Unmagnificent

THE LORENZO BUNCH--Booth Tarkington--Doubleday, Doran ($2). "There always will be books but perhaps the only books in the future will be reference books, scientific books and research books." Thus gloomily spoke aging Novelist Newton Booth Tarkington fortnight ago. If he was thinking of the probable life of his forthcoming novel, The Lorenzo Bunch, or of the books written by that perishably popular U. S. school of which he is the acknowledged dean, he did well to be gloomy. Even Monsieur Beancaire, though it may have been written with crocodile tears, will not evaporate as fast as The Lorenzo Bunch, which was written in plain water. Tarkington addicts may find it a refreshing draught, however, guaranteed neither to exhilarate nor unduly depress.

The Lorenzo bunch took their name from the fact that most of them lived in an apartment house called by that magnificent name. A young married set in the lower brackets of the middle class, whose husbands worked hard at minor jobs that kept their wives supplied with candy, cinemas and cheap cars, they lived in loud but comparatively harmless amity. The more frolicsome hailed each other, farewelled and responded with such remarks as "Bum joor, sports!", "Olive oil!", "Yeppy."

When Ernie Foot and his fatally beautiful wife Irene were gathered into the bunch, a sour note came into this close harmony. Irene was discontented, thought Ernie spent too much time looking at himself in the glass, not enough money on her clothes. But the Lorenzo husbands were too olive-oily for her taste; she wanted gamier game. Enter big society man, complete with roadster and fatuous expression; exit Irene. Meantime Husband Ernie had been taken up by the society man's wife, who had personality and an itch for Art. When the showdown came, with a double divorce and remarriage, Ernie and Irene found the new deal was not all they had hoped. The Lorenzo bunch, awed by the spectacle of so much high villainy, relapsed contentedly into their lower brackets.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.