Hanover Browsing
A Variety of Recommendations for Good Reading Begins With Dilys Laing's Brilliant and Promising Poetical Work
BEN AMES WILLIAMS '10 wrote to ask how I could leave out of my Dartmouth Bookshelf such Volumes as The Golden Bough, Sumner's Folkways, and Victor Hugo's book on Shakespeare. Had I included these I should have had to put in Karl Marx's Capital, Darwin's Origin of Species, and maybe even Speiicer's Synthetic Philosophy. My list dealt with books which give pleasure, and I can't say that the above are much fun to read, though they are certainly important.
I do want to urge lovers of poetry to buy Dilys Bennett Laing's excellent volume Another England. The title poem, honest and sincere, is the answer to those who still see England only through glasses rosy with romance, which is to say, those who see England falsely. Mrs. Laing's lyrics are incisive, sharp, brilliant, and often witty. This volume is one of the most promising first books of poetry I can recall in many years. The book is published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce. I'm glad to have a first edition, and I believe you will be, too.
Angela Thirkell has a new book out called Northbridge Rectory. Readers of The Brandons, and other pleasant stories by Miss Thirkell will want her latest which concerns contemporary England. Mine is an English edition but it is almost certain that Knopf will bring it out soon in America.
Miss Clara M. Gill and John J. Perrino '32 have produced through the Dartmouth Press a memorial volume to Americo Secondo DeMasi who lost his life in the Theta Chi tragedy at Dartmouth in February, 1934. The book, attractively printed and bound, is called Days at Dartmouth and belongs on any shelf of Dartmouthiana. The edition is small and enquiries concerning it may be made to Mr. John J. Perrino, 65 Cottage Street, Middletown, New York.
The first book of 1942 that I have read (this is written the day after Christmas) is Great Men and Women of Poland edited by Stephen P. Mizwa, and publisheby Macmillan. There are chapters on Copernicus, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Pulaski, Mickiewicz, Chopin, Helena Modjeska (this chapter was written by Prof. Eric P. Kelly of Dartmouth), Sienkiewicz, Joseph Conrad, Paderewski, Marie Curie, Pilsudski, Reymont, and others. The lives of these illustrious Poles together with the eloquent convictions of the authors of these many chapters give one a real faith that Poland will live again in spite of the ruthless and devilish heel of the Nazis. Long live Polish democracy!
Dean E. Gordon Bill and Paul Sample told me that the best book on the North that they have read is G. W. Melville's Inthe Lena Delta. This concerns the search for Lt. Commander DeLong and his companions. The book was published in 1885. On their recommendation I have the book before me and I hope that some of you may read it along with me. I am sure it is a great hook.
A book that should shock us all out of our complacency and smugness about our country (although the Japs have already done this) is Harnett T. Kane's rollicking story, which might well have had the subtitle "It Did Happen Here," entitled Louisiana Hayride published by William Morrow in 1941. This is the complete story of an American dictatorship which lasted for twelve years; the dictatorship of Huey P. Long and his henchmen who carried on for a long time after his assassination. These boys plundered very well and although they were pikers compared to Hitler and Muss they were giants compared to Capone and Gyp the Blood. A hilarious story for realists but it will shock the tenderminded.
Martin Flavin, playwright, has written a story of a German parachutist: CorporalCat, Harper and Brothers, 1941. The book reveals Nazi stupidity, its bravery and fanaticism. The most attractive character is a Dr. Hess. Worth reading.
A good thriller of a Nazi agent who repents, with plenty of action laid in the United States, is Warren Stuart's TheSword and the Net, published by Morrow.
As a boy I lived for several years across the street from the Quaker Meeting House in Amesbury, Massachusetts which Whittier used to attend. His house was just a few doors down. So I enjoyed reading Whitman Bennett's new book on Whittier: Bard of Freedom, published at Chapel Hill in 1941. A new appraisal of Whittier has been overdue and this book does a lot to fill the bill.
Henry Miller, a man of genius if we have one writing today, and who is yet to be recognized in America for the writer he is, has recently written and had published a book on Greece, The Colossus ofMaroussi, Colt Press, San Francisco.
For the first time in my life, through Miller's book I got a feeling of modern Greece and the Greeks. The book is written with gusto, and is full of touches of originality; it has sly touches of humor, and the philosophy therein could safely be described as unacademic. This is a book which a collector should hasten to get on his shelves; and any lover of Greece.
The Oxford Press with Farrar are issuing a series of 10 cent pamphlets: Americain a World at War. The first one is by James Truslow Adams; others by Walter Millis, William Agar, Stephen Vincent Benet, etc. They were written to convince us that this was our war, but they are just as valuable now we are in the war. There are more to come. I have nineteen at the moment.
The Latin American Prize Novel contest produced Ciro Alegria's Broad andAlien is the World. I was not able to read the 400 pages in small type but you may have better luck and the newspaper critics seemed to think it was worth while.
For children or grownups who want to know how Uncle Sam's treasury department works I refer them to Robert Disraeli's well illustrated Uncle Sam's Treasury published by Little, Brown & Cos.
This summer Dartmouth had an eminent visitor in Dr. Gunnar Myrdal who is directing, for the Carnegie Foundation, a study of the American negro. He is a sociologist. His wife, Alva Myrdal, one of Sweden's most distinguished women, has just published a long volume Nation andFamily: The Swedish Experiment in Democratic Family and Population Policy. Harper is the publisher.
A one volume history of English literature which may displace Legouis and Cazamian is George Sampson's The ConciseCambridge History of English Literature. Macmillan is the publisher; the price is $4.50 and well worth it. The material of the fifteen volume edition has been boiled down and brought up to date. I read the section on Shelley and found it excellent. Highly recommended for reference.
For war books I recommend Diana Forbes-Robertson's and Robert Capa's The Battle of Waterloo Road (Random House) and Bomber Command (Doubleday, Doran).
For fun you will undoubtedly enjoy P. G. Wodehouse's Quick Service (Doubleday) which ran serially in the Post.
Nard Jones has written a tale of early Oregon called Scarlet Petticoat (Dodd, Mead) which tells of the effect an English barmaid, Jane Barnes, had on Astoria in the year 1823. An historical novel which has no pretensions save to entertain. It only partially succeeds.
The Nun and the Bandit, by E. L. Grant Watson. Smith 8c Durrell, 1941.
A brutal story of the Australian bush with a most enigmatic ending.
