to hold it together.”
+ Springf’d Republican p11a S 26 ’20 230w Wis Lib Bul 16:194 N ’20 80w
LEE, VERNON, pseud. (VIOLET PAGET). Satan the waster. *$2.50 Lane 822
20–16301
Vernon Lee’s satirical allegory, “The ballet of the nations,” was published in 1915 and was reviewed in the Book Review Digest at that time. It is now reprinted here, with prologue and epilogue which take account of the deeper causes leading to the war and of the chaos that has followed it. In the trilogy thus completed Satan appears as “the waster of human virtues.” And since the greater and more useless the waste, the greater his delight, he finds his chief joy in self-sacrifice which is vain, and the author, who in the furnace of the war has come to doubt and question all accepted values, suggests that what the world needs in place of self-sacrifice is that altruism “which is respect for the other rather than renunciation of the self.” This and other philosophical aspects of the war are discussed in the Introduction and in the notes which follow the play.
Ath p846 Je 25 ’20 190w
“We are casting about for a reason why a book so honest, intelligent, well-written, clever, should not stimulate but depress, should be a tiresome book. We may mention that the masque, ‘Satan the waster,’ occupies 110 pages out of about 340; the remainder consists of introduction and notes. That is a damning—or at least a damnable—fact.” F. W. S.
+ − Ath p299 S 3 ’20 640w Booklist 17:106 D ’20