BOOKS
73
the air, the brushes on the street where "Christian Justice" is being sold,
all might have been taken from a reporter's notes.
In spite of its verisimilitude, however, the book wants cogency. It is
too reportorial. It may
he
that the method which works in a long novel is
inadequate to a short story; there is insufficient piling up of detail, and so
the power that comes of sheer mass is lacking. Tommy is plausible hut not
wholly convincing, partly because the author has not space in which to
build him up. The background against which he is drawn, that of a decent
lower middle·class home, offers a contrast to Tommy's unattractive per·
sonality hut fails to explain his maladjustment. The final paragraph, with
Tommy lying awake beside his likable brother Bill, "thinking of his
hatreds, vowing over and over again to himself that his day was coming,
and assuring himself that when it did come, it would he a day of ven·
geance" is one of the few impressive passages. It ends ominously with
Tommy's self-regarding hope: "Look at Hitler in Germany! Hitler had
known days like this, too." America has all too many Tommy Gallaghers,
but there are probably few of them who come from such a comfortable
setting as Tommy's. The warning is needed, but it is doubtful if it will he
heeded. The book is not likely to convince the Tommy Gallaghers that
they are on the wrong road, nor is it forcible enough to strengthen the
hands of their opponents.
BABETI'E DEUTSCH
SOUVARINE ON STALIN
STALIN. By Boris
S~uvarine.
Alliance.
$3.75.
Boris Souvarine's
Stalin
is a monumental work. Despite the incredible
difficulties involved in reconstructing the life of a man who has used a
colossal state power to obliterate all documents, rewrite or falsify all
historical records, and "liquidate" all living repositories of knowledge
concerning him, Souvarine has succeeded in giving the reader a rich, many–
sided and dependable picture of his enigmatic protagonist. Unfortunately,
the
American publishers have done the work less than justice by omitting
all bibliographical notes; and even the original French edition makes the
mistake of not citing sources for each controversial statement, not indicat·
ing
which are hostile, which friendly, nor at which particular juncture a
quoted authority made such and such statements. Yet, within the text itself
there is enough evidence of careful research to give a convincing picture
and one which is self·consistent throughout a big work, and consistent with
all
the
available evidence.
What the biography may lack on the personal side-Stalin's private
life, his relations with women, his habits in food and drink and speech
and meditation, matters that the evidence does not cover and that are
besides of secondary importance in so public a character-it more than
