OLD GEORGE

by Mahonri S. Young .'33Ives Washburn Inc., 1940, pp. 253. $2.00.

I cannot remember whether I ever saw "Bill" Young in Paris, but I do know that ever since I came to know him when he was an undergraduate at Dartmouth, I have always associated him with Paris. You probably wouldn't have found him at the usual cafes and boites of the American tourist but rather at his favorite restaurant, Emile's on the "Boul' Mich." He would, perhaps, have been happier in the days when he could have talked with Paul Fort or Strindberg at the Closerie desLilas, or at the Lapin Agile with Guillaume Appolinaire, or even with George Moore at the Nouvelle Athenes.

In "Old George" Mr. Young introduces us to a group of meteques americains who have been violently uprooted from their adopted home in Paris and set down somewhat unwillingly and in a somewhat dazed state of mind in New York and the Connecticut marches. He shows us their difficulties in becoming acclimated again in the old atmosphere and amid the old scenes. It is not a novel nor yet a short story. Perhaps recit is the best word for it. The characters are neither very distinguished nor quite distinguishable. They are examples of our confused and unstable society striving, not too successfully, to understands stand what has happened and adapt themselves to it. The book is bright and clever and has a sort of Robert Nathanish unreality about it. I enjoyed reading it very much and recommend it to anyone interested in the fragile literature of the Cocktail Age.