“There are many chapters in ‘The inevitable,’ aside from the concluding one, which mark the book as an exquisite example of the fictionist’s art. The author’s touch is always delicate and sure in handling the lights and shades of thought and emotion. The author’s powers of characterization are excellent.”
+ N Y Times p20 N 21 ’20 1300w
“‘Inevitable’ is decidedly well written and translated; it is extremely attractive in its pictures of Rome, of Italian society, and of the foreign colonists.” R. D. Townsend
+ − Outlook 127:31 Ja 5 ’21 130w
“As in ‘The tour,’ the author’s interest in antiquity and in art finds very full expression in these pages, as well as his sense of racial contrasts and interplay among those who chance to meet on alien soil.” H. W. Boynton
+ Review 3:650 D 29 ’20 400w
COUPERUS, LOUIS MARIE ANNE. Tour; tr. by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. *$2 (2c) Dodd
20–10054
In this book Louis Couperus, the Dutch novelist, tells a story of ancient Egypt. Publius Lucius Sabinus, a young Roman lord, is touring the Nile seeking diversion and forgetfulness of his lost love, whom he believes drowned. This is the outward reason. Actually he has come to visit all the various oracles to learn what he can of her whereabouts. One after the other they reveal to him the thoughts that are in his own mind and bring him to admit what others have all the time known, that the girl has shamelessly deserted him and run off with a common sailor. At the end of the tour news meets him that the Emperor Tiberius has confiscated all his property, but Lucius, who has now found solace with the Greek slave Cora, is impervious to the stings of fortune and faces a life of poverty with gaiety. The story is told lightly and with humor.