PASSION'S PILGRIMS

Here is volume two of MEN OF GOOD WILL, one of the memorable books of 1933. Romains expands his canvas this time to include students of the Normal College, with their problems of life and love and faith and ideals. We meet again Quinette, luxuriating in the aftermath of his crime, and worrying only because he is in ignorance as to whether or not it has been discovered. And so -- instead of visiting the site of the crime, he visits the police and has himself appointed a secret agent to investigate the meetings of a political revolutionary organization to which he has access. We meet the Comtesse de Champcenais, who is playing with the idea of becoming mistress to Sammecaud. We touch the outer fringe of the literary world; we glimpse the machinations of shady oil deals and real estate frauds in the making. There is just a gesture towards drawing the threads together, in Jallez renewing his contact with Juliette, not knowing she has married. But Romain's genius for creating a world in which his characters live and move and have their being is ample reward for reading this second volume of his monumental work, though the experience has not quite the thrill afforded by the first volume. A book for all who read the other volume.