Masterwork: Books VII & VIII

THE WORLD FROM BELOW--Jules Romains--Knopf ($3).

Two years ago Jules Romains offered U. S. readers the first two books in his extraordinary multiple-volume novel. Men of Good Will (TIME. June 5, 1933). Undertaking nothing less than a vast, comprehensive picture of modern society in motion, a work which might run to 25 such books. Jules Romains warned the readers of his masterwork that they must expect to encounter in it just such confusions and uncertainties as they found in life itself. The first four books, each as long as an ordinary novel, constituted the preface to the entire work. They introduced a hundred odd characters drawn from every level of Parisian society in 1908, outlined a dozen major complications that ranged from the discreet bribing of a radical deputy to a murder committed by a perverse bookbinder. The only theme linking the unrelated incidents and careers was the threat of a general European war which, looming large in the consciousness of more farsighted characters, filled them with a sense of urgency and strain.

Last week, with the publication of Books VII and VIII. bound together and titled The World from Below, the general pattern of Men of Good Will became a little clearer. But the engrossing questions of its permanent literary value and of its probable influence and significance were as open to controversy as before. Less crowded with incidents than preceding volumes, The World from Below deals primarily with the dilemma of Jean Jerphanion, keen, ambitious, radical student whose desire to reform the world and prevent war is thwarted by his inability to find a political group or a party in whose sincerity and effectiveness he can believe. He moves first toward the Socialists, but is repelled by their callow optimism, learns of the existence of a mysterious secret society that may plot to prevent war by killing its key men. He investigates the Masons, arrives at no decision.

Paralleling Jerphanion's story is that of Mionnet, a shrewd young priest who is sent to the provinces to prevent a scandal in the Church. An aging Bishop has foolishly lent his prestige to a shady business deal, and Mionnet, authorized to settle the question, makes friends with the Bishop's enemies, conducts himself with circumspection and wit until his landlady's daughter proves a sufficient attraction to make him break his priestly vows. Occasional chapters, inserted between these two major developments, carry forward the stories of Gurau, the deputy, who breaks with his mistress, and Jallez, intellectual friend of Jerphanion, whose love affair with a married woman is discovered by her husband.

Although Jules Romains attempts to make each volume of his masterwork intelligible in its own right, the stories are so interwoven that Men of Good Will must be read from the beginning to be appreciated. While Jules Romains excels in his portraits of ambitious and resourceful men and outlines their maneuvers with skill, his characters are for the most part singularly even and controlled individuals. They may be troubled or at peace, but they are not ravaged by the intellectual and emotional passions that lift the characters of Joyce, of Proust, Mann and Dostoevski to more than human stature. In revealing how the "private" activities of men--their moods, love affairs, desires, plans--are influenced by such remote social and political developments as strikes or the threat of war, Romains has made an impressive and original contribution to modern fiction. And in keeping the first volumes of his masterwork prosaic and detailed, it may well be that the Frenchman is merely preparing the ground for the great climax that will take place when war eventually breaks and when the shells that fall on Paris will explode with equal justice on men of good will and men of bad.

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