The Nation.

26 November 1924 (Vol. CXIX, No. 3099). New York: USA.

The Oblate. By J. K. Huysmans. E. P. Dutton and Company. $2.50.

"The Oblate" is, on the whole, the least interesting of the tetralogy of which "La-Bas" is the first volume, but to those who, like the present reviewer, find the author-hero strangely fascinating, it is certainly not dull and it is the necessary conclusion to the story of that curious man in whom the most prosaic of temperaments was somehow reconciled with the most comprehensive credulity and with a passion for ecclesiastical art as intense almost as his passion for good cookery. Durtal-Huysmans is inexplicable and perhaps ridiculous, but there are few characters in fiction who so indubitably exist. He is inescapably real, and to anyone who has followed his adventures through the four volumes he is never to be forgotten.

JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH