Warmed-Over Dish

SELECTED SHORT STORIES -- Sinclair Lewis--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

Author Sinclair Lewis, more than a little uncomfortable in the role of ranking U. S. satirist, last week flippantly introduced his Selected Short Stories, classified himself as an incurable romantic. Explaining that most of his stories had been hastily dished up, warmed over from some previous mood, Author Lewis apologized for their optimism and superficiality, admitted that he thought two or three were "fairly good," declared himself a romantic whose talent had been diverted to the paths of social satire by "some mysterious trick of destiny." Whether or not Author Lewis wrote his introduction with his tongue in his cheek, the stories that followed it, with but one shining exception, proved to be long-winded and mechanical, written according to the narrow formula of popular magazine fiction. Examples: P: A small boy petted a kitten, thereby causing a barber to give an executive a silly haircut, the executive to lose a job, a business to fail, a revolution to break out.

P: The fatuous mother of a child cinema star tried to team her son with a boy king, succeeded when the children ran away.

The shining exception among Author Lewis' labored tales is his brilliant The Willow Walk, a first-rate story in any company. A small-town bank teller with a talent for dramatics wanted to commit a perfect crime, and did. He constructed the myth of his twin brother, John, hermit and religious fanatic, often posed as John to get the story believed. Then he stole $97,000, put on the character and clothing of fictitious John, waited for the search to die down. For 18 months he lived and prayed and slept as John, found himself becoming John. In desperation he tried to throw off his disguise, found that his appearance had changed. He confessed, was laughed at as a madman whose brother's sins had preyed on his mind.

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