Hanover Browsing
THERE HAVE BEEN ALREADY a number of excellent books about combat: in Italy, North Africa, Germany, and in the Pacific area. But what of the millions in the brick foxholes in the barracks, throughout the land?
Richard Brooks in The Brick Foxhole (Harper and Brothers) has told the story of the men who, for one reason or another, do not go overseas, but who measure out their military service in the unnatural life of the army cantonments. "The discipline, the tedium of standing in endless lines and waiting around, the drilling, the fatigue, the excess of animal spirits they finally know as their bodies are toughened up and they become more physically fit than they have ever been before, the lack of privacy, the dearth of feminine companionship, and the sharpening of every male tendency under the daily impact of a thousand factors and incidents that go into the making of a soldier's world." This the author knows and tells with the blunt impact of an honest craftsman.
There are altogether too many Monty Crawfords in the land who will not find, alas, the fate that Monty found in TheBrick Foxhole. There are quite a few Manny Brocks, Jeff Mitchells and Peter Keeleys. You will recognize them all. There are many you will not like in this book; the life of the G. I. may shock you. The innuendos concerning "moms" and wives may not be pleasant to think about. But this is what millions of young Americans have known, are knowing, and will know. Not too tasty, but if you want the truth here it is.
Anthony March's Quit for the Next (Scribners) is the finest war novel about Bataan that I have seen. It is written with restraint and with great power.
J. Frank Dobie's A Texan in England tells of the year he spent teaching American history in Cambridge University during this war. I wish all Americans could read it; and I hope the English will read it too. Dobie is a man of sense (common sense and sense of humor); he is a fighter as witness his remarks about the University of Texas where he teaches; he has understanding as witness his book. Highly recommended.
A book to read slowly and to remember is George Stewart's Names on theLand (Random House). Let the blurb speak: "With a wealth of historical and anecdotal detail, he traces the origins and evolution of the principal place-names in the United States, and every American should find fascination in the discovery of the strange circumstances by which names long familiar came into being." I found fascination in the book and intend that my young son shall read it, too, as soon as he finishes his Superman comic. Stewart will be remembered by some as the author of that unique and excellent novel Storm of some years back. An industrious man and a capable writer.
Mary Lavin's The House in CleweStreet (Little, Brown) just fails somehow to be as good as it ought to have been. It has a lot of vitality but it bogs down toward the latter part of the book. However, Miss Lavin's picture of an Irish family in an Irish village is often charming, always fresh and beautiful, and is well worth your time. The author may well become a major novelist. She has the quality of restraint but her book needs judicious pruning. Her characters are real, especially Theresa and Onny, Gabriel is the least convincing though in a sense he is the central character. This novel appeared in part in the Atlantic Monthly. Now I've given it all away.
If you are interested in finding out what manner of men and women the Pilgrims were, how they lived, what they thought about, read the excellent Saints andStrangers by George F. Willison published this year by Reynal and Hitchcock. I think the stereotype that we have in our minds concerning the Pilgrims around Massachusetts will be broken for good after this book has been read.
If you like books like Thoreau's Walden you will enjoy very much indeed John Joseph Mathews' Talking to the Moon. This has been handsomely printed by the Chicago University Press and has a few pen and ink illustrations by the author. Mr. Mathews has Osage blood in his veins and for the last decade has been living close to nature in a sandstone house in the wild Osage country. He will be remembered for the Book of the Month choice in 1932, his Wah'Kon-tah, one of the best books to come out of the West for many years. This was published by the Oklahoma University Press.
AN UNDERGRADUATE PHOTOGRAPH of President John Sloan Dickey '29 which will be familiar to many alumni who attended the College when Dartmouth's new leader was also a student there.
