Hanover Browsing
Candid opinion on books good and otherwise; Fourth year of reviewing for alumni
THE FACT that this will be the fourth successive year of my editing Hanover Browsing speaks well for the indulgence of the editor, and the readers of this MAGAZINE. My main purpose as usual will be to keep you posted on some of the more worthwhile books of the year. I shall welcome communications and recommendations of books from alumni. I shall try to be honest and sufficiently critical in my judgments. Fortunately for me, and for the integrity of the DARTMOUTHAI.UMNI MAGAZINE, I can write what I think of books that I have read. This is evidently not always true in some of the larger American reviews.
As several books have been sent to me through the summer for review, I shall deal with these first.
The Lost Battalion, by Thomas M. Johnson and Fletcher Pratt. The BobbsMerril Company, New York, 1938. $3.00.
The legend of the "lost battalion" persists, and to sift the facts of Major Whittlesey's siege in the Argonne exactly twenty years ago, the authors have gone to great pains in analysing every bit of evidence, and in interviewing survivors (Major Whittlesey committed suicide in 1921), and by voluminous correspondence. The LostBattalion is the final story of what really happened in the October, 1918, offensive in the Argonne Forest. Whittlesey's command was neither a battalion nor was it lost, but its story is now, as the publishers rightly claim, as much a part of our military history as Pickett's Charge, or the defence of the Alamo by Travis, Bowie, and Crockett.
For those who are studying the history of the "First World War," and there are many, this is an indispensable book. I found it fascinating, and told with a fine sense of economy. The very smells of the A.E.F. come back; the noises, the profanity, the psychology, the oft bewilderment of officers and men, the mistakes of the High Command, are thoroughly dissected and laid bare. This book should have at least two million readers (those who reached France during the years 1917-1918), but as a publisher recently told me the American Legion cannot read, or if it can, does not.
Trending Into Maine, by Kenneth Roberts. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1938. Limited Edition, $12.50. Trade edition, $4.00.
In spite of Mr. Roberts's probable protestations I suspect that his whole heart was not in this book. He is more interested in creating historical fiction, in which field he has won deserved success and wide acclaim. My guess is that the publishers commissioned Mr. Roberts to write a book on Maine, and in complying with their request he opened up his desk, removed a lot of material used and unused, threw it together with some other matter (Ben Ames Williams contributes a chapter) and called it a day, or to be more exact, another book. Mr. Wyeth, who knows Maine so well (Port Clyde is his camping ground) did some extremely colorful illustrations.
There are some excellent things in the book. When the author is dealing with Maine history he has all the "surge and thunder" of his best writing. When he writes of cooking he makes one's mouth water, and when he writes of partridge shooting he knows of what he speaks. But when he assumes a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude about Maine he is, I fear, being a little provincial and even a little contrary. Maine is a beautiful state, and well beloved by most travellers who know it, but it seems reasonable to assume that its people are much like all Yankees, who have the virtues and vices common to all men, and its scenery can be duplicated for the most part in several of the New England States. There was no good reason to drag in Franklin D. Roosevelt, and when Mr. Roberts does so he sounds very much like the editorial page of the Saturday EveningPost. He seems to hate the government's spending program, yet quivers with rage because they withdrew their support from the Quoddy project. In Maine, perhaps, one can have his cake and eat it, too. With Vermont, it is a unique state, bill boards and all, and more power to it.
American Sketchbook, edited by Messrs, McDowell, Rogers, Flanagan, and Blaine. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1938. $2.00.
This book gives you much more than your money's worth. The editors have given examples of American writing from different regions such as New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, the South, the Middle West, the Far West, and finally These States. The authors range from Haw- thorne, Jewett, and Melville, to Steinbeck, the Staff of Fortune, and Rolvag. Over 700 pages of text gives the reader a reasonably comprehensive picture of America, American writers, and regional literature.
China Fights Back, by Agnes Smedley. Vanguard, N. Y. 1938. $2.00.
Agnes Smedley is a woman of incredible courage who believes that the Chinese Eighth Route Army is fighting civilization's battles in the East. For months she travelled with this magnificent army. She witnessed battles, guerilla raids, bombing by Japanese planes; she crossed swollen rivers, climbed icy mountains, and lived unharmed, even revered, by the fastest mobile army in existence.
Those who read Edgar Snow's Red StarOver China, and who are interested in how China is waging war against the Japanese menace in the East, will profit by reading this book.
The very soul of China (not visible in news reels) is displayed in this book, and Miss Smedley, human, adventurous, likeable, kindly, and idealistic, is well qualified to speak for China in her hour of birth.
Some other books which I recommend.
The Coming Victory of Democracy, by Thomas Mann. Knopf, New York.
A magnificent essay to be read by all who wish to presei've American institutions, and the "American way of life." Not to be confused with star reporter's articles in the New York Herald Tribune. All the more interesting as it is written by a foreigner, a native of the most undemocratic government in Europe.
Dawne in Lyonesse, by Mary Ellen Chase. Macmillan, New York. A little artificial, a little Edith Whartonish, but none the less, well worth reading.
Insanity Fair, by Douglas Reed, Covici, Friede, & Cos. N. Y.
Reed is the kind of a foreign correspondent who is riding on a bicycle one evening to visit his girl friend accidently runs into the infamous Reichstag fire. He does not mince words, is definitely hostile to Germany, and when they "annexed" (stole) Austria, he found it the better part of valor to hop a freight.
This is one of the best of foreign correspondent's autobiographies since Sheehan's Personal History, and has gone into a dozen or more printings in England.
I have renewed acquaintance with the writings of Winifred Holtby, who died in 1935 at the age of 37, and have read her satirical Mandoa! Mandoa!, a far cleverer and funnier book than Waugh's more recent Scoop, which I could hardly finish, and her magnificent novel South Riding, which has been made into an English moving [Continued on page 84] ing picture recently (or should I say cinematic drama). She was a gallant person and her death is a genuine loss to English letters.
Sometime ago Harcourt, Brace and Company published a book, formerly in a limited edition by an American woman, Katherine Anne Porter, entitled FloweringJudas. It is the best book in fiction by an American woman that I have read for a long, long time. Short stories with a razorlike edge.
To Vrest Orton I loaned Damon Runyon's The Best of Runyon, edited and selected by the English writer E. C. Bentley. Stokes is the publisher. The English consider Runyon in the same class with Whistler as a detonater of English society, and this book deserves to be placed very close on your shelves with the best of Ring Lardner, and it is funnier and less bitter, although not as truthful to life as Lardner's stories. If you don't like this book, I'll eat it cover and all. I haven't had Vrest's report as yet.
You will probably be hearing something about Laura Krey's .... and Tell ofTime, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Cos., who must hope that it will be another Gone With the Wind. It deals with the South, and especially the River Brazos country in Texas after the Civil War. I read it and found it not as theatrical as Miss Mitchell's book, more truthful, but, to be candid, less interesting.
More anon.
PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
