Linboff, whose books contradict one another,
cannot help him; nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers, nor the
verse writers and harlots in dives and boozingkens. And so,
wondering, pondering, perplexed, amazed, whirling through the mad
whirlpool of life, dancing the dance of death, groping for the
nameless, indefinite something, the magic formula, the essence, the
intrinsic fact, the flash of light through the murk and dark--the
rational sanction for existence, in short--Foma Gordyeeff goes down
to madness and death.
It is not a pretty book, but it is a masterful interrogation of life-
-not of life universal, but of life particular, the social life of
to-day. It is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day nice.
One lays the book down sick at heart--sick for life with all its
"lyings and its lusts." But it is a healthy book. So fearful is its
portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its stripping of the painted
charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be strongly for good.
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