Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 January 1947 — Page 14
% ~
—
iy Feature of The Times) |
" : een By : A
Harry Hansen
‘James Given Free
to Trace ‘Met’ Life |
%
Growth nsurance Co.
AN LIFE: A STUDY IN BUSINESS GROWTH."|
James. New York,
Viking Press, $5.
| ONE THE EAST SIDE of Madison Square, where the bell tolls, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. is now com-
L 3
ig the final fougth segment of an enormous office build-
ing begun before the war. On the corner, beside the clock
tower, the company still uses in Paris Opera house. * * From these offices the company disbursed, in 1945, an average of $5451.58 a minute on death, disability apd annuity claims, in a year when 31,500,000 were in-
necessary if we are to have docu- * mentary evidence of how free en-
10 the people, for it has written more industrial insurance for workingmen than any other company. The: great test of life insurance administration came with the pros-
. Ecker that he did not
government . to provide , or more than social sebenefits; in 1938 he initiaied Investigation of economic , With the life insurance companies as the target. » » »
METROPOLITAN FEELS that it
that they were going to be taken into the woodshed.” ~~ “Many companies, led by Metropolitan, challenged the SEC,” writes Mr. James. But four big ones, Prudential, New York Life,
{stirs up her associates. An under-
[old age.
easy learning how to care for your body.
the building’ that was notable
1898 for an imposing staircase of marble inspired by the
F J » ¥ Reviewer's Notebook A BIOGRAPHY of Thomas Wolfe's mother, the Marble Man's Wife, by. Hayden Norwood, will be published Jan, 27 by Scribners. Tom wrote up his father. “Criticism is nothing if not wholly an act of discovery. The best critic is nothing more than a man who reads better than others; who, reading in public reveals truths other readers have not seen.”— Andre Rousseaux, Le Litteraire,
magazines that would have been almost inconceivable 10 years ago.
{ The feminist cause . . . is now be-
ing challenged everywhere."—Harrisod® Smith, Saturday Review.
Ed x »
New Books
THE PITFALL, by Jay Dratler, is a tightly written melodramatic tale about a man who gets into a love affair with the wife of a man in jail through the co-operation of a cop, who eventually ruins him. (Crowell, $2.50). There Were No Windows, by Norah Hoult, well repays reading, but the paper and ink are bad. The remarkable part of Miss Hoult’s writing is her ability to keep the reader intensely interested in the vagaries of a woman who, if she does not irritate you,
i
standing and eloquent story ahout (Didier, $2.75.) 3 ” = »n HEALTH, THE EASY WAY, by Lelord Kordel. Actually there is no! road to health. ? ht Even this author's program means
For the most part, this book gives advice on diet, work, sleep, exercise,
and so on that coincides with common sense. : Mr. Kordel is not a vitamin crank, nor does he have any unusual and alarming regimen to offer. “You might live a long time by munching carrots throughout the years” he says, “but who wants to live a long time if life is going to be as monotonous as a carrot diet?” (Agden, $2.50.)
Library Has New
Index to Music
A NEW and speedy popular-music reference system has been announced by Central Public library art and music department. Of particular interest to music students and program arrangers, the new reference service is called “Tune-dex.” .It is a collection of more than 5000 tunes printed on 3x5 cards. Each card not only has a thematic sketch and lyrics of a song, but also lists the name of the composer and lyricist, as well as published arrangements and other pertinent data. The “Tune-dex” system eliminates thumbing through bulky collections of sheet music and provides a central source of information, according to Miss Elizabeth Ohr, department head. Central Public is one of the first libraries to adopt the new cards, Miss Ohr said.
Mutual and Northwestern, didn’t sign the final protest.
“Throughout the inquiry these |
companies, unlike Metropolitan, had rarely done anything to ruffle the sensibilities of the SEC.”
lek: S
BOOKWORM
reminds you:
+|Hill, NBC correspondent, to 0 a
New Book ‘Issued
For Small Children
Dodd, Mead has just published a book for small children eniitled “Round the Afternoon,” by Charlotte Jackson, wife of Joseph Henry Jackson, book editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Mrs. Jackson was formerly a teacher of very young children, and this is the fourth book she has written for that age group,
Byrd Book Contracted «
Farrar, Straus have signed Max
book on his forthcoming trip with Admiral Byrd to the South Pole. As
"You can get any book reviewed on this page in Block's he Lending Library or
[, Mall Orders Promptly Filled
yet untitled, Mr. Hill's book is Scheduled for publication next Jall,
SEARS
ROEBUCK AND CO
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A Goulash
‘HOOSIER GEORGE MEREDITH? — The late Booth Tarkington and his former
already used the title.
tion by Susannah Tarkington,
curably sentimental” failing to question the “innocent values” more trenchant writers atfacked during the 1920's. There is a certain futility in criticism based in part on what an author did not write but (it is implied) should have written if he had kept up with the times. Since world war I, there has been | increasing critical pressure on cre- |
Booth Tarkington's Unfinished Novel :
Reflects Tolerant View of Young People
| "THE SHOW PIECE." A novel.
By Booth Tarkington. IntroducNew York, Doubleday, $2.
"By HENRY BUTLER
Critical opinion has sometimes been disdainful of Booth Tarkington. Even such generally sympathetic estimates as the reviews of “The Show Piece” in both Time and Newsweek for Jan. 27 compare Tarkington unfavorably with other American writers in the last 25 years: Sherwood Anderson, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis et al. The critic in Time, for example,
declares that Tarkington was “in-
| ative writers who have avoided
facing political, - social, economic and, in the most intimate sense, psychological problems. There also has been a growing reader-demand for novels in the vein of “An American Tragedy.” When Tarkington did write about society's growing pains (“The Turmoil,” 1915, or “The Magnificent
$1000 Literary
i |
I
TALKING MULE — Francs, the talented army mule, and his second-lieutenant pal, drawn by “Garrett Price for "Francis," by David Stern. (Farrar, Straus, $2.50) Mr. Stern's unusual story of a talking mule that helped win the Pacific war is one of the book abridgements in the February Book-Reader, companion to Omnibook.
16 Years’ Work Goes Up in Smoke
THE FIRE which recently destroyed James T. Farrell's New York apartment also consumed about 1000 pages of unpublished manuscript, according to Vanguard, his publishers. “Included in this material were the original, unpublished end of ‘Studs Lonigan,’ which Mr. Farrell planned to revise and publish as a gift for booksellers, ‘etc.: over 60 stories in the process of completion and the work of 16 years: .completed articles on characteristics of Irish culture, which Mr, Farrell planned to publish this year; numerous essays on the sociological, political and esthetic interpretations of literature; two unpublished novellettes, and an unpublished novel,” the publishers re- | port,
bth Dreiser Novel Will Be Reprinted
The World Publishing Co. Cleveland is bringing out Theodore
in a $198 reprint today. Today's publication is the sixth of Dreiser's novels to appear under the World . imprint. Others are:
“The Titan,” “The Financier” and “The Genius.”
‘Additional ‘Egg and I' Copies Are Published
A recent order for 1000 additional copies of Betty MacDonald's “The Egg and I” has brought the total number of copies in print up to the 1,243,000 mark, according to Lippincott, the publisher, Mrs. MacDonald's new book, “Mrs, Piggle-wiggle,” a juvenile, is sched-
uled for March publication,
»
{marked not later than midnight, |
of
Dreiser's “An American Tragedy”
“Sister Carrie,” ‘Jennie Gerhardt,”
Contest Opened
CHARM MAGAZINE'S annual
literary contest has been announced |
by Street and Smith Publications, Inc. Open to all writers under 35 years of age, the contest carries a first prize, awarded for fiction only, of a $1000 United States savings bond. Second prize, which may be won for fiction or non-fiction, is a $750 bond. Manuscripts, which may run from 3000 to 5000 words, must be post- | March 31, 1947, and mailed to “Lit- | erary Contest, Charm Magazine, {122 E. 42d st, New York 17, N. Y.” i They must be typewritten, double{spaced and accompanied by a selfaddressed envelope. An author may submit as many entries as he desires. | Editors of Charm will serve as | Judges. Their decisions will be an- | nounced with the publication of | the winning stories or story and | article in the July, 1947, issue of
{ Charm. |
New Book Praises Lincoln's Stepmother
| “Meet Abraham Lincoln,” a new {book on Lincoln by G. Lynn Sum(ner, is announced by Harper's for Feb. 5 publication.
One theme Mr. Sumner develops,
kindly and never-forgotten influence on- Lincoln of his step- | mother, Sarah Bush, | | {
Ernie Pyle Book ‘Among Year's Best
Four Henry Holt & Co. hooks have been chosen by the literary editor of the Nation as among out. standing books of 1946. The four ‘selected are: “William { Blake,” by Mark Schorer, “John Dryden,” by Mark Van Boren, “Last Chapter,” by Ernie Pyle and “The Faith. of a Liberal,” by Morris Cohen.
secretary, Miss Elizabeth Trotter, in a camera study made by Times Photographer Lloyd B. Walton for The Times Book Page, Feb. 6, 1946. According to Mrs. Tarkington's preface to the great Hoosier novelist's posthumous and unfinished novel, "The Show Piece," the book might have been called ''The Egoist" if George Meredith had not
-
Ambersons,” 1918), he still clung to the “innocent values,” as hé does throughout the continuous fictionized history of Indianapolis you find in novel after novel—even recent ones; like “The Heritage of Hatcher Ide” or “Image of Josephine.” Tarkington wrote as he felt. If he did not write like Dreiser or Hemingway or Steinbeck, that fact in no way derogates from the excellence of his work within the limits he imposed on himself, In His Best Style “The Show Piece,” his unfinished novel, amplified by his wife's introduction dnd her final notes on the conclusion he had planned, is in the
comedy-of-manners vein he excelled in. If profundity means exhaustive analysis of personality, complete with lurid reveries compounded of aggressive or lustful impulses, then “The Show Piece” is not profound. It has many of the same “innocent values” youll find in Trollope. It has a 19th century way of looking {at characters through their normalily observable behavior. Lacking ‘the Moliere-like comic | subtlety or elaborately-embroidered | prose of Gegrge Meredith, Tarking{ton nevertheless makes literary cap|ital of the age-old gap between peo- | ple’s pretensions and their behavior. | Irving Pease, the hero of “The {Show Piece,” is a Tarkington ver|sion of the classical comic braggart {type. The comic flaw in Trving’s
| character is not just that oe brags |as a 15-year-old. Irving grows out lof that, even developing a disarming {apparent modesty. He Takes the Credit
The, real comic flaw in Irving is [that he cannot resist taking credit for his loyal stooges’ achievements |—in school, in college and later. {Irving's looks and his urbanity in|vite adulation, which Irving prizes; {so that even when his roommate | Edgar Semple writes a senior thesis for him at Princeton, Irving accepts gracefully the praise of the English professor. The conclusion, as Mrs. Tarkington’s final comments sketch it, would have - had Irving married to an {immensely wealthy heiress whose egooentricity matches his own, A (hint of somber possibilities, such as {all good comedy contains, might
the changing according to the publishers, is the !have made the end stronger than
[the - beginning of the book. I have no doubt that *“The-Show Place” would have undergone considerable revision, if Tarkington had lived to complete the work. As it is, the book has great interest as reflecting the author's wise and tolerant, often wistful, view of young people.
Without Meat
("THE HANDS OF VERONICA."
A novel. By Fannie Hurst, New York, Harper, $2.75.
_ Fannie Hurst certainly knows the
langles in fiction,
. Like other writers _of highly vendible novels, she can assemble 'a story as & good cook can assemble a goulash.
Her recipe for “The Hands of
| Veronica” Is somewhat as follows:
Take one Veronica Bliss. pure, good hearted and gifted with a quasimiraculous power. of healing by gentle massage, Let Veronica simmer while her father, a widower, remarries and is, for three years, reasonably happy with Veronica's stepmother, ignorant of Ghussie’s clandestine intrigue with “Senator” Ed Fowler. let Peter Bliss die. / Now the Spice Add mild spice in the form of experience for Veronica as hat-check girl at Marsden's restaurant in New York, where she daily meets cele
_{brities like Graham Carlson, pros-
perotis publisher. (The name “Graham,” like the first names of most soap-opera heroes, suggests healthy roughage, as well as the fragrance of “pipe tobacco and cinnamon" that clings to the “casual tweeds” in which Miss Hurst garbs Carlson), Have the cogk, with thyme on
‘her hands, add curry powder and
marjoram to symbolize Graham's marital entanglement, He's married to a neurotic, frigid woman whose emotions seem to have been quick-frozen, so the reader gets a Birdseye view of Graham's unhappiness. Stir carefully, beating occasional
{ly for the soap-opera quarrels be{tween Graham and his wife, Helen,
or the wonderful renunciation scene where .Graham tells Veronica that he couldn't do it; it just wouldn't be right. - Get the Noodles Ready - "The mixture is almost ready now for the noodles. One day Veronica caresses a paralytic child, massaging his stiffened legs. In a frenzy of excitement, when the mother goes chasing after another of her numerous Italian brood, the child clambers off Veronica's lap and (Here's where the cook is apt to let the potpourri boil over.) From then on, the hands of Veronica are busy massaging away arthritis, carbimcles, ulcers, warts,
walks.
- | cysts, fistulas, paralysis and chalky
deposits in the joints. Money, which she never asks for but which her step-brother, Willie, semiscalawag, gratefully stows in his pockets, flows in, along with jewelry and innumerable other treasured articles. “% Baffled—and Why Not? Veroniica baffles science. (I can see all this In the movies, and so can you when you read the book.) A Dr. Shagrag, noted neurologist, watches Veronica doing her stuff and explains it as one of those occurrences, rare in history, of apparently miraculous curative power. True, Veronica runs a risk practicing without a license. And wouldn't you know Helen Milbank Carlson would set a trap? Particularly after you've read this sentence about her: “She removed a cigaret from a jade box, fitted it into a holder and drawing away from his offered match, lighted it with a slow hand, waving out the match as if she wereewielding a fan.” : (Between you and me, any woman who lights a cigaret that way is no better than she should be, or don't you agree?) : Do Unto Others
Unacquainted with her deadly rival, Veronica gives. Helen a treatment, whereupon: a plainclothesman starts to arrest our miracle gal. But, whaddaya know! Helen suddenly ‘realizes she’s cured of her
arthritis; so she calls off the minion
of the law. If you don’t think this is good fictional nourishment, go back to the fried chicken of novels about women alcoholics. It wouldn't have been quite right for Veronica to get Graham after all; so she doesn’t. Far be it from me to reveal the fadeout, which should be synchronized with “When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day.”—H. B.
'Williwaw' Author Writes New Book
“In a Yellow Wood,” a new novel by Gore Vidal, 21-year-old author of “Williwaw,” will be published March 17 by Dutton. Mr, Vidal's forthcoming novel is set in New York, “a far cry from the Aleutians which he wrote about in his previous book,” according to the publishers.
Holt Will Publish Roosevelt Biography
“Franklin D. Roosevelt: An Informal Biography,” by Alden Hatch, is announced by Henry Holt & Co. for publication next Thursday, the
Mr. Hatch is the author of “General Iike,” a biographer of Gen. Eisenhower.
The Penn-Mark Announces:
For greater convenience te our customers: we are STILL located at 48 N. Penn, byt have moved to ROOM 200.
DENMARK BOOK SHOP
46 N, Penn, Room 200
[Please continue te send MAIL ORDERS to P. 0. BOX 55, INDIANAPQLIS 6, IND,
pattern,
Protect your furniture by the use of clear glass tops. ity, coffee, end, dresser and
desk cut to size. delivery. Buy in your size and
Van-
One week
Lyman Bros., Inc.
31 on the Cicle
anniversary of Mr. Roosevelt's birth, |
Will Help Jog “INFORMATION PLEASE ALMA. “NAC 1947." John Kieran, editor. Planned by Dan Golenpaul Associates, New York, Double. day, $2. - INTEREST in" miscellaneous information has become a national Radlo programs, ranging from the relatively dignified “Information, Please,” to the lunatic fringe of
SUPER . MEMORY — John Kieran, of "Information, Please" fame, who is general editor of "Information Please Almanac 1947."
Tells Sagas Of Explorers -
"GREAT ADVENTURES AND EX.PLORATIONS." Edited by Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Olive Rathbun Wilcox, Maps by Richard ‘Edes Harrison. New York, Dial, $5.
VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON informs us that many of the events in history we call discoveries were actually rediscoveries. The Greeks discovered the British Isles, but the Britont were already in them. The Europeans discovered America, but the Indians had done so long before. The Spaniards discovered the Pacific Ocean “when the Chinese had already maintained on its shores a great empire through long ages.”
” » » THUS MANY original records are missing because the discoverers could not write, s In “Great Adventures and Explorations,” Mr. Stefansson, with the | help of Olive Rathbun Wilcox and maps by Richard Edes Harrison, takes the reader through the major parts of documents relating to exploration. a La, In the matter of the discovery of America by Norsemen in 1000 A. D., he quotes part of the saga of Leif Ericson. In the controversy over the penetration of Norsemen to Minnesota in 1362 and the Kensington stone he is neutral, summarizing contentions of both sides.
» ® "® AS TO whether Norsemen built Newport Tower, he mentions the views -of Philip Ainsworth Means that it was likely, but assumes no responsibility. In the matter of the North Pole, Mr. Stefansson publishes Robert A. Peary’s account with full indorsement. Cook is mentioned briefly once; never in connection with his claim to the Pole. Other accounts have been curtailed and several startling failures have been omitted,
‘Information Please’ A
Golenpaul says, *
spondents, will be published §.
Your M our Memory slapstick quiz hours, have stimue lated that interest. ! : Whether the passion for unre~ lated facts is healthy or heétic a question for educators to deci inwhile, Sach Yeu seen hd grow: ing number of ¢ rks, bot general and specialized. “Information Please 1047," according to Dan Golenpaul introduction, is an outgrowth ; the nine years-the radio has been on the alr, One obj of the book has heen to provide kind of reference work progr listeners would find helpful, 8 na : A MERE collection of facts statistics seemed insufficient. Th
{should be some sort of evalua
and interpretation, Mr, Golenpa and his group thought; consequen ly, “Information Please Alman 1047" has a series of brief arti by experts in varied fields.
| With Memory-Wizard John
an as general editor, the staff Included such celebrities as Gi land Rice, Deems Taylor, Jo Mason Brown, Elmer Davis a Harold E, Stassen, to mention o a few. Christopher Morley's “Consid tions: 1946," a witty but somber count of last year's literary out is preceded by Bernard Ja article on the physical scien 1946, which indirectly offers explanation of literary poverty. | » "nn SCIENTIFIC progress wi moral progress—or, to put it. succinctly, progress without pose, reduces our thinking to a of confusion bordering on psyc Not only in atomic science the advances startling. I quote Mr, Jaffe: “The 25-year-old for the chemically pure growth mone ended when Chio H. Li, ing with sejergl associates in laboratory of Herbert M, prepared it from the anterior of the pituitary glands of Rats, injected with this hi grew to giant size. The cred even talked of ‘a race of giant springing up at the prick ermic.” (When I met Dr. Evans in aboard the 8. 8 “Statendam
hunds by stimulating their in secretions.) ” ” = PEOPLE seeking facts as as thumbtacks will note, f ample, that the January a temperature in Indianapolis {§. degrees Fahrenheit, which edge. would have been butjld comfort here last Tuesd Wednesday. The book is embellished wi
casional citations of other reféce works, such as the one on $92 based on the Encyclopaedia nica: “The custom of ha
capture, when a man called this friends to help him seize the je.”
A 6l-page, three-column flex
makes the enormous ameowy of scientific, social economic tical information readily a
li le, Of especial value to those! us °
who get into arguments over jres and championships is the 1 sports section, editéd by and Peter Brandwein.
ge ce
Marines on Parade
by William Sloane Associat
including the Andre balloon trip. ’ —H. H.
New Yori
’
7
MD With the joyful,
_ perception. It is the st a youth who accepts
Seventeen, this book portrays the younger generation with honesty and sympathetio
ce, but whose charm and ability hide is supreme weakness,
, At your bookseller’s, $2.00
“THE LAST NOVEL BY
~ Booth Tarkingtor
which he was finishing at the time of his death
satirical humor of
ory of Irving Pease=s— acclaim with casual