Fiction In Advocate Not Up To Standard Of Former Days

The echoes of the Presidential election still rumble through the latest issue of the Advocate. An editorial nobly upholds the national point of view against partisanship, and Brent D. Allinson '17, in a tone of exalted idealism, seeks to show a parallelism between the "bloodless revolution" of 1688 and that which seems to him involved in the victory of Mr. Wilson. One need not be convinced in order to envy the writer his power of seeing our present-day policies in such a haze of glory.

The interests of the moment are further represented by a too long drawn out ironical criticism of Billy Sunday, which W. L. Prosser '18 has thrown into the form of a communication from Satan. The idea is more piquant than the execution.

Three pieces of fiction are offered: "The Practicality of Joshua Wilkes," by Bruce Carpenter, a really constructive story with a clear outlining of the characters; "The Second Hungarian Rhapsody," by Douglas C. Wendell, well written but thin in plot; and "A Fable of Death," in which L. K. Garrison '19 attempts a form full of pit-falls, into most of which he stumbles. The Advocate used to do better in fiction. W. A. Norris '18 and Robert Cutler '16 contribute the verse. Mr. Norris's two sonnets have some fine sonorous phrases, in the making of which he is sometimes reduced into loosening his grasp on his idea. Instances of this are the eighth line of "The Little Cares" and the close of the "Night of Winds." In Mr. Cutler's Dirge for the Bucentor" and "Abdominal Patriotism," he again exhibits the quizzical satirical turn with which he has several times enlivened the pages of the Advocate. Perhaps neither of these can be ranked with his happiest efforts, though the former, apart from "the bosomed hay," is neatly done. In the second he saw a good opportunity, but such satire, to be effective, must be more articulate.

The book reviewer is on safe ground in describing the works under discussion; when he passes to generalizations about American fiction he becomes futile.

A respectable but not a distinguished number.