YELLOW TAPERS FOR PARIS

What a disappointment after The World. The Flesh and Father Smith and the long ago Father Malachy's Miracle. Frankly this bored me exceedingly. It has a note of authenticity in the picture of the simple people of Paris in the uneasy years from 1934 to the Fall of France, the cupidity of big business, the governmental confusion which made defeat inevitable. Through Bigou, underpaid and overworked little bookkeeper; or through his daughter, who didn't understand why they remained poor; or the people of the Quarter, Baoo and Chanu and Verneuil, who were not sure whether they were Communists or Fascists; or through Bacqueroet who was blinded in the last war and knew another was coming- through all flow the acceptance first, rejection later of the dictates of the powers of press, radio, authority- the knowledge that the old creeds, the old assurances have failed them. The atmosphere and mood are successfully captured; but there is lack of focus on plot or character, lack of the humanity that has made his other books memorable.