On the Construction Front
I HAVE WORKED all summer writing a book, but have found time also to do some reading, and the best of it I want to pass on to you here. The notices will be brief as I have many books to mention.
First of all, I agree with all who think that Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny is a good book. It is a study of command, and though Wouk has produced nothing like Lord Jim or Youth, he has read Conrad and has profited by his reading. This story of Willie Keith, Captain Queeg, Lieutenant Maryk, and others will not especially please the Navy, but it will certainly cause a lot of reminiscence among all who have served.
I also liked, perhaps even better than the above, Nicholas Montsarrat's TheCruel Sea, which has been widely hailed in recent months. This book is about an English corvette, the Compass Rose, and when she is sunk, the Saltash. There are many characters, one love story which dominates, one excellent skipper, and quite a bit of action. The tension caused by the German's successful submarine campaigns is well described. I found it all convincing, in spite of what a few American reviewers have said. It is astonishing how quickly we forget the terrible threat of Nazi "world domination, even under the shadow of another. A book to own and read again, and this is also true of The Caine Mutiny.
I don't know how many alumni read Sherlock Holmes, but all who do will be interested in two books which appeared this summer in England, though they could be purchased here from any good bookseller. One is the Oxford World Classics edition of Sherlock Holmes, with an introduction by the leading English Holmesian, S. C. Roberts. This wellprinted little book, which fits the pocket nicely, contains all of The Sign of Four, plus ten other shorter adventures, including Silver Blaze and The Speckled Band.
The other, by Gavin Brend, is a must for any real "irregular." It is called MyDear Holmes, published by Allen and Unwin in London. It gives a convincing answer to such questions as: Where was Holmes born? Which was his University (Oxford)? How many times was Watson married and in what years? Why did the two Moriarty brothers have the same Christian name? etc. All the stories are convincingly dated, and altogether this is one of the best studies in Sherlockiana that I am aware of.
Farrar, Straus & Young are publishing an admirable series of "Great Letters" and the first two I have at hand: Selected Letters of John Keats, edited by Lionel Trilling, and the same for William Cowpera magnificent letter writer, and a most interesting, slightly mad poet—edited by Mark Van Doren. I hope to own the whole series eventually. Those to come include Henry Adams, Byron, Thomas Gray, Lamb, Chekhov, and others. The books are well printed; the type is large, and altogether this is an excellent publishing venture.
Robert Graves has done a new translation of The Golden Ass, which is a knockout, and really makes Apuleius as modern as he really was. Farrar, Straus did this, too.
W. Stanley Moss wrote Ill Met ByMoonlight, which is an exciting account of how a handful of English captured the German General Kreipe on the Island of Crete. The Germans left a legacy of hatred there as usual; they were simple and methodical in their mass murdering, and the German mentality is indicated by a German officer who breaks a boy's arm in half across his knee for some slight infraction of rules. This is a fine suspense story, and it happens to be true. One of the men on the raid was Patrick Leigh Fermor who since has written the most intelligent book about the Caribbean I have ever seen: Traveller's Tree, issued last spring by John Murray. I loaned this to a discriminating reader, Bella C. Landauer, this summer, and she liked it about as well as I did.
Frank S. Smyth's last book, alas, is Climbs in the Canadian Rockies (Norton, 1951) and if it isn't his best, it is interesting as the final book of a great mountaineer who packed several life times of adventure in one short life.
Wilmarth S. Lewis's Collector's Progress (Knopf) is a detailed account of how he became the greatest collector of Horace Walpole in the world. This book will interest any collector.
NEW WINGS NORTH AND SOUTH GREATLY ENLARGE THE PHYSICS FACILITIES OF WILDER HALL
THE NEW NUGGET NEARS COMPLETION ON SOUTH MAIN ST., ACROSS FROM THE POSTOFFICE
AN AERIAL VIEW OF THE HUGE FAULKNER HOUSE ADDITION TO THE HITCHCOCK HOSPITAL
