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On "A New Book on Maine." Maine is indebted to Kenneth Roberts, a well known writer for the Saturday Evening Post, native of Maine, author of several books and summer resident at Kennebunkport for a new historical 1 novel- Arundel. I have no notion of writing any critical review of the story, at this time. My purpose is to mention the book as "news"; and indicate that it "belongs" to Maine. We may well take a sort of proprietary interest in it; claim it; talk about it and above all-
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Thru it-and this is its distinctive charm-runs a fine appreciation, almost an adoration for the soil of Maine; a for~ of j 'worship" indeed, that arouses OUR enthusiasm and we believe will awaken the same emotions in the min.d of everyone who loves , this fine land of the sea, mountain and river. I
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Arundel takes its name from the ancient name of tqe Kenne- I bunk and Kennebunkport region and it is a pity, that the name 1 was ever changed. "Arundel" has the reverberation of sweet music. And "music" befits, any description of one of the more lovely stretches of Maine harbors, coves, estuaries, beaches and., shore-the latter fertilized by rivers of sweet water. So apprecia- 'I tive is Mr. Roberts of the l and of beauty, that hi11 descriptions become almost a surfeit; but we all may say that it requires much : space to do justice to this region of western Maine, along shore.
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The story is historical and full of action. After one has read , it and followed up its leads, he may have a practical knowledge I of colonial history. It dates its action from 1760, when the hero 1 [ was 13 years old, thru the romantic period of the hero's life, which.! ' we may assume to be about twenty years. As a prelude, Steven , Nason, the hero traces his family thru branches that came over to Arundel (Kennebunkport) from the Berwick section of the 1 town of Kittery-the forbears of his grandfather hav~ng come to 1 Berwick, Maine, from Berwick, England in 1639. This grandfather Nason had fought in the siege of Louisburg, Ca~e Breton, in 1745, along with Captain Moses Butler whose daughter the elder Nason married. In 1670, Benjamin Nason, Steven's father was attracted to Wells, by gift of 200 acres of fine upland and 10 1 acres of marsh, provided he would be tbe village blacksmith. And he accepted the offer on account of the land, albeit. Wells "was , populated at that time by a most shiftless and poverty-stricken : folk, dwelling for the most part in wretched log-huts and con- ! stantly at odds with the Indians. · Here Benjamin Nason came; here ,he worked and prospered; here he hunted with and became fond of the Abenakis; here he became a leader; man of means; tavern-keeper and here begins the romance of Steven Nason, his son, in the setting of abundance, in admiration of the good-Indian, in the blessings of a beautiful l mother and a strong, wise and gentle father. ·
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Th_is tale is ex~eedingly long. In typography and makeup, we can thmk of nothing except the once-famous "Richard Carvel" of Winston Churchill, a book of similar purpose, historical and adventurous. Mr. Booth Tarkington, a resident at Kennebunkport in the summertime, likens Roberts's book to Lorna Doone · th~ "Three Musketeers" and "The White Company." But we f~il to see either of the latter resemblances. It does resemble Lorna poone in _a certain prolixity and redundance of description and mtrospe~tiveness. Arundel takes 618 pages, closely printed,probably about 200,000 to 225,000 words-which is twice or thrice the length of some popular novels. It has a prologue and four ' books "-in all thirty six chapters. '· A prodigious amount of information as t.o the Abenaki tribe of Indians is conveied their domestic life their cookin reci es.
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