THE NEW DAY: Vol. X -- MEN OF GOOD WILL

I found the early volumes of this tremendous panorama of modern France exciting and revealing reading; then came a lag in interest, which Verdun brought to sharp end, as the best (in my opinion) of them all. Now again this volume (two volumes of the French edition) drops in interest, seeming to go to tedious lengths, and to add little to either story or background. The time is Paris, 1822, when the story starts, and throughout its length it reflects a devil-may-care-era, easy money, experimentation with political and social dynamite, Communism in full flood, Fascism a new sensation. Threads from previous books are picked up and dropped again, unfinished. Nothing is materially forwarded. It emerges as simply another meticulously detailed slice of life, with Jallez and Jerphanion, Sammecaud, Sampeyre, Laulerque and his Mathilde, Elizabeth Valavert and others crossing and recrossing the stage. Probably, you have a record of those who are taking the whole series in their stride. They will provide your chief market for this.