Mosquitoes (1927)

Summary

Lillian Hellman. “Futile Souls Adrift on a Yacht.” New York Herald Tribune Books, June 19, 1927, p. 9.

Last year Mr. Faulkner wrote a novel called Soldiers' Pay. Many judicious readers thought it one of the few good books that came out of the war. Its tone was serious if its intent was ironic and its treatment imaginative. This year Mr. Faulkner has taken a quick turn, focusing his attention on an entirely different world. If his first novel showed more than the usual promise then this one, Mosquitoes, comes in time to fulfill it. But it must stand alone; a proof of the man's versatility.

It is perhaps unfair to any book, or at least unfair to an author's originality, should he have any, to compare his offering with another that has gone before. However, it remains one way to show excellence or demonstrate worthlessness. In 1923 Aldous Huxley wrote Antic Hay, which I think must still stand as the most brilliant book of the last few years. Since then there have been a host of people who have followed, or attempted to follow, in his footsteps. In most cases their literary worth has been as ephemeral as it was temporarily interesting. If any of these books have approached Antic Hay any more closely than Mosquitoes it must by now be forgotten. Not that the plot or the people in Mosquitoes are similar to those in the Huxley book. As a matter of fact the novel more closely resembles Those Barren Leaves in structure, but in the brilliant result it stands closer to the better book.