O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 | Page 6

Fleta Campbell Springer's "The Role of Madame Ravelles" is apparently a tapestry in weaving the stately figure of Georgette LeBlanc. Ranking highest among these personal narratives, however, is Mildred Cram's "Stranger Things--" Besides calling up, under the name of Cecil Grimshaw, the irresistible figure of Oscar Wilde, the author has created a supernatural tale of challenging intricacy and imaginative genius. The only other stories of the supernatural to find place in the Committee's first list are Maxwell Struthers Burt's "Buchanan Hears the Wind" and Mary Heaton Vorse's "The Halfway House." In all of these, suggestion, delicately managed, is the potent element of success.
Animals figure in vaster numbers and under intensive psychological study. That a race-horse owner goes nowadays to the astrologer for a horoscope of his racer is a fact that insinuatingly elevates the beast to the plane of his master. In the short story of 1921, the monkey, the tiger, the elephant, the dog and all their kind are treated from an anthropomorphic point of view. Courtney Ryley Cooper's titles--"Love" and "Vengeance," for example--covering stories dominated by the animal character, betray the author's ascription of human attributes to his hero or villain. "Reynardine," by Donn Byrne, retails with haunting charm the friendship between the Fitzpauls and the fox, in an instance that tests the friendship. Foxes, for Morgan of the story, "took on for him now a strange, sinister entity.... They had become to him a quasi-human, hypernormal race.... They had tabus as strict as a Maori's. Strange, mystical laws."--"Corkran of the Clamstretch" uniquely portrays the ugly and heroic "R.T.C." throughout as a gentleman, "who met triumph with boredom," and "defeat, as a great gentleman should, with quiet courtesy and good humour." Samuel A. Derieux adds "Comet" to his list of superintelligent dogs in a story the Committee regard as one of his best. It should be compared with R.G. Kirk's "Gun-Shy" (Saturday Evening Post, October 22). Similar in theme, in sympathy and in the struggle--that of a trainer to overcome a noble dog's fear of the powder roar--the stories diverge in the matter of workmanship. Yet "Gun-Shy" is based on a plot superior to that of "Comet." Oddly enough, the Committee preferred not one of the humanized-beast stories, but Edison Marshall's "The Heart of Little Shikara." The preference was because of a number of counts, however; moreover, the man eater takes second place beside Little Shikara, whose bravery and loyalty motivate the thrilling climax of the narrative. And it is just this: a superb story, with underscoring for "story."
Anthropomorphism is found at its height in "A Life," by Wilbur Daniel Steele. Dr. Edward J. Wheeler places this story first of the year's brief fiction, on the score of originality, power, and satisfactory evolution of the struggle, with its triumphant dramatic reverse. Other members of the Committee, though sensible of its claim to high distinction, believe it is a novelette, not to be classed as a short story, and therefore barred from consideration. Its spirit, one affirms, lacks something of the vigour which made of "Guiablesse" (Harper's, 1919) so convincing a work of art. Another member finds its value somewhat decreased in that its theme had been used similarly in John Masefield's "The Wanderer."
The child's place in the democracy of the short story was assured years ago. No remarkably outstanding examples have come from the pen of Booth Tarkington, amusing as are his adolescents and children of the Red Book tales. The best combinations of humour and childhood appeared to the Committee to be "Wilfrid Reginald and the Dark Horse," by James Mahoney, and "Mr. Downey Sits Down," by L.H. Robbins. For laughter the reader is recommended to each of these, the latter of which is reprinted in this volume. For humour plus a trifle more of excitement, "Mummery," by Thomas Beer, is included. Mr. Beer has succeeded in handling Mrs. Egg as Miss Addington manages Miss Titwiler, the "Cactus"; that is, as the equal of author and reader, but also--and still without condescension--as reason for twinkles and smiles.
Apart from consideration of impulses dominating the short story of 1921, impulses here summarized under the general idea of democracy, the story is different in several particulars. First, its method of referring to drink, strong drink, marks it of the present year. The setting is frequently that of a foreign country, where prohibition is not yet known; the date of the action may be prior to 1919; or the apology for presence of intoxicating liquors is forthcoming in such statement as "My cellar is not yet exhausted, you see."
Second, the war is no longer tabu; witness "The Tribute," and "His Soul Goes Marching On." Touched by the patina of time and mellowed through the mellifluence of age, the war now makes an appeal dissimilar to that which caused readers two or