THE MAD PROFESSOR. By Hermann Sudermann. (Bodley Head. 12s.)—The death
of Hermann Sudermann in 1928 removed one of the leading figures in modern German literature. This is a translation of his last novel. Painted on a full canvas—the volume runs to over seven hundred pages— it presents a remarkably living and fascinating portrait of a 'German professor, against a' vivid, background of German society in the days of Bismarck. Dr. Sieburth, who sees the world in terms of Thought and Woman, and who lays himself open to- scandal and misunderstanding by his attempts to reconcile these two factors, is called mad because of his unconventionality. His genius, indeed, with its extreme -brilliance and sensitiveness and its fiery contempt for gene- ralities and labels, is of the kind which, by very reason of its preternatural sanity, rests precariously upon its balance. Sieburth is, at any rate, a very human and lovable characte!,
and the tragedy of his warfare with the growing Prussianism of his time is finely conceived. There is, however, plenty of light relief, and the whole picture of German University life and thought during a period of transition is intensely interesting.
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