SOURCE: Smith, Bradford. “Far Horizons, Nearby Heart.” New York Herald Tribune Book Review (19 July 1953): 6.

In the following review, Smith finds The Vermilion Gate: A Novel of a Far Land to be a good book due to its “universal humanity.”

Lin Yutang's tale of love and battle introduces a China little known to American readers. Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang) and the part of China lying close to Inner Mongolia provide the locale for this interesting romance built around the struggle between Moslems and Nationalists in the thirties. Because Lin Yutang is not afraid of melodrama, his book [The Vermilion Gate: A Novel of a Far Land] is full of villainous officials, vendettes, hair's breadth escapes. Yet the calm detachment of this philosopher-novelist prevails over the violence of the action. We are confronted with murder, imprisonment, deprivation. Yet they are not driven home. It is as if the spirit of China...