Lion of Judah

SOLAL--Albert Cohen--Dutton ($2.40).

Publishers, like other advertisers, cry "Wolf! Wolf!" to a semi-attentive public. Their combined clamor is so deafening that it is hard to tell when one of them is really in earnest. Consequently, in those blue moons when they have something to shout about, a sharp-toothed masterpiece may slip undetected into the gentle reader's fold, cause much silent havoc before the alarm is given. Though Publisher Dutton has sounded no extra-special warning, Solal is such a masterpiece-in-sheep's-clothing. Wolf would be a misnomer: nothing so leonine has come down the pike in many a blue moon.

Though Jewry has given the world many a magnum opus, including Christendom's best-known book, few true-blue Jewish novels aim at or succeed in putting Christian readers in a state of grace. Solal does just that; it is a wild, melodramatic romance, stuffed with grotesque comedy, Old Testament lamentations, sensual psalms, shrewd cynicism and shrewder kindliness, ending finally in pure parable. When Solal appeared in Paris in 1930, even the French literary press sputtered : "A great Jewish novel . . . a great book . . . tumultuous . . . explosive . . . overbrimming. . . ."

On Solal of the Solals, Jewish boy of the Greek island of Cephalonia, were pinned all the resigned but aspiring hopes of his tribe. His rabbi father, head of the Solals and No. 1 Jew of the colony, brought up his beloved only son to be a good Jew. Little old Uncle Saltiel worshiped him, his disreputable cronies idolized him, thought him a dayspring from on high, a light to lighten his people. But young Solal's fatal beauty kindled passion in Adrienne, Gentile wife of the French consul. Discovered, they fled to Italy. Old Uncle Saltiel, sent after them, persuaded Solal away from his inamorata, thought he had left him safe in boarding school. But Solal wanted a better school: he ran away and wandered the world.

When he found Adrienne again she was a rich widow, living a peaceful Protestant life. She found his beauty more fatal than ever. But Solal's eye was caught by her young friend, aristocratic Aude de Maussane, daughter of a French Senator. Solal impressed her father, became his secretary and won his permission to marry Aude--when in shuffled a grotesque delegation from Cephalonia and ruined everything. But only momentarily: at Aude's wedding with one of her own kind Solal dashed up and carried her off.

Solal founded a political newspaper: power and riches poured into his hands. Aude adored her husband until she discovered his secret: he had transported the Jewish colony of Cephalonia to the cellars of his princely chateau. Daytimes he was a tycoon and a Cabinet Minister; at night he reverted to the wailing Jew. Aude was horrified and left him. Then Solal abandoned everything for her--faith, riches, power--and became a renegade, but her love for him was dead. He went downhill fast. With the last of his strength he went in search of her, found her happy in forgetfulness of him. Solal meant to kill her but instead he did something better.

Author Cohen is aware of modernists (Solal has a soliloquy which will remind Ulysses-readers of Mrs. Bloom's famed monolog) but is not bound by modern conventions. When he feels like addressing the reader, he does: "(You who read this will soon be buried too. Therefore kill your arrogance and clothe yourself now in goodness.)" With a wildly lavish hand he has loaded his story with incongruous contrasts, but it is powerful enough to carry them, and with grace. Solal is (almost unbelievably) Author Cohen's first novel. Its success, even in anti-Semitic Germany, has amazed him.

The Author. Born, like his hero, on a Greek island (Corfu) 36 years ago, Albert Cohen was taken to Marseilles at four. After graduating in law from the University of Geneva, he headed the legal department of Cox's bank in Cairo, worked for the World Labor Bureau in Geneva, contributed to the Nouvelle revue franc,aise edited La revue juive; revue internale. Quiet, rotund, olive-skinned, black-mustached, Author Cohen is a serious, hard worker (nightly till three or four a.m.). He plays with a string of beads, oriental-fashion, to keep from smoking too much. He has married twice, both times a Gentile. His first wife died; his second, a "right hand man," is Marianne Goss, a Genevan. They live, with his twelve-year-old daughter Miriam, in an ultra-modern apartment in Neuilly, whither he moved from Geneva three months ago. Author Cohen is working on a second novel, between whiles attending rehearsals of his play, Ezechiel, which won first prize in the Odeon Theatre contest last year, is to be presented by the Comedie Franc,hise late this month. He has also written a book of poetry (Paroles juives; 1921).

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