HANOVER BROWSING
CONTRIBUTORS HAVE RESPONDED nobly this month, and I am happy to present a list of books recently read by alumni, which presumably represents an accurate cross section of the variety of books alumni are reading.
Jim Hodge Jr. '29, whose visit to Hanover every spring is looked forward to by all and sundry Hanoverians, including the class secretaries, sends a list of summer reading with individual comment. Of Joseph Wasserman's Doctor Kerkoven, and Kerkoven's Third Existence, he writes: "These are sequential to the Maruzius Case, the first two being excellent, but the third uses extremes and eccentrics to picture what Thomas Mann does much better." Of Clarence Day's Life withFather, he writes: "This is a habit, too. I couldn't miss a single Day book, particularly if Father is featured." This has been a best seller on the fall lists, and to all readers of The New Yorker Father is a familiar friend. In Louis Adamic's Native's Return and Struggle Jim found descriptions of countries far beyond his own journeys, and both books gave reasonable explanations for Alexander's assassination. Of Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty he writes: "I merely echo the critics to say this is the sole example of adult and effective drama for a good number of years," and of the same author's 'Till the Day I Die he comments, "too full of stage tricks and too brimming with propaganda to be effective or convincing." He further recommends Logan Pearsall Smith's All Trivia, written by a remarkably acute and original mind, Walter Millis' Road to War, C. G. Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao, which is "completely daft and equally apt," James Hilton's LostHorizon, Humphrey Cobb's Pathsof Glory, and Somerset Maugham's old favorite The Moon and SixPence.
Ben Ames Williams '10, wellknown novelist, sends a letter from "Hardscrabble," Searsmont, Maine. He writes, "A few books that have particularly interested me is always easily answered; because it means listing recent reading, since if a book ceases to interest me, I don't read it. Dr. Johnson said a man should read for his own pleasure. I do. Here are some, from memory: Lighthouses of the Maine Coast, by Sterling; occasional dips into Plutarch's Lives; Miss Marvel, by Esther Forbes; The Life of Mussolini, by Marghereta Sarfatti; Salmon Fishing, by Taverner and others from the Lonsdale Library, Volume X; Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed, by Scrope, in 1843; The Adams Family, by James T. Adams; Hill's Manual of Social and Business Form, published in 1879. This for good belly laughs, etc. And I've just ordered, eagerly, Mark Sullivan's final volume of Our Times, having practically memorized the others. Dartmouth ought to have a course in modern history with these for texts."
In answer to a questionnaire from the Massachusetts Library Club as to what 10 books should be in every public library Mr. Williams sent the following list of 10 books which are in his own library, and which he considers essential to any library. These books are: Dumas' the D'Artagnan tales, Fielding's Tom Jones, Dostoievski's Crime and Punishment, Pepys' Diary, Boswell's Johnson, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire, Hugo's essay WilliamShakespeare, Borrow's Lavengro, Summer's Folkways, and Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough.
I was delighted to hear from my old friend Brooks Palmer '23, who is with the New York Life Insurance Company, and who recommends two books in nonfiction. They are: Attack on Everest by Hugh Ruttledge, McBride, 1935, and First OverEverest, the Houston-Mt. Everest Expedition 1933, published by McBride in 1934. Brooks writes, "These particular books have some very beautiful pictures, and anyone interested in the attempt to climb Mt. Everest, should read them with considerable enjoyment."
I agree with the writer and hereby add a brief comment of my own on First OverEverest, first published in England in 1933. Members of the college in 1923 who crowded into Webster Hall to hear Mallory tell of his first attempt at Everest will be particularly interested in this book. They will recall, too, that about a year later Mallory, last seen struggling with his young Oxford companion toward the summit, perished with him (I think) on or near the top.
This book starts off with a brief history of the one hundred years' war against Everest, 1833-1933, and then tells of the successful flight made in 1933. There ensued, after the financial angel in the person of Lady Houston appeared, the most careful planning and preparations for this flight. An engine capable of lifting a heavy plane above 37,000 feet was found in the Pegasus engine of English design. Oxygen tanks, with delicate connections which would not freeze under any conditions were tested in England. Cameras as delicate as have ever been used had to be tested time and again so that they would not freeze or blur under the most trying conditions. Lastly man power had to be found which could fly a plane over a mountain about which nothing was known as regards air currents, etc. On April 3, 1933 the first flight was made successfully, but aerial photographs taken on that day were no good due to a dust haze which reached the incredible height of 19,000 feet. Sixteen days later photographs were taken with success. For the first time man now knows what Everest looks like on all sides.
The slopes of Malaku, another great peak, were also photographed and mapped. The mystery of "the plume" of Everest was not entirely solved. One of the flyers writes: "When, however, the machines went actually into it, we realised that it was something quite different to what we had conceived. Here was no drifting cloud wisp, but a prodigious jet of rushing winds flinging a veritable barrage of ice fragments for several miles to leeward of the peak." He then records modestly that the passage through this had been the great adventure of the first flight. A record of a prodigious accomplishment.
Professor W. K. Stewart, known to hundreds of alumni, and his wife recommend to alumni readers: H. A. L. Fisher's History of Europe, in 2 volumes; Leonard Woolf's Quack, Quack, an indictment of dictatorships; Harold Nicholson's DwightMorrow, Ellen Glasgow's Vein of Iron, which Mrs. Stewart found curiously paralleled Dwight Morrow's life; and Elizabeth Bowen's House in Paris.
Harold Nicholson's Dwight Morrow is an American success story delightfully told by an experienced writer. The author, however, is not quite as objective and critical as in his other books, which, under the circumstances, is not surprising. Dwight Morrow was a really great and simple man, and this is a book which should be read. Mr. Nicholson had access to all family documents, together with the sympathetic aid of the Morrow family.
Having recently become enthused over the books of Rowland Evans Robinson (1833-1900), who wrote dialect stories of northern Vermont, and who is still unknown to most readers, I was delighted to get the following word from Victor M. Cutter '03: "Am afraid I cannot help you much. New editign of Rowland E. Robinson, Sam Lovel's Camp, etc., published at Brattleboro, Vermont, is the only thing that has intrigued me much."
The Centennial Edition of Robinson's works are being published by Tuttle & Company in Rutland, Vermont. They are the real thing and, in my opinion, Robinson emerges as one of the really great "regional" writers of the United States. Harold G. Rugg and Leland Griggs are Hanover enthusiasts and I have no doubt that there are many more.
Herb Heston '34 writes: "Let me recommend Heywood Broun's It Seems To Me as the best bit of impromptu writing to be found anywhere. He never got the proper credit in the writing courses up at school, it seems to me, probably because TheWorld or The Telegram never invaded Hanover. Agree or disagree, one can't escape being stung now and then by his poignant pen. I ditto those alumni who have praised R. E. Lee. What a work!"
Lewis Parkhurst '78 recommends Bliss Perry's excellent book of reminiscences And Gladly Teach; J. H. Bradley's Autobiography of Earth-, Man's Achievement;Age of Science and Democracy by Pahlon; and the Reader's Digest.
Natt W. Emerson 'OO recommends, (1) AMan. Named Cervantes by Bruno Frank, "a beautiful romantic sketch of old Spain and the trials of Cervantes"; (a) My Country and My People by Lin Yutang, "probably the best book on the religious, social, and political life of present-day China"; and (3) The Stars Look Down by A. J. Cronin, "a rather long but fascinating novel of life in the coal section of Great Britain."
I recommend:
Test Pilot, by Jimmy Collins. Doubleday, Doran, 1935.
An impressionistic sketch of really dangerous flying by a test pilot (friend of Bill Beresford of the College Bookstore) who was killed on his twelfth and last test dive for a new navy bomber.
The Post-War World, 1918-1934, by J. Hampden Jackson. Little, Brown Co., 1935.
In 520 closely knit and informative pages the author covers adequately and entertainingly world history and trends since the Versailles treaty. Intelligent, impartial, unbiased, and penetrating.
Desolate Marches, by L. M. Nesbitt. Cape, 1935.
The Llanos of Venezuela described by the engineer who first crossed the Danakil country of Abyssinia, and who was killed last summer in a Dutch plane disaster. His death was a grievous loss to exploration and letters.
The Popular Practice of Fraud, by T. Swann Harding. Longmans, 1935.
An excellent book analysing without rancour how most of us are swindled by advertising. Women should enjoy the chapter "Irresistable Charm in Bottles and Jars."
