Good Books

The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:

ANTIC HAY--Aldous Huxley--Doran ($2.00). Of Theodore Gumbril, sometime Oxford tutor, and his superb invention -- Gumbril's Patent Pneumatic Trousers--They Protect the Lumbar Ganglia and Lend Incisive Poise to Businessmen. Of his extraordinary exploits in Love and Business, under the beaverish protection of a huge, artificial beard. Of Casimir Lypiatt, the boomingly futile would-be genius--and Shearwater, the scientist who investigated sweat-- and P. Mercaptan, the snouty-faced amateur of rococo amours--and Myra Viveash with her expiring voice-- and Zoe--and Emily--and Rosie--a whole horde of fantastic characters dancing the antic hay around the sophisticated maypole of their own futility. Pickled peacock stuffed with pistachio-nuts--champagne and liquid cream-cheese--a witty, mordant extravaganza of modern fools and fribbles and farceurs and fakers, at times moving, at times a little rancid, always pyrotechnic--an English Blind Bow-Boy with infinitely more brilliance, grace and bite.

J. HARDIN & SON--Brand Whitlock--Appleton ($2.00). Our former Ambassador to Belgium revisits an Ohio Main Street. His findings are not precisely Sinclair Lewis's, but neither are they those of the local Kiwanis. J. Hardin, grim, Puritanical buggy manufacturer, could not sympathize with his son, Paul's timid reaching-out toward a life a little less dour. The senior Hardin spent his life and himself in the fight for Prohibition--his very iron honesty ruined his buggy-business. Paul was more successful--but his father's spirit conquered in him, at last, when, offered an opportunity to escape from the cords of an un-happy marriage and find freedom with the charming and pagan Evelyn, the austere and self-tormenting faith of his forebears reasserted itself in his soul and made him refuse the chance. A solidly excellent novel, presenting a characteristic sector of American life with strict impartiality--marred chiefly by excessive length.

NEW HAMPSHIRE--Robert Frost-- Holt ($2.50). "A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes " by the author of North of Boston. The air of New England landscapes--the smell of Winter and pine-boughs and New England's hesitant Spring. Fine work, finely presented, in a volume whose physical make-up is a joy to the eye.