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Annual Undergraduate Issue Shows Briefly Some Sampled Student Reactions to Their Current Reading
As has been the custom in the years past I have asked five undergradu ates to write this column for the undergraduate issue. Their recommendations follow.
Peter Macfarlane Keir, the son of Professor Malcolm Keir, is a Senior Fellow, and this year has been working on the Housing Problem. He went to school at Northwood at Lake Placid, majored in "Democratic Institutions" at Dartmouth, is a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Casque and Gauntlet Senior Society. He played hockey, and is president of Palaeopitus.
Here are reports on a few books "scanned between bull sessions, partly as a supplement, partly as an escape."
For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway. A completely intense and well written experience.
Housing for Defense, 20th Century Fund.
In which though specifically relating to housing, many fundamental rules of defense planning are wisely considered.
The Great Crusade, by Gustave Regler. Not Peace But a Sword, by Vincent Sheean.
These two books explain the real significance of the Spanish Civil War, justly criticize the democracies for not recognizing the revolutionary aspects of Fascism, and call upon liberty lovers to act before it is too late.
Trouble With Tigers, by William Saroyan.
A block of short stories that starts off excellently but fades rapidly in many places before the finish.
Revolution in Land, by Charles Abrams. Written by an outstanding figure in housing and in the study of politics this book analyzes the shift in economic and political power from land owners to the manipulators of finance, and it points out the factors in that shift which are responsible for our present economic ills and shows specifically the wretched plight of the small farmer and the urban householder.
Chad Hanna, by Walter D. Edmonds. An excellent story and an accurate account of the early circus.
Inside Europe, by John Gunther. A book "which shrewdly evaluates the men who are at present making the world tough for democracy."
Bottlenecks of Business, by Thurman Arnold.
A determined fighter points out the injustices of price fixing that should be considered by the consumer and the tax payer in connection with defense expenditures and describes his method of blackmail for reducing these prices.
Out of the Night, by Jan Valtin. See Life, PM, and others.
Charles M. Pearson, better known as "Stubbie," has made an enviable record in less than three years at Dartmouth. He hails from Madison, Minnesota, is an Alpha Delt and C & G, is majoring in history, and during his Senior Fellowship, recently awarded him for the coming year, he is going to study politics and government. As you all know he is the captain elect of football, is a crack basketball player, ranks high in his studies (3.6 last semester), and he has been, and is, President of his class of 1942.
He writes: "These are the books which most interested me during the past few months":
A Treasury of the World's Great Letters, edited by Lincoln Schuster. New York, 1940.
A book that sparkles with the fascinating tales of men and women. Letters of love, sorrow, defeat and glory composed in such a manner that hours of delight result. Not a book for continuous reading but one for infrequent sittings. Penguin Island, by Anatole France.
A satire old to many but one which I recently discovered and was pleased to find overflowing with amusement and reeking with thought. Certainly a book which every undergraduate would enjoy.
William E. Chandler, Republican, by Leon B. Richardson. N. Y., 1940.
A biography of the New Hampshire politician which shows an astounding amount of detail for a man of such a small figure. It gives a very good picture of New Hampshire politics of that day with several chapters of exceedingly interesting detail. However, the length of the book tends to detract from the importance of its sum total.
Grover Cleveland, A Study in Courage, by Allan Nevins. N. Y., 1938.
A life of Cleveland in which the prolific Nevins makes a cold subject live; a book filled with color and incidents which make excellent reading.
Theodore Roosevelt, by Henry F. Pringle. New York.
A breathing picture of the remarkable Teddy as he was. This book was a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Jackman M. Shattuck '41, the son of E. J. Shattuck '10, is a sociology major, a very fine skier, a member of Psi Upsilon and Dragon. He prepped at Menlo School in California, and now lives in Dedham, Massachusetts. He likes Horace, but recommends three modern books.
As I Remember Him, by Hans Zinsser.
The fascinating biography of R. S., I soon discovered, was not about R. L. Stevenson but "Romantic Self." So interestingly told that the reader lives every incident with this very great physician, philosopher and poet. The field of medicine has taken R. S. to the corners of the earth searching for bacteria and epidemics. Yet you feel that medicine plays only a small part in his life. His philosophy, portrayed so clearly in his sonnets, hold a distinct place in my mind and I shall always remember him as one of the greatest humanists and scientists of our age. Quest, by George Dibbern.
Another man has found out that Fascism is not a way of life. Leaving his family in Germany he sets out in a 32-foot ketch to find them a home in the South Seas. Two years later he receives a letter from his wife concerning the "New Order." Realizing she is a true German, he becomes an internationalist, flies his own flag and writes his own passport. Dibbern is definitely searching for a way to aid mankind, and nothing will satisfy his thinking except a philosophy that is both rational and naturalistic.
The Snow Goose, by Paul Gallico.
In the midst of death and destruction a large white goose soars unceasingly over a tiny sailboat which, in its small way, is contributing toward the evacuation of Dunkirk. Soldiers huddled in groups on the shore saw it and considered it to be a good omen. Yes, it was the hunchback, Philip Rhayader, from the abandoned lighthouse, on the East Coast of England and the bird he had befriended, both symbolizing amidst disaster a faith in life and mankind. A perfect story of its kind, and one that is memorable.
Edward F. Little '41, a philosophy major, is a Senior Fellow who is working on medieval history. His home is in Marlboro, Massachusetts, and he prepared for Dartmouth at Vermont Academy. He is a good skier, a member of Gamma Delta Chi, and Phi Beta Kappa.
His recommendations follow:
Here are three books of a sort that we do not often approach, that are very important food for the imagination of anyone doing any thinking about the state of a world at war. They run deeper than most others, and show less obvious meanings. One was written for a great many people, one for a more limited number, and one for very few.
Carl Becker: The Heavenly City of theEighteenth Century Philosophers.
In spite of a deadly title this is a keen, living book, by a man whose writing is more than a mirror of his own conceits.
G. K. Chesterton: The Ballad of theWhite Horse.
Some day this little-known poem will be recognized as one of the greatest of our time for its real depth and startling timeliness. It is the story of a "battle of Britain" that we are far enough away from to recognize its real meaning.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra.
He was not a Nazi. As for his audience: "Nicht Hirt soil ich sein, nicht Todtengraber. Nicht reden einmal will ich weider mit dem Volke; zum letzten Male sprach ich zu einem Todten."
Robert W. Harvey '41 has been one of the best editors of the Daily Dartmouth in years. His major is English. He lives in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and entered Dartmouth from the Springfield Classical High School. He is a member of Palaeopitus, Phi Beta Kappa, is the Secretary of his class, and is a Rufus Choate Scholar. He chose not to join a fraternity.
His statement follows:
Except for the fact that What MakesSammy Run? will probably rate more prolonged comment elsewhere in this issue, I'd like to use up this space talking about it. Budd Schulberg's book is too exciting and too much like an express train and too close to the thinking of a guy about to get out of college to be dismissed just as a first novel.
There are a couple of other books, in the meantime, that are worth mentioning. They are new books but the writing is not new. One of them is the Modern Library edition, in the slick binding, of Ambrose Bierce's Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (they call it In The Midst of Life). The other is a Halcyon House publication of James Farrell's short stories.
Beyond the fact that they are both volumes of short stories, they have nothing in common, except one thing: they are both completely nasty. Nasty, not in a sense of cheap pornography, but in the sense of relentless and advantage-taking cruelty.
Except in the belligerent advocacy of H. L. Mencken, Bierce has slipped into nothing but a literary curiosity for our generation. It's an experience to read page after page of these stories that slap you in the face and spit in your eye and picture the horrors of the Civil War in "Chickamauga" as no historian of the World War ever did.
Farrell is no stranger. This collection's interest is first of all in the reading of the early stories that form a background for Studs Lonigan. And in the second place, they are ploughed with a brutal realism about a side of American life that is good to remember these days. Farrell is too carried away with the stench of his reality, as usual, but the stories are pretty potent stuff. The language, however, is not that of Eleazer Wheelock. He calls bodily functions by their Anglo-Saxon names.
Thank you, gentlemen, very much indeed.
