A volume of poems written after the war, reflecting the impressions of war of one who took part in it. The author is a Californian who has written dramas for local groups and had one play produced at the Greek theatre in Berkeley. The introduction, by George Douglas of the San Francisco Chronicle, says: “These ‘after the day’ or ‘nocturnal’ impressions were all written with a view to their being read aloud, and as dramatic reading they take on a singularly magnetic quality.” Free verse is the form employed.
“The poems, dramatic rather than lyric, are an earnest expression of a man—one who has something to say in free verse that is worth saying.”
+ Boston Transcript p6 N 20 ’20 120w
BENOIT, PIERRE. Atlantida (L’Atlantide). *$1.75 (2½c) Duffield
20–12951
This prize novel of the French academy is translated from the French by Mary C. Tongue and Mary Ross. Two French officers engaged on a scientific expedition into the wilds of Sahara, discover the mythical island of Atlantis and find that instead of having been immersed in the sea, the desert had emerged about it preserving it with all its ancient treasures and through mysterious contact with the outside world, making it a storehouse of all the sciences and lore of all the ages. Antinea, its present ruler, a descendant of Neptune, is continually supplied with men from the outside world, who all die of love for her while she is unable to love. At last she loves one of the two officers of our story, but being scorned by him, she compels his companion to kill him. This one, by the aid of a slave girl in love with him, succeeds in escaping, but ever after wanders about a restless spirit, consumed with the desire to return.
BooklistM 17:30 O ’20
“There is a glamor of mystery in the story; there is a flavor of the Orient, a glint of gold, an aroma of perfume which attracts the senses and beckons the reader onward to the end. The French have a fascinating way with them.”