BOO K S
687
Notebook,
which has had its indelible, if often well hidden and in–
direct, results within the shorter fiction of the twentieth century. Of
these Hemingway's
In Our Time
is a notable example, and so are the
best short stories of Sherwood Anderson who acknowledged his debt by
reference to "the still, sad music of Turgenev." Less obvious are the
echoes of Turgenev in Joyce's
Dubliners
which in all probability came
to J oyce's eye and ear by way of George Moore's emulation of Turgenev
in an Irish setting, stories translated into Gaelic and back into English,
The Untilled Field.
If
this path of influence seems devious or too obscure
for general recognition, it has the advantage of placing Turgenev
closer t.o his true heirs, the writers of sensibility and feeling, the gen–
eration that included the names of H enry James, James J oyce, Proust
and Andre Gide.
Horace Gregory
FICTION CHRONICLE
THE MI DNIGHT PATIENT. By Egon Hostovsky. Appleton·Century·Crofts.
$3 .00.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TREE. By LeRoy
Le~th e rman.
Ha rcourt, Broce.
$3 .00.
THE HUGE SEASO N. By Wright Morris. Viking. $3.50.
FEDERIGO, or THE POWER OF LOVE. By
H ow~ rd
Nemerov.
AtI~nti c·
Little, Brown. $3.00.
THE WICKED PAVILIO N. By Down Powel l. Houghton, Mifflin . $3 .50.
MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS. By Amos Tutuolo. Grove Press.
$3 .50.
SIDESTREET. By Robe rt O. Bowen. Kn opf. $3.00.
THE MAN IN THE MI DDLE. By David Wa gone r. Ha rcourt, Broce. $3 .50.
There really ought to be a law against publishers' blurbs,
particularly those on dust jackets which include encomiums from the
great and the near-great. Who am I to contradict Lewis Mumford,
Alfred Kazin, Malcolm Cowley, Graham Greene? Did these men really
say all that a!bout Mr. Hostovsky's novel- and if they said it, did they
mean it? And if they said it and meant it, what am I to think? After
all, I've read the book. Set it down as a psycho-thriller with pretensions
to deep moral meaning and theme ; the author's intention can never
be doubted and as readers we are happy to give him all the credence we
can, for the theme is a real and good one, viable for Conrad and many
another fine writer. Yet in Mr. Hostovsky's hands it turns to dust and
ashes, largely because the author cannot write and has not the novelist's
