Hanover Browsing

A CONTROVERSIAL BOOK is Mark Aldanov's The Fifth Seal published by Scribners. This is a book written subtly and well. That it was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month was a surprise to me, for it will have an appeal only for the discriminating reader, which of course isn't to say .... or is it?

Although Mr. Aldanov, as he says, is concerned as an artist only with artistic truth, he does achieve through the ideas and thoughts of his characters an insidious and often bitter criticism of the Soviet regime, especially at the time of the Moscow trials. One will remember especially the Red Army Commander, Constantin Tamarin, and Vermandois (a sort of Anatole France) who sums up the book: "Yes, of course I hate Hitler more than I hate the bolsheviks. But if freedom and human dignity are to be defended, they must be defended honestly: against all tyrants and all corrupters.... Merde!"

It is well to remember that this novel was written five years ago, and whether future events will justify Aldanov's attitude, I hesitate to say "bias," toward the Revolution this reviewer would not care to say.

By all means read: Retreat With Stillwell, by Jack Belden and published by Knopf. It is a masterly account of the Burma fiasco, and a marvelous picture of a country divided against itself. Stillwell emerges a great soldier and an honest man, for it was Stillwell who said, "The Japs ran us out of Burma. We were licked."

Congo Song, by Stuart Cloete published by Houghton Mifflin. Reminiscent of Maugham at his best this story reeks of the jungle, of sex, sabotage, of gorillas, etc. There is a gorilla who plays a major role, there is Olga (and you'll like her), there is Sebastian the painter, and best there is Dr. Chanel who is cynical and full of wisdom. Really so good you will hate to put it down. Sergeant Nikola by Istvan Tamas published by Fischer. This novel of the Chetnik brigades is full of action and all through it runs the refrain:

Darling, please do not cry, It need not be good-bye. Under the blue Serb sky True Chetniks never die, Never die! Never die! Never die!

This will help you understand Mihailovich!

Tunnel from Calais, by David Rame. Macmillan. A good and almost convincing spy story about a tunnel built by the Germans under the English Channel.

Germany's Master Plan, by Joseph Borkin and Charles Welsh. About cartels which hamstrung American preparation for global war. May make you a little hot under the collar.

The Voice of the Trumpet, by Robert Henriques. Farrar. A fine story of a Commando attack with spiritual overtones and undertones missing in most war novels. Stephen Benet wrote the introduction and it must have been nearly the last thing he wrote.

Heathen Days by H. L. Mencken (Knopf) carries on in an amusing and often biting fashion Mencken's memoirs. The sketches deal with events from 1890 to 1936. There are magnificent chapters about Rome, the Holy Land, and an- cient Carthage.

Dress Rehearsal by Quentin Reynolds is an exciting account of the Dieppe raid and other matters vaguely connected with it.

Barrack 3 Room 12 by Marcel Haedrich (Reynal) is a moving story of a group of ten French officers in a German prison camp. Knickerbocker Gardens by Caleb Bruce is a novel of 564 pages published by Scribners in 1941. John Monagan '33 recommended it to me, and I pass the recommendation on to you. I enjoyed it.

Most material about reference libraries and reference librarians is widely scattered in magazine files, and so inaccessible to the general reader. Hence it is gratifying to find a volume entirely devoted to reference work: The Reference Functionof the Library, edited by Pierce Butler, and published by the Chicago Press. The topics discussed range from "the reference function in the college library," "the humanist in the library," "special reference problems in map collections," to "reference work in the Rare-Book room." Librarians, as well as those interested in library problems, will find this book a valuable one.

Read Wendell Willkie's One World. Great stuff.