Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 October 1946 — Page 14
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’
THE INDI
Of Writer's Pe WHEN STENDHAL “Stood on
writer and a highstrung man. And when, several years later, watched his Milanese mistress wel sponse again was highly individual: _ “My sole preoccupation was to restrain myself from bursting into laughter, in dbrder not to spoil the mystery. 1 left the dark closet as quietly as I came, thinking only of the ridiculous side of the adventure, laughing to myself and also full of scorn for the lady and quite happy, after all, to have regained my liberty.
» ® n “] WENT to the cafe to take some fces and there met some acquaintances who were struck my by galety and my distracted air; they told me I had the appearance of a man who, had suddenly come into an inheritance.” Henri Beyle, called Stendhal, was one of the most individual of French writers, for his novels, brillant, amusing and wise in the ways of women, were expressions of his feelings and experiences. They permit the most interesting analysis of his personality. It is this opportunity to move freely between the books and the man that makes Matthew Josephson's new literary biography, Stendhal, such enjoyable reading.
” » » FOR STENDHAL was in love with fove, and in love with writing and he made one emotion sgrve the other, as when he set down, in his book “On Love,” how the writer can improve his time: | wwrite this very evening, under
g
FRST READER . . . By Harry Hansen sephson's Life of Stendhal ermits Interesting Analysis
2 “STENDHAL." By Matthew Josephson. New York, Doubleday, $4.
watched the city go up in flames, he felt an emotional thrill that had nothing to do with Napoleon's defeat. It was the reaction of a sensitive
collection of the best, and the result is a book worth reading at your leisure. You don't have to swallow it at one gulp; you put it down after finishing a story, and return to it with high expectations the next day.
plete Murder Sampler,” edited by James Nelson,
as thrillers, guessing contests, de-
ural, and so on but the best thing about them is that they entertain us well. .
rsonality
a hill above Moscow in 1812 and
he stood hidden in a closet and come a rival lover, Stendhal’s re-
Europe in his time, is no political refrograde (reactionary) but a real. istic democrat whose minimal demands are for the free press, the jury trial, a parliamentary system and universal education. “Big government in its Napoleonic form always allured him by its mas~ try of the realities of power, but Jefferson's maxims of liberalism had the more enduring appeal, by his own testimony. “Meanwhile his satirical picture of a despot and his.rule are not designed to make his readers long for the blessings of authoritarian regimes.” olf rite
Crime Story Book Alluring
“THE COMPLETE MURDER
SAMPLER.” Edited by James Nelson. New York, Crime Club, $2.50,
“
MANY OF the best crime stories are short. Poe started the method, and numerous others have followed
Now and then an editor makes a
Jack Bradshaw of Cathedral,
‘United Through Books,” at 4 p. m..
Building book interest. . . . Teen age book show committee members work on a book- jacket display at Central public library's Cropsey auditorium. Participants (left to right) are Betty Engle of Speedway high school, Patricia Meyer of Technical, LaVina Booram of Howe,
High School Students Ready For Program Opening Monday
The program for the Teen Age a variety program Wednesday at book show beginning Monday in| 7:0 p. m. Cropsey auditorium at Central pub-
Technical high school’s radio
class, directed by Mrs. Ressie Fix, lic library -has been announced by|will present cuttings from famous Miss Mary Louise ‘Mann, general novels at 7 p. m. Thursday. chairman. : Students from Shortridge high|school will play a group of piano school will’ present a radio play, solos at 4 p. m. Friday.
Beverly Myer of Speedway high
Hosts and hostesses at the ex-
ANAPOLIS TIMES ___ ok Display at Central Library
Barbara Porter of Crispus Attucks and
AERA
WORLD GOVERNMENT— |
Dolivet Book On UN Timely
.
UNHAPPINESS— 'Perchance to Dream," Novel Of Lonely Girl
"PERCHANCE TO DREAM." A novel. By Natalie Shipman and Gurdon Saltonstall Worcester. New York, PrenticeHall, $2.50. :
By HENRY BUTLER Times Book Reporter FICTION about neuroses continues piling up. And here is a novel about a woman whose secret unhappiness drives her to temporarily paineasing drink, with results that nearly wreck her marriage. The trouble starts when Elly Landon is an aldolescent girl strive ing to please her selfish, supercilious father, a college professor, by working hard at the studies he guides her in at home. His jealous monopolizing of her time and attention keeps her from youthful companfons, whom she has to see surreptitiously.
oH an ” A TERRIFYING experience, when she and young Johnny Harvey are nearly drowned in a storm off the New England fishing town, leads to her father's disastrous interference between the two youngsters. Elly loses Johnny and is forced into increasing solitude, with accom-
{panying feelings of inferiority and
misery. She finally marries Alan Rossiter, despite her fascinating stepsister Margot's efforts to charm him. Alan serves overseas in the army. Elly, alone and unhappy over what seems: to be a change of tone in
"THE UNITED NATIONS: a Handbook on World Organ-| ization.” ‘By Louis Dolivet | With a preface by Trygve Lie. New York, Farrar, Straus, $1.75.
By RICHARD LEWIS
WITH THE reconvening of the|
Alan's infrequent letters, occasionally resogts to brandy to make her forget. The habit becorhes a problem only after Alan is back and they are living in a midwestern city. For Margot, in sharply reduced circumstances, comes to stay with them.
» » » 2 MARGOT’S capable ways make
Child's Rea
Monday. Tuesday afternoon, a musical pro- | Shortridge, gram will be presented ‘by Bessie|Agnes;
of Broad Ripple.
The Howe high school
{hibit Monday will be students from Cathedral and St. on Tuesday, from Broad
Whited of Crispus Attucks and Mar-| Ripple, Crispus Attucks, Tudor Hall garet Curtis and Donald Shelhorn'and Southport; on Wednesday from Howe, St. John’s and Ben Davis; boys’ on Thursday from Washington and ensemble, assisted by Patricia Ken- Technical; nedy and Phyllis Bolds, will give Manual, St. Mary's and Speedway.
and on Friday from
Of such allurement i8 “The Com-
They Entertain Mr. Nelson has classified the tales
The authors include Leslie Charterls, R. Austin Freeman, W. W. Jacobs, John Buchan, Raymond Chandler, E. W. Hornung, H. P.
Liaisons,” ilit ons, ang the Bobility Heloise,” which had affected Goethe and Byron. “Feeling was all. Great feeling made one superior to others.” Jot he books: the two poles of “They represent the and its two conflicting directions
the one toward a know{ng libertinism, to be pursued with what might be called coldly rational tactics and finesse; the other a longing for ‘ideal love' and surrender to the tenderest and most virtuous sentiments.” » = J "AND THE wonder is that al though Stendhaly in common with the young blades of Napoleonic times, pursued women with the
g.2
Lovecraft, Edgar Wallace, G. K. Chesterton, W. Somerset Maugham, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Geoffrey Household, Robert Barr and Edmund Pearson. —H. H.
Buy Ehrenburg Book Ziff-Davis has acquired the rights to an American edition of Soviet Journalist Ilya Ehrenburg’s “Impressions of America” to be pub-
Children's Nature Series Published
Picture Stories” for children have duction, spy stuff, humor, supernat- [been published by the Encyclo-| paedia Britannica Press. {
Times Book Page are “Goats and Kids” (No. 9 and “Elephants” i
from carefully taken movies, the
usual action shots. Inclusion of a small boy (goat-rgiser’s son, ele-phant-trainer’s son) in the picture stories adds to the human interest.
| i | |
A SERIES of 12 “True Nature
Two of the books to reach The
(No. 12). | Illustrated with photographs made |
paper-bound volumes contain un-|
A large, clearly printed and simply written text accompanies the pic-| tures, so, that the stories may be enjoyed by very young readers. Each number in the series is priced
lished next spring.
at 50 cents.
Of Lincoln Are
"LEGENDS THAT LIBEL LIN. COLN." By Montgomery S. Lewis. ‘New York, Rinehart,
objects of a Casanova, his writing reflects the intensity but not the " erudeness of his adventures. Yet, as Mr. Josephson says, “a novel, a work of the imagination, is fnevitably part confession.” There may be good reason for believing that Stendhal’s hesitant, confused heroes reflect his own state, for his copious notebooks record frequent rebuffs at the hands of women on whom he had showered every delicate attention. . My copy of The Charterhouse of Parma has a marker at the page where Fabrizio has just established contact with tle fair daughter of the governor of the citadel of Parma in which he is imprisoned.
» I MAY not finish reading the book for another two weeks, but there is no hurry; I have read it before and it's among my bed books. I always return to it with pleasant expectations, and this, I suppose, makes me a Stendhalian— as the devoted readers of Balzac are Balzacians—and one of that company described by Matthew Josephson in the opening pages of this biography. Leon Blum, he reports, says reading Standhal “takes hold of one like a drug,” and Mr, Johnson
‘@g 8dds that he has met “Stend-
thalians who read at least a page ~ from his works every day.” In my business of reviewing, ficklensss is practically second nature; I canft be devoted solely to one author. But I always open one
of.8tendhal's novels with confidence - that that T shall be entertained and enlightened about human emoJ and lately his books have ut welcome antidote to the in public that some au-
a
$2.75.
AS JONATHAN DANIELS has observed, there are curious parallels between the Lincoln legend and the FDR legend. Reviewing Elliott Roosevelt's “As He Saw It” in the Saturday Review of Literature for Oct. 5 under the title, “The FDR Legend—True and False,” Mr. Daniels calls attention {to ‘the sharp reactions following {Lincoln's death and Roosevelt's death as factors in the distortion of history. : When political feeling runs high, legends develop. And while the “legends that libel Lincoln” are concerned less with Lincoln himself than with his father, Ann -Rutledge
|
reflect the partisan bitterness of his era. ” . » MONTGOMERY 8S. LEWIS, Indianapolis writer and president of State National Securities Corp., has been a student of Lincolniana for many years. Puzzled by the acceptance of legends about Thomas Lincoln, the President's father (allegedly shift less, illiterate and drunken), Ann Rutledge (the “only woman Lincoln ever loved”) and Mary Todd Lincoln (“shrewish hell cat, who made Lincoln’s wife miserable”) Mr. Lewis some years ago began investigating the evidence, He found much of the testimony upon which the legends are based unreliable. He learned, as less careful students have not yet learned, that much of what William H. Herndon. included as evidence in his biography is the flimsiest kind of hearsay, sometimes obtained by Herndon's reported’ habit of “browbeating” people into recalling what he wanted them to recail " - » WHAT EMERGES in Mr. Lewis’ chfeful and admirable book is a revised picture. Thomas Lincoln, he SAYS, Was an average pioneer, uneducated certainly, but no wastrel. Of Ann Rutledge he writes “The contention that after Ann's death dj Lincoln never loved again, that her vas the dearest treasure of d and influenced- him t his life, is based upon but ‘orie man's guess and ntality.”
In #5 a woman who,
Local Writer Finds Legends
and Mary Todd Lincoln, they still| eget
describes Mary Todd though | has
>
| | i
{
| | |
| ++ Mont-
Autographing his book. . gomery S. Lewis signs copies of
“Legends that Libel Lincoln” published yesterday by Rinehart, in L. 8. Ayres’ book department,
She lived in constant fear of the| numerous threats to her husband's life—a fear realized finally in Ford's theater. . { Cumulative anxiety, plus lingering grief over the loss of her son Willie, ultimately proved too much for her. For a time, towards the end of her life, she was adjudged legally insane and put in confinement.
» » » » MR. LEWIS modestly disclaims originality in his work. It is all based upon sources easily accessible to anyone, he says. . What he has done, according to his preface, is set forth a few facts which point to the need of revising the mischievous legends, His study suggests the possibility of another sort of study of Lincoln, one which would examine the way Lipcoln has been posthumously invoked to support all sorts of conflicting political programs. Even the Communists have made much of Lincoln's phrase about the “revolutionary right to overthrow” a government that resists reform-
ing Li x that Gibel Lincoln”
| Edge.”
‘Champion’
Portrait of a champion . , . one of 77 drawings by Gladys Emerson Cook for her new dog book, “American Champions.” (64 pages, New York, Macmillan, $1.75),
Maugham Book Added Unreliable To Triangle Series
Among recent additions to the
[Triangle Books 49-cent series is W.|
| Somerset Maugham's “The Razor's drably written, a technical study fon world order.
The Maugham reprint. has a
jacket illustration from the forth-| cannot afford to pass it up. coming movie based on the novel, |
to be shown in most U. 8. cities Naw Book Collectors’ during Christmas week.
Other Triangle editions for Octo-
ber include: “Claudia and David,” by Rose Franken; thé Curious Bride,” by Erle Stanley Gardner; by Elizabeth Seifert; “River's End,” by James “Reluctant Millionaire,” by Maysie Greig.
“The Case of “Thus Doctor Mallory,”
Oliver Curwood, .and
Ulcer Patients Have
Nickname for Cookbook
Thomas Y. Crowell, publishers of
| Walter Aurell's “The Cookbook for
Ulcer - Patients,” report that: the
book has been nicknamed “Praise
the Lord and Pass the Chicken Cac-
| ciatore.”
The nickname comes from a phrase used by: Clementine Paddleford in reviewing the book for the New York Herald-Tribune, “Countless calls from persons insisting on ordering the book. by that title” have been received by Crowell,
Book Find Selection
“Color Blind,” Margaret Halsey's book on race problems, published by Simon & Schuster and reviewed in The Times Book Page for Oct. 5, has been announced as the Book Find club selection for November.
Resilvered and
We are now in
But “Legends the. rly merit of careful
"
-
1 Soroush ‘treatment. of
United Nations in New York, Louis | Elly imagine herself inefficient. TenDolivet's “The United Nations” as-|sion grows between the women.
sumes a timeliness
; |cool greeting
achieve.
It is a small book, with little more than 100 pages containing a description in purely factual terms of the most significant movement of our time: The beginning of world government. In a world immersed in renewed diplomatic warfare and bare-knuck-led power politics, Mr. Dolivet's book is not likely to receive a great deal of attention. Perhaps that can be traced to an international atti- | tude that the United “Nations is still a gesture. 4 = » . IT MIGHT be difficult, for ex-| ample, to convince the average]
tions, whose assembly was given a in New York this week, is going to secure him from another invasion if Germany is permitted to rearm. It might be difficult, also, to convince the conservative Englishman that the United Nations stands between him and
Frenchman that the United Na-|
few texts | Nervous about an important dinner
the competition of Soviet imperialism.
{tion that world organization is the |basic wish of mankind, and from there he proceeds to chart how this | wish can be fulfilled in structural terms,
n » . { FUNDAMENTALLY, he seeks to answer the question of how world government works under the United Nations charter. Mr. Dolivet's approach is purely functional and the result is a textbook, solidly but not
The student of current affairs
Journal Is Announced
“Imprimatur: A Literary *Quarterly for Bibliophiles,” a new bookcollectors’ journal, is announced for publication beginning by January, 1947, Edited by Lloyd Emerson Siberell, Lawrence S. Thompson and L. M. Wilson, with Dan Burne Jones as art editor, the quarterly will be published in Winston-Salem, N. C., address box 322.
Stuart Chase Report
Set for Publication
The 20th Century Fund will shortly publish. Stuart Chase's new report, “For This We Fought.” Calling attention to the magnitude of our war effort, Mr. Chase says that required peace-time achievements (full employment, social security, etc.) are “kindergarten work’
: by comparison, Revises China History
Arnold Sileock is at work on a re-
service on resilvering and special sizes. Call for estimate.
Lyman Bros., Inc.
31 on the Circle
{vision of his “Introduction to Chinese Art and History,” first pub{lished by Oxford University Press {in 1936. Oxford hopes to bring out {the revised edition next year.
Made to Order
position to give
Mr. Dolivet goes on the presump- !
“THE RIVER. A novel. By
Brown, $2.
and understanding hardly permissible “rake Three Tenses.” but everyone recognized the acuteness of her perceptions and the beauty of her prose, Earlier, there were “Thus Far and No Further” and “Black Narcissus.” ; They were individual enough to convince anyone that Rumer Godden has a special gift for understanding the nuances of mood and behavior and a fresh way of expressing herself. India is in her blood, and though born in Sussex she has lived a great deal of her life in India. Now, after hard work for the women's voluntary service ein India during the war, she writes in a cottage “in a remote little. village on the moors” of her native England,
» » » AS TO “The River.” This has no obgcurities. It is brief, and it would seem that the author has placed herself inside a child's mind, and described the development in a child’s clear, direct manner. The child is Harriet and she lives with her kin, Bea, Bogey and Victoria, in the manager's house near a jute-pressing works on a river in Bengal. |. ngel is an observant child, sometimes given to brooding. She keeps a diary hidden in her secret place and writes poems. 8he is greatly concerned with what Captain John, -who has been convalescing at her home, tells her. » s ” THE AIR of India leads to philosophizing, and Capt. John says
stp J
tions. Whether that is fgovical or not, the clinician must dec¥le. The best part of “Perchance to Dream” seems to me the early section devoted to Elly’'s loneliness] and the sinister influence of her) dominant nature has, hopelessly enslaved Elly's mother. There's sensitivity and poetic per-: ception in the account of Elly as a|
father, whose
SATURDAY, OCT. 2 ctions to Cru
Events in Life Are Told
IT WAS WITH a feeling close to awe that I read R : Godden’s fragile, sensitively written little story. little girl's reaction to certain crutial events in her life wi
Rumor Godden won golden opinions last season when of published Her story was not. always clear tojll readers,
Rumer Godden. Bon, Little, “- |
“The River,” whic conveys a
in an adult. i wine
that “with each new happening, perhaps with each newperson we meet if they are impomnt to us,
we must either be again, or die a little bit; big di
and little ones, big and little Bhs.” Birth and death argthe great events in Harriet's lifebut there is no dramatizing th4 in the child’s mind. More than anything \lse, Miss Godden conveys a feelig of in. evitability to the read® That is the symbol of the river. Woy can't stop days or rivers.” i » = =| SHE ALSO portrays aphild un like Harriet in Bogey, thilittle boy who learns by experimit. Bogey knows that he is notpeady to learn to read. “You ways do what you like,” says ‘hrriet to Bogey. “I can, I alwaysdo,” 8a, Bogey. { i What birth is like i to Harriet from her mother, wH explains the imminent arrival of baby. Harriet's response is #plausible
A
rendering of what a this thinks about. § * Death comes from the , who is Bogey's secret. Ang Harriet
shares responsibility for § for she should have told her faser ‘that Bogey was attempting tdlure the cobra from under the péul tree. She must overcome that, joo, to.» 8h THERE IS unusual self-gsurance about Rumer Godden's Harriet. She is not. the nervous, nsettled child of so many stories. Within the frame that Ass Godden has set, her charactermtion is complete. It is a remarkgle portrait, and in every line wefind the author's firm grasp on hei subject and on the words she thoses well.
P
Orchest: a smashing
Hous! MAPS
party for some prospective clients|youngster. It is a beautiful story. .H. H. 3 States Ref of Alan’s, Elly fortifies herself with rr 3 liquor and makes an incoherent and 4 Unsu fatally tactless speech at the din- } ner table, ¢ Ee 10 WASHING Certain now that Margot is better hme LATTE . The national suited to Alan than she herself, Elly § ATE 11 O hit back at runs away to Reno. She goes to call 4 510, Owen Brewst on an old friend, former school- qo. He said the teacher, at a sanitarium, gets in- | Woma's son of the ge terested in helping out as an un- HLT] what he desc skilled nurse and loses her self- NDEXED pressed” repc centeredness in working for others. ing. 8 4 & £ 4 “Much of i THAT ACCIDENTALLY de- One of the mast practical cookooks sense.” the h veloped altruism is given as the {Sout ibid ashable bingy The re ) cure, in this instance, of the funda» © 5,000 RECIPES aad ¥piul Brewster Po oh mental malady. It may be assumed hints; wesed aad approve 928 rh TS = that “Miss Shipman, collaborating in ® 230 sndiaw. Sime: housin the novel with her peyeticiogin hus- ings, many in ower facolor, Senator > band, Mr. Worcester, enjoys the ad- eV Bicti : vantage of considerable case-history pif omplere pbb mitted to In material, since Mr. Worcester's how to get results wichoulavs ating Sot specialty is clinical work with : og of alcoholics. I have the feeling that the con- THE WM. N. BLOCK CO. 1 ONLY $24 president Tru clusion, however, ‘is too easily ar-| | Sendme ___. copies of THE AMERICAN | ‘ te 35 is no rived at, just as I think the WOMAN'S COOK BOOK: $2.45 yr copy. | : He. war Inve progress of the trouble is only Chum) se 0 Sead CO.D. I % ry using a partly described. In each instance I re ah a of Elly’s going off the deep end, Newt... i Tt said the contributory circumstances are de- Address. wAh events I picted as being irresistible tempta- war, that §t
PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT
isolated cases no substantia
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IN THE FACE OF VIOLENT OPPOSITION, FOUGHT FOR ADEQUATE VETERANS’ HOUSI LEGISLATION AND HE WILL CONTINUE FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS!
T0 FINISH
OTHERHOOD
3
i da”
so others can sleep in a cellar?
charges made NHA said ti most all war a war and nav have been ‘on the war housi It sad nur the first sena into the gene “were almost praise of the | war housing pi
BRITISH OF JE
ATLANTIC (U. P.).—Dr. Cleveland, O., dent of the Z America by a at the closing 49th annual ct Dr. Silver's delegates hear dianapolis, ne of the nat council, assail Palestine Jews tion of the int as "rape and i est possible ley
FAIR, MIL TODAY
LOCALE T
Sa Mm, un, 3 7a m..,, 6 8am... 6 Sam... 6
Indiana sum breezes over I state in genera said today, The bureau to the autumn dian summer : that is what it Today and to to be fair an slightest sign oppressive ele ventured,
TIME
Amusements ,. Eddie Ash ,,.. BOOS o.ii.us . Ned Brooks.. Business ...... Classified ..20Comics | Crossword ,... tional Versi s. . Ferguson.
OF RAILROAD TRA
Meta Given ,.. ‘In Indpls. ... Inside Indpls. Ruth Millett .. Movies .....0. FOR THOSE WH Ohiarley's Restaurs