HANOVER BROWSING
JUNE MAY BE a bit too warm for serious reading, and I shall mention here some books that will not unduly tax the reader's stamina.
Two detective stories may be unreservedly recommended. These are Rex Stout's The Rubber Band, which is a further adventure of the orchid-loving Nero Wolfe, and Nicholas Blake's The Shellof Death. The latter author is in reality the English poet Cecil Day Lewis, and as poetry fails to boil the pot, if one may use such a simile, Mr. Lewis writes a book that should have a good sale, a pot-boiler, but far superior to the average shocker.
A book which should appeal to parents is the Earl of Lytton's book about his son, entitled Anthony, and published here by Scribner's. "Tony" Knebworth was at Oxford with John Carleton 'a2, and some of his most interesting letters are concerned with skiing in Switzerland, and with John's prowess on the "flying hickories." It was a decided loss to England when Anthony was killed in a maneuver dive at a R. A. F. show. His father writes with praiseworthy objectivity, and this book is superior to most personal in memoriam volumes.
Any New Englander, or anyone, in fact, who likes good autobiography, will enjoy reading Miss Sarah Cleghorn's honest story entitled Threescore, with a fine introduction by Robert Frost. Miss Cleghorn lives in Manchester, Vermont, but her gallant spirit has roamed far and wide, and here is a record of her spiritual adventures. Strongly recommended.
Alvin Johnson is an example of a man over sixty who assailed successfully the
problem of writing a first novel SpringStorm. This has been in manuscript for some years, and due to the recommendation of the late Clarence Day, who wrote Lifewith Father, Mr. Knopf recently issued the novel. It deals with a young farmer's love affair with a married woman on a midwestern farm. It is not a great book, and yet Mr. Johnson, a trained journalist, has done a fine poetic piece of prose. Well worth reading.
Bernard Jaffe's Outposts of Science is a mine of information on the work of several scientists in the United States, who are, in their various fields of anthropology, medicine, bacteriology, and so on, carrying on the best traditions of disinterested scientific investigation. Truly a fascinating book, but one that cannot be skimmed through, but worth the effort of anyone interested in the latest discoveries. The chapter on genes was more fun than a detective story. Well illustrated.
There died of pneumonia in Buenos Aires on March so, 1936, my friend R. B. Cunninghame Graham. He was nearly eighty-four years old, and it was fitting it seemed to me, that he should die in the country which had given him the happiest years of his life. He had visited the birthplace of his old friend W. H. Hudson, had introduced himself to A. F. Tschiffelly's famous horses, Mancha and Gato; had been feted by Brazil as one of the truly great writers about South America, and Don Roberto had, as he wrote to me, two weeks before his death a "veritable whirl."
His last book was published soon after his death, and is entitled Mirages. It is worthy to be read by the most discriminaing reader. His book ends with a tribute to his old companions of the trail, and if Trapalanda exists, the heaven of the Gaucho and the Indian, Don Roberto is there:
"Where they ride now is but a matter of conjecture; no one remembers them but I who write these lines, that I have written in memoriam, hoping that some day they will allow an old companion to ride with them, no matter where they ride."
The many Dartmouth readers of Kenneth Roberts will be interested to know that his publishers, Doubleday, Doran & Company, have issued a pamphlet containing a brief biographical sketch, and an informal study of him and his work written by Chilson H. Leonard of Phillips Exeter Academy. This may be procured through any bookstore, or through his publishers. It is certain to interest those who know his excellent historical fiction.
I have heard from several people recently how entertaining they found Mr. Roberts's For Authors Only, and I have tested it with excellent success by reading aloud from it at a Sunday evening fraternity talk. This is a real test for any book, and I recommend it in these columns again.
An English business man who writes under the pseudonym of Mark Spade has written a rather comical book, How To Runa Bassoon Factory. This is a book which pokes some innocent fun at business organization. Houghton, Mifflin Company are the publishers. I hope Cotty Larmon reads this one.
Max Miller's Fog and Men on Bering Sea, though somewhat disappointing, is worth the trouble of those who like to read about far off places.
Sir Philip Gibbs, one of the world's great reporters is at his best in England Speaks. What England says is rather depressing.
A further and definitive volume on Samuel Pepys comes from The Macmillan Company. This is Arthur Bryant's: SamuelPepys, The Years of Peril. Pepys's stature grows the more one knows about him and in this book he becomes the founder of the great British Navy. Deftly written, with nothing of the ponderous about it, this volume is scholarly and readable. There is another volume yet to come, which for all Pepysians, is good news indeed. I have heard it said that up to forty you should read everything, but that after forty you should read only the masters. Wheatley's edition of Pepys's Diary, in three thin-paper volumes, is one of the books that will go to my desert island. Another is the ten volume edition of Hakluyt's Voyages. Another is Doughty's Arabia Deserta, but I guess I have mentioned this before.
Edmund Pearson's More Studies inMurder is a must book for all connoisseurs of crime. He needs no introduction here, but it must be said that he makes murder a delightful diversion to read about.
For recent war books I recommend Arnold Zweig's Education before Verdun, which deals with Bertin, one of the main characters in The Case of Sergeant Grischa, and a great human problem facing Lieutenant Kroysing. The brutality and stupidity of a military system upon the lives of men is made manifest. A human drama is played out before the vast slaughter house which was Verdun in 1916. This book is most carefully written, but to be perfectly honest, I found this novel as I did its predecessor somewhat difficult going, and yet so real and intense is the story that one finishes the book with the realization that he has had a genuine spiritual experience.
War books received from abroad include Major Rees's A Schoolmaster at War, Herbert Hill's Retreat from Death, H. R. Williams's Comrades of the Great Adventure. The latter book comes from Australia, and is not as good as the first two. Hill's description of the March, 1918, retreat is amazingly well done, but the second half of the book is not so successful. Major Rees writes simply and well of his three years at the front. His volume is introduced by lan Hay, who is remembered for his The FirstHundred Thousand. I have also added to my war collection the poems of Herbert Read, and Kipling's two volume history, The Irish Guards in the Great War.
For plays I recommend Robert Sherwood's Idiot's Delight, an anti-war play, with more comedy than is usual in such plays, which has been delighting New York audiences. The Lunts have made it a major attraction. One of our former Dartmouth Players is in the cast, Allan Hewitt, and he seems to be a fixture in the Lunt casting bureau. Scribner's are the publishers.
A play which has more dynamite is, of course, Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead. The sensational material in this play makes credible the statement that the audience literally hangs on to their seats during the performance. There are juvenile touches, and the technique of drama construction is made easy by the device of black-outs, familiar to those who know Odet's work, but nevertheless the play is a powerful one, well written for the most part, and although it probably won't do much good, it certainly can't do much harm. The time of action is "the second year of the war which is to begin tomorrow night."
Readers of this column who may be book collectors might be interested in a volume to be published next September by Little, Brown and Company, entitled ModernBook Collecting for the ImpecuniousAmateur. This book contains a good deal of information on modern American and English books; a chapter on war books, on forgotten books, and three chapters on the technique of collecting. Its author wishes you a pleasant summer until fall.
Page One of Manuscript of Kenneth Roberts' Novel "Arundel."
