Carnival

It is a story book. Life is a comedy, a carnival, and all of us wear masks. So Compton Mackenzie would have us feel, if we can judge from the spirit of his 'Carnival, ' a story hailed by the New York Times as 'about the best novel published this season. ' The central figure of the book is Jenny, a cockney ballet-girl, who shows herself a true daughter of the carnival, a Columbine in actuality. At her birth the fairies had endowed her with the gift of rhythm. 'She had deliciously slim legs and a figure as lithe as a hazel wand. Her almond eyes were of some fantastic shade of sapphire — blue with deep gray twilights in them and sea-green laughter'.