Reading Mr. Zangwill we are often reminded of a rhyme which Olive Herford appended to a cartoon of that author in his “Confessions of a Caricaturist”:
“This picture, though it is not much
Like Zangwill, is not void of worth;
It has one true Zangwillian touch—
It looks like nothing else on earth.”
In “The Forcing House”, the ever-original “Izzi” has attempted an even more impossible task than the one he set for himself in “The Cockpit”, to which it is the sequel. He has attempted to dramatize the main feature of the Russian Revolution and the confusions of an attendant Bolshevism. The dramatist has proceeded in the conventional style of an allegory, but an allegory peculiar to Mr. Zangwill. Though the whole is vastly confused, each impression is clear enough and we finally emerge from the long, bewildering maze of plots and counterplots, anarchies and despotisms to find to our astonishment a remarkably precise and clear understanding of the political and social conditions of present day Eastern Europe. The chronicler offers no illusions. The whole is plainfully plain.
At the very beginning the author scents the weakness of the radicals. The Jewish Banker and the fanatic Riffoni are talking:
“Gripstein: ‘But why is printing so dear? See how these trade unions cut one another’s throats! So the proletariat won’t pay for your ideas.’
“Riffoni: ‘They can’t afford to.’