Hurstwurst

ANITRA'S DANCE--Fannie Hurst--Har-per ($2.50). "The world wagged. Sophie wagged. Waxman wagged. How furiously it all wagged and wagged." With such arrestingly waggish words Author Fannie Hurst (Mrs. Jacques S. Danielson) this week slapped down the first course of her latest table d'hote, Anitra's Dance. Many a reader whose appetite rejoices in hearty fare tucked in his napkin, smacked his lips and fell to with a will. His nose immediately told him that here was another full-fleshed Hurstwurst, stuffed to bursting point, garnished with garlic, well-lapped in rich gravy. Critics of Fannie Hurst call her the most violent of domesticated female writers, say that her characters are not only stuffed but vulgar nonsense, that their actions are like the sputtering of a string of sausages in a frying pan. Her defenders reply that she has more zest in her capable little finger than there is in the ineffective fists of all her highbrow critics. Critics pay little attention to Fannie Hurst, but plain readers have made her one of the most popular dishes on the counter. Anitra's Dance tells of a wild household of hyphenated Americans noisily existing on Manhattan's Riverside Drive. Head of the house was Papa Bruno, famed musician who somehow managed to do his composing in the same room with a squabbling family bridge game. Other dwellers under the stormy roof were his peasanty wife, a fat daughter and her secretive husband, a loafing son with whom Bruno was always on the verge of a dangerous quarrel, a superannuated clerk who idolized Bruno but hated the rest of them, and Anitra, Bruno's youngest daughter and his favorite. Temperamental herself, and expert at mimicry, Anitra was also hardheaded. When she discovered how tradesmen were cheating her mother she took over the housekeeping, held the public purse. When she decided that her father must have financial independence to finish his great symphony, she bargained herself to one of his rich friends for an endowment of $250.000. Though most men, including the men of her own family, fell in love with her, Anitra did not return the emotion until young Pianist Strakosh burst on her view. But alas, the new fashion of "unhappy endings"' dictated that Anitra should be carried off by a sudden hemorrhage, with Strakosh absent on a triumphant concert tour, and just at the moment when Papa Bruno at last conquered the impasse of his unfinished theme. Physical to a pungent degree, Author Hurst handles her characters with caressing fingers that are impatient of clothes, is sometimes betrayed into descriptions so accurate that they seem hermaphroditic fancies: "He beat his breasts. Literally that was true."

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