The Atlantic Bookshelf: Conclusion

ALMOST twice as many books of travel were published in 1936 as appeared the year previous, indicating, perhaps, the publishers’ belief that Americans had money to spend and were ready to go. Such, of course, is the case. There will be a huge exodus of Yankee pilgrims to the Coronation, thence crossing to see the French Exposition in Paris. For anyone who wants to evoke the mood of Paris during those leisurely days on the steamer, I cheerfully recommend that observant, flavorsome novel which won a huge pot of international gold ($19,000 in all), The Street of the Fishing Cat, by Jolán Földes (Farrar & Rinehart, $2.50). This is Paris of the 1920’s, and in particular that quaint part of it to which came the exiles, — the Russians, the Hungarians, the Greeks, the Lithuanians, the Italians, — limping cats who by hunger or political persecution are driven from their homeland. In the tiniest street in Paris they form a refugee community; here their animosities are neutralized and here grow up those three children of exile, Anna, Jani, and Klari. It is their growth contrasted with the fatality of their elders which gives the story its warmth. Not a big book — rather a novel whose appeal is gentle, pervasive, and very humane.