It is this, perhaps, that gives the book its morbid fascination, for Miss Stead is merely studying people in an advanced stage of the disease which affects all of us more or less in our desire to make money as rapidly and as easily as possible.

"[2] But a reviewer in The Sydney Morning Herald was much more critical: "House of All Nations, Christina Stead's new novel, may be a brilliant exposition of the modern international financial system, but it is not a good novel.

In the present case, her richness will probably give the average reader an acute attack of mental indigestion; the strangeness may perhaps make it a thing of beauty to that exclusive circle which professes to enjoy and be impressed by obscurity.

To the attainment of this end, however, Miss Stead's approach is not suitable, She is absorbed by thoughts and individuáis, and lacks the power to co-ordinate them towards a telling and comprehensible climax.

Intensely interesting in themselves, no doubt, but distracting to the reader who seeks, in vain, a stable thread which might lead him out of the maze.