Jonah--

Jonah*

Mr. Nathan Sees a Figure in the Desert

The Story. Jonah the prophet lived in the desert, daily companioned by such birds and beasts as lions, mice, gazelles and ravens, lying down at night with the gentle foxes of Tob. At length, inspired by an angel, he roused Israel to wage against the Aramaeans, a war which turned out most profitably and made his reputation. Honored among all the people, he returned to his mother in Zebulon.

His family, though poor, gave a great feast for him to which they invited Prince Ahab and his daughter, Judith. Through a night of soft blue airs and revelry, under boughs that let fall their petals like odorous snows, Jonah and Judith walked together; and the gaunt prophet, friend of foxes, trembled with love for the pale daughter of a Prince. She, also moved by love, was kind to him; they kissed under a jasmine vine. "I should like to be poor like you," she said. All night, all night, when she was gone, Jonah wandered through the orchards of Zebulon, mad with happiness. In the morning, he sent his mother to ask for Judith's hand, went himself to find work that he might support a wife.

When Prince Ahab heard it suggested that he give his daughter to a penniless prophet, he roared with mirth and indignation. Judith wept for three days. At the end of this time, one Hiram, a merchant of Tyre, came to enchant her heart with tales of cities by the shores of seas. "Oh, how I should like to be a merchant," she cried. Jonah could not get work; the place for a successful prophet, people said, was in the desert. At last he went to Judith for comfort. When he spoke of their love, she twisted her shawl. . . . "I hardly knew what I was doing. . . . Do not think too badly of me. ... I am going to marry Hiram of Tyre. . . ."

In the desert, Jonah wheeled his amazed face to the sky. What was God about? What had he, Jonah, done to deserve such a thing?

God spoke to him. "Arise, Jonah," cried He, "and go to Nineveh. Cry out against that great city for its sins." Jonah answered fiercely: "You . . . What are you God of ? Were you God of Israel when a Tyrian stole my love? Was I your prophet then?" In anger, he took ship for Tarshish, thinking by this to make God lose him.

Up the east, after the vessel, God's anger climbed in the likeness of a black cone. The air thinned, darkened, the sea cowered beside the ship; Jonah slept. Suddenly, the sail split from top to bottom and one mariner, huddled with the rest, called on the name of his god in a voice shrill and little like a bat's; next instant, with a great clap, the sky fell into the sea.

It is well known how the sailors, after a long struggle, regretfully abandoned Jonah to the rugged mercies of his God; and how Leviathan, by prearrangement, rose from the sea-bottom and bore the gurgitated prophet in his belly to Nineveh. There Jonah prophesied : "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The city repented like a child of its sins; even the King went and sat down in some ashes. When the forty days were spent, it was found that God had spared Nineveh.

Jonah's heart was sore. "Where is my glory now?" he thought. He reviled God, weeping. Judith, in her house over the terraces of Tyre, wept also, longing for Jonah whom she had put aside. High among the clouds, God turned sadly to Moses. "You Jews," he said wearily, "you do not understand beauty. With you it is either glory or despair."

The Significance. Israel, quickened by 73 years of enforced civilization in Babylonia, began to listen to its prophets; to Ezekiel, Hosea, Daniel, Joel, Amos, even to the youth Jonah, who assumed with fierceness but without humility the cloth of the austere, melancholy men before him. He, like the others, emphasized two ideas not disagreeable to his people: 1) That Jehovah, God of Israel, had made the world; 2) that Jehovah, God who had made the world, was the exclusive property of Israel. Mr. Nathan's book is a picture of these times, a satire upon these ideas, a romantic novel of the life of this prophet. It is also something more, for the gaunt, dark figure who wanders, lost in longing, through the desert, filled with amazed anger at a God who could spare Nineveh but cheat his prophet, is something more than Jonah.

The Author. Robert Nathan, 31, a U. S. Hebrew, has written five books: Peter Kindred, Autumn, Youth Grows Old, The Puppet Master, Jonah. Now in Europe, he is gathering material for a book about a professor's adventures with a pelican.

Toast

To BABYLON Larry Barretto--Little, Brovn ($2.00). In a four-post bed, watched by solemn silver girandoles, an old woman lay dying. She was dying after the shock of hearing that her niece was going to get a divorce. Her niece was going to get a divorce because she had learned that a U. S. broker resents being made a cuckold. Anthony Thorne, broker, had thrown his ideals over his shoulder with a gallant gesture when he drank a toast to his rich and charming bride. He soon found that he, like other honest men, was cursed with the inability to enjoy what he had sacrificed his ideals to obtain. He had charm, vivacity, as has this novel of Mr. Barretto's. He lacked distinction.

Robert Keable

He Has No Sympathy with the Censors--"Ah Well!" Many kinds of romantic living characterize authors, yet there is something about the plan of Robert Keable's existence that strikes me as particularly unusual. From a quiet English clergyman to the author of a sensational best-seller who has taken up his permanent residence in the South Seas seems a long jump. Keable paid a visit to Manhattan recently, then left for the Pacific Coast, thence to sail for his tropical home. He does not impress one as a radical gentleman. There is nothing to suggest the resigned clergyman, author of books marked by their sex frankness and melodrama. In fact, his scholarly bearing and gentleness mark him rather as the country curate, who should be acting as a character in a novel by May Sinclair and passing out crumpets to maiden ladies in a decorous drawing-room instead of writing of Tahitian damsels as he has done in his new novel, Numerous Treasure.*

Although he finds the South Seas entertaining, Manhattan proved his most disquieting experience since the War. After seeing his Simon Called Peter as a play, he had little comment; but when he saw the film version of Recompense, he said that he saw no reason why he should not write a new novel based on the film. What Price Glory impressed him very much, although he found the slang difficult to understand, particularly that used by the Marines. The liberality of the Manhattan theatre he found impressive for he, perhaps naturally, has no sympathy with censorship. Ah well, no more have I; but I must confess that when one goes to a first night these days, it is a bit dangerous to take the young daughter of mother's friends, if you understand what I mean.

Keable is a pleasing person. He is something of a poet. It is my belief that many a popular novelist is really a poet at heart. I haven't seen. Mr. Keable's poems; but they were apparently, from their titles, religious. Surely, here is a modern personality worth the study of the psychologists.

JF.

* JONAH--Robert Nathan-McBride ($2.00).

* NUMEROUS TREASURE--Robert Keable-Putnam ($2.00).