Hanover Browsing

ANY of the books herein mentioned would make excellent Christmas presents. They range from fourvolume works at $35 to a single volume by the late Sam Cobean at $3.95.

Someday I shall write about famous and readable diaries, but for this issue and for this column where I am allowed less than a thousand words, I must stick to just one diary which appears to me to be, without much doubt, the most important book published in 1952. I refer to TheDiary of George Templeton Strong, edited by Allan Nevins and Milton H. Thomas, and published by Macmillan in four volumes.

I am now in the middle of Volume III which deals with the impact of the Civil War on Mr. Strong, an intelligent New York lawyer, trustee of Columbia University, and a man of honest, outspoken and shrewd opinions.

The diaries begin in 1835 and end in 1875. They give an unparalleled picture of New York City in those days, throw a sudden and an illuminating light on historical persons, including our own Daniel Webster, on historical events, and on the ever-growing metropolis we call New York. They reveal a good and an intelligent man, who was intolerant of stupidity and chicanery, of which he found in those days a great deal, whether in a meeting of the Columbia trustees, or in a political campaign which nominated Lincoln. There are excellent illustrations, interesting notes, and an excellent index in each volume as well as a Dramatis Personae.

If you have a friend who dotes on extreme modernism in nature and the arts you may safely give him (or her) a copy of Louis Danz's Dynamic Dissonance, a rather rhapsodical, and intellectually uncritical, account of the painting of Pablo Picasso, of whom the author says, perhaps with truth, that "he has been everything and he has been everyone." He writes lyrically of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, who is a genius but who is praised often for the wrong things; of James Joyce and of Henry Moore, who makes the work of Epstein appear conservative; of the mad and treasonable poet Ezra Pound; and of the writer of dynamic dissonance, Arnold Schoenberg. This book issued by Farrar Straus is designed most effectively by Merle Armitage, and his introduction will clear up a few things for the layman, of whom I am decidedly one.

Corey Ford, a new and welcome neighbor, has written and illustrated EveryDog Should- Have a Man, which is about his setter Cider. This is a delightful book with good and sound sense therein. I dreamed about it one night, and woke up barking. Surely a great tribute. Holt is the publisher and the price is only a dollar. Republican millionaires might use it for a Christmas card.

I read with great amusement, and I must admit with a certain amount of sinister joy and understanding, Gerald Warner Brace's novel The Spire, which deals with men and women living in a college community. He knows the milieu and gives it the business, withal in a tolerant and charming way. It is a gentler and finer Hucksters.

Then I turned and read the new Colette: Gigi, Chance Acquaintance, and Julie de Carneilhan. This is a new translation of her works, and other volumes will follow. Roger Senhouse and Patrick Leigh Fermor are the translators. The test of their skill lies in the fact that Colette reveals herself to be a writer of genius. Our contemporary American writing appears boorish and awkward in comparison. Her touch is as delicate and sure as Toscanini's, and if you want to know good writing, perception which is little short of miraculous, read Colette. She may not be everyone's dish of parfait, but if you have a woman of exquisite taste in mind, this book would make a perfect present.

The world lost a fine artist when Sam Cobean was killed on July 2, 1951 in his new plaything, a Jaguar. According to Charles Addams, no mean cartoonist himself, Cobean "drew more easily than anyone he ever knew." His new book TheCartoons of Cobean will delight anyone. A Merry Christmas to you and yours.