HANOVER BROWSING
THIS YEAR THERE will be one or two changes in policy in the hope that such changes may better serve the purpose of this column, which is to bring to the attention of alumni readers every month, several worth-while books in all fields. First: In the column of suggestions I shall, whenever possible, list books that various well-known members of this college community have enjoyed, or I shall list books that any alumnus tells me he found particularly good reading. A postcard with a title or two from any reader will be much appreciated. Second: In my own notes I shall review briefly books, old and new, that I have enjoyed, and although I shall write less each month than last year, I hope to mention about the same number of books.
The outstanding sensation of the fall publishing is the issuing to the general public of that almost mythical book by Lawrence, entitled Seven Pillars of Wisdotn. Its history is a curious one. A few more than a hundred copies were issued to subscribers in December, 1926, at a price of $150, and the book immediately soared to one or two thousand dollars a copy. Ten copies were printed here for copyright purposes and priced at $20,000 each. It is now available in England, published by Jonathan Cape, at $7.50, and when this gets into print, it will probably be available over here for less.
It is unquestionably the greatest book that has yet come out of the war, though like other great books, such as Arabia Deserta, by C. M. Doughty, it is not easy reading at all times, but on every page there are authentic touches of genius and the revelation of a man of great character. Lawrence has been called many things, both good and bad, and he who renounced all titles, decorations, fame, and even more significant still, renounced every oppor tunity to capitalize financially on his amazing reputation, must naturally be suspect by a world which doesn't understand such conduct. But I prefer to think of him as perhaps the greatest man of his time; great not for what he did, but for what he was. This book is a record of the campaign of Lawrence and his Arabs against the Turks, and of his vain struggle for Arab independence. Collectors are advised to buy the English edition. Chronicles of Barabbas, by George H. Doran. Harcourt, Brace, 1935.
An entertaining autobiography by a successful publisher, who is both a simple and an honest man. His thumbnail sketches of the authors he published, among them being Arnold Bennett, Hugh Walpole, Frank Swinnerton, H. G. Wells, Michael Arlen, the Huxleys, Somerset Maugham, and Mary Roberts Rinehart, are often naive, but are always frank.
His story of how he published most of the Allied propaganda in the United States I found particularly interesting.
Mr. Doran was one who believed that T. E. Lawrence was a shrewd publicist who planned carefully every move, but how Lawrence was to benefit from this the author doesn't indicate.
For Authors Only, by Kenneth Roberts. Doubleday, Doran, 1935.
Kenneth Roberts is a man of great probity, frankness of utterance, and with a most human desire to debunk such sacred things as diets, exercises, golf, English writers who slaughter the American language in their characterizations of Americans, English detective stories, and last and not least, Oxford University, and he does so in this book.
Mr. Roberts is now famous for his historical novels, but in this book of essays, he reveals a good sense of humor, Yankee shrewdness, and certain qualities attributed to "the man from Missouri."
His two essays on Oxford, and his comments on education in general, are sufficiently original and startling to delight any reader. Balliol is one of the Oxford colleges which takes in many of Britain's darker skinned sons, and one day at the "flicks" in Oxford, there was a flash on the screen of some African negroes paddling a canoe in the heart of Africa, and a voice was heard, probably that of a student of Trinity College: "Well rowed, Balliol!" This is a book that I found myself reading aloud to my friends, and I am sure that you will enjoy it.
Land of Women, by Katharina von Dombrowski. Little, Brown, 1935.
This is the story in fictional form of Francisco Solano Lopez, third dictator of Paraguay, and of his Irish mistress, Madame Lynch, and how between them, through his dictatorship, they completely ruined the country, and slaughtered practically all their male subjects in vain wars, and left the country after Lopez' death, a "land of women." The author has followed history, roughly from 1865-1870, but she has the advantage over most historians, in that she has brought all the characters to life. An amazing tale, and one with a moral peculiarly pertinent to our time.
My Old World, by Ernest Dimnet. Simon and Schuster, 1935.
Ernest Dimnet is a sort of French William Lyon Phelps, which is to say that he never writes anything startling, but is always sane, conservative, and careful never to say anything that would shock Mrs. Smith from Keokuk.
In this autobiographical sketch he writes charmingly of his early education in France. Speaking of Paris and America he writes, and this is typical of the quality of his thought and expression: "They have introduced me to action which is only another word for service, and they have weaned me from the innocently selfish intellectualism which a too placid environment could but force upon me."
I was glad to read his tribute to Mrs. Alice Meynell: "Every word she said seemed to come from the depths of her soul."
The Spirit of London, by Paul CohenPortheim. Batsford, 1935.
An excellent and shrewd interpretation of the greatest of all cities. It is a critical and not a descriptive guide. The author was a good European, and his premature death is a real loss to society and letters.
There are 144 unusual photographs.
Winter Orchard, by Josephine Johnson. Simon and Schuster, 1935.
About a year ago I reviewed Miss Johnson's novel, Now in November, which later on won the Pulitzer Prize. WinterOrchard, her second book, is composed of twenty-two short stories. The style is so fragile and so finely spun, that I felt that if I took a deep breath and exhaled (I once did this and broke the back of one of Mrs. Carleton's chairs) I should blow the words off the page. Save for two or three tales, namely Dark, I Was Sixteen and Nigger Honeymoon, which are excellent, the rest are artificial, and highly self, conscious. Miss Johnson, a lovely woman of twenty-five, should cease spinning tragic cob-webs; and when she writes in a more natural and more genuinely mature manner—in a word, more sincerely and less consciously literary—she is a writer who will go far.
The "Johanna Maria," by Arthur van Schendel. Cape, 1935.
This story of Jacob Brouwer, and his life-long devotion to a sailing ship, written by a Dutch craftsman who is perhaps Holland's greatest living writer, is a book that I find difficult to overpraise. It is a little masterpiece, and was justly hailed by many European critics.
The prose glitters like a spar shining in the sun, and the story is one of real beauty, tinged with a sadness as natural as life itself.
The translation is perfect. Beg, buy, or borrow this book, and compare it with Miss Johnson's Winter Orchard, and you will immediately see the difference between a sincere art, and literary artifice.
Leopardi, by Iris Irigo. Oxford University Press, 1935.
I shall recommend this book to my students in Comp. Lit. 20, for it is the best sketch of this unhappy poet's life that I have seen. Leopardi's writings are considered by the author only in so far as they throw light upon his life and character.
The People's King, by John Buchan. Houghton, Mifflin, 1935.
There is little in this book which directly concerns King George, but rather it is a brief survey of the main currents and events which have seriously concerned England and her destiny, from 1910 to 1935. Shows evidence of hasty composition, but is eminentlv readable.
