A MAN COULD STAND UP. By Ford Madox Ford. (Duckworth.
7s. 6d-. net.)—There could be no greater contrast to Sir Philip Gibbs's pictures of .modern life than the novels of Mr. Ford Madox Ford. In A Man Could Stand Up Mr. Ford's presentment is as subjective as that of Sir Philip. Gibbs is objective. From the opening scene, where Valentine Wanndp is dancing with exasperation at the end of a telephone while the maroons of the Armistice are exploding outside, to the last section with its nightmare description of bewildered demobilized men, events are seen purely through the minds of the dramatis personae. The kernel of the book is found in the scenes at the Front and the mental reactions of Christopher Tietjens during the fighting of the spring of 1918. It is, indeed, a marvellous piece of analysis of the mind, and is almost as painful to the reader as a night in the trenches.
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