Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 February 1947 — Page 14

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With Harte, O. Henry

BASKET.” By Edna Ferber. New York, Simon & Schuster, $3.50.

STRONG FEELING for individual responsibility and rough the short stories<of Edna Ferber, as they appear in Ine Basket,” a collection of 31 written between 1913 and 0. Their appearance in slick-paper magazines, embell-

by the preposterous “art” splashed over most short

scency and a hatred of waste and useless display runs

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WHAT IS IT7— "Acrobats."

Herron through March 16.

by Mary Caliéry, an example of

the modern sculpture now on view in the current Herron Art museum exhibit. The show of sculpture and drawings will remain at

Whatever You Want fo Know, It's in '47 World Almanac

"THE WORLD ALMANAC AND BOOK OF FACTS, 1947." Edited by E. Eastman Irvine. Published by The New York World Tele-| gram, a Scripps-Howard newspaper. Paper, $1: cloth, $1.75. WHEN THE EARTH has revolved another 365 days and turned its face this way and that to accommodate the seasons, it's time for another summary of the year's events. So numerous and far-reaching

the center of musical {are the essential activities of Americans that it takes nearly 1000

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‘PUZZLER—Phyllis Fraser, coauthor with Edith Young of "Puzzles, Quizzes and Games," an original collection just published in the Bantam Book 25cent series. Miss Fraser is the wife of Bennett Cerf of Random House, Inc.

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pages of the 19047 World Almanac

_| indispensable information in your

China Civil War Depicted

“LOOK SOUTH TO THE POLAR STAR:" A novel. By Holger Cahill. New York, Harcourt, Brace, $3. .

* A LONG, detailed and impressive adventure story is packed into

Polar Star,” which may be said to describe Chinese guerrilla armies in the process of formation. With a small group of Americans and Europeans as cenfral characters, Mr. Cahill develops an extraordinary intimacy with refugees and soldiers fleeing from Shanghai and along the Yangtse river, so that the reader becomes interested in the fortunes of a large number of individuals, their acts and their philosophy. Ostensibly Ryall and Farjohn, Americans, and Mak, a Russian, are starting out to find a former Har-

with Flowers.

" On those occasions when the spoken word seems inade- § quate — let beautiful flowers express your sentiments.

F INDIANAPOLIS

EXPERIENCE

In Real Estate Matters

CIRCLE TOWER

s|vard teacher, Lewis Teigne, some-

where in - the interior hunting bronzes, and his daughter, Ailes. The exact occupation of Teigne remains veiled and he plays no active part in the plot. however, is found, and Farjohn and Ryall ‘want her to leave for San Francisco for her own safety. She evades them and like them throws in her lot with the fighting Chinese. This is only the merest hint of the story. Actually the author builds up a whole world in which Chinese agents for Japan Germans, emissaries of Wang Cheiwei, antiNazis, art dealers with missions, generals, soldiers and police play parts. From gossip and rumors they turn to comment on life, culture,

-|art; the story pivots on adventure,

rather than on the attachment that Ryall develops for Ailes, but which never becomes truly romantic. The author keeps you interested without giving you a very clear idea of what he is driving at. Toward the middle the dialog becomes a set pattern of give and take, nothing casual or unpremeditated. To what extent it actually reflects Chinese life I must leave to authorities, for although Mr. Cahill read 350 books on China in prepa-

and Book of Facts to place this hands. meant little more than repetition of what had gone before. Today there is something momentous abolit every course charted by our ship of state, and every project to which we give our support.

= » » THE ATOMIC age is upon us, and the World Almanac must record how, in the second atomic year, we worked to assure a responsible use of its immense power to kill or cure. The first full year of adjustment in the theaters of war after the

Holger Cahill's “Look South to the|Surrender is filled with acts vital

ito our future welfare; it is here reviewed clearly and comprehensively. What seemed a hapless jockeying for position in the meetings of the foreign ministers and the delegates to the United Nations becomes, in this chronicle, the gradual shaping of a recognizable plan. The end of the war brings with it tables of mortality and costs of material; we begin to see what we accomplished in wartime and on this knowledge can build our peacetime activities.

Ld 2 ” NO LESS useful will be the information about the income tax and the public debt, which by 1946 reached $1910.97 per capita. These matters concern us daily, and though the inheritance tax may touch us but infrequently, its changes must be understood because they affect our material security. The editor accepts no responsi-

His daughter, bility for settling ructions in fami-

lies or becoming the unconscious means by which a ready talker wins a refrigerator or a fur coat on a radio program. If .it happens that somebody's evening is brightened by the knowledge that the Pentagon building in Washington has six million feet of floor space, 17 miles of corridors and cost $64 million, he accepts it as a by-product of his desire to inform.

n ” ” IF you should get into a tangle over the salary congress voted George Washington as President, the Almanac will help you out, as indeed it has helped many a senator and representative on the floor of congress. And while the Almanac doesn’t recognize marathon dancing as a legitimate sport, it packs its pages with records of every activity from baseball to horseshoe pitching, sports that prove that, wherever else ails us, we are free from fear. H H

{Van Q c n' J W

Full of Ideas “REPORT TO ST. PETER." By

York, Simon & Schuster, $3.

WHEN YOU read “Report to St. Peter,” the fragment of the book on which Hendrik Willem ‘Van Loon was working wher he died, you recognise anew his eager interest in ideas and human conduct, » Mrs. Van Loon writes that in the summer of 1943 he started his ins formal autobiography: “He began on the pictures, He always did. He liked to draw much more than he liked to write.” He worked at it intermittently. War jobs interfered; other books pressed on him. “On the night of March 10, 1944, he decided to write a history of the 18th century and went happily to bed full of his new program. The next morning he died.” Hendrik's “Report to St. Peter” is Hendrik talking freely, using boyhood experiences as an excuse

-{to report his reflections on. life,

books, men and women, and his adventures in ideas. It is not about the past, but to-

day. It is full of stimulating points

of view. At any moment Hendrik is likely to begin a discussion that jumps from a boyhood adventure right into the middle of the world war, » » » DURING THE LAST 500 years “the human race has- experienced

plexus,” he writes. “The first one took away the flattering conception that this earth was the center of the universe.” The second “denied man’s divine origin and made him a brother of the animals of the field.” The third blow was Sigmund Freud's contribution; “he cured the human race of the obsession that the soul was something like the captain of the ship and the undisputed master of man's fate.” There were other agencies working “in the dark obscurity of the hold.” Hendrik took these convictions for granted, but in America he learned that many thousands were not yet persuaded that they were right, ” . .

HE BELONGED to a “Voltairean” family in Holland. At the age of 6 he saw a house that had been wrecked because “there were Socialcialists hidden in that house.” He learned to understand socialism. He became acquainted with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, read ; great books, including some not approved by the Calvinists of Rotterdam. tle In his home there was no talk about racial purity; “I am happy to report that I grew up in an atmosphere which was most happily devoid of this kind of nonsense.” The Dutch, no less than other nations, boasted about racial purity, but Hendrik knew there were no pure races anywhere. Many pages in this book touch on religion and the development of religious observances through the ages. This is not a boy's record but an adult's comment. Much is written here in protest against the claims of the Nazis, still undefeated when Hendrik died. Hendrik’s book is the testament of a man who was always ready to inquire intp the reason for things. This book reveals a healthy mind at work—intolerant of evil but tolerant of all things that advance the welfare of mankind. —H. H.

FROM INDIAN A —Kate Clugston, author of "A Mur. derer in the House," mystery to be publishdd next Friday by A. A. Wyn, Miss Clugston is a native of Columbia City, and her family now lives in Crawfordsville. At present Miss Clugston resides in upstate New York.

Uncensored Stories In ‘Deadline Delayed"

“Deadline Delayed,” a

Hendrik Willem Van Loon, New|

three terrific blows to its solar’

book

|Carl Fisher's First Wi

JANE, FISHER'S biography of

his a naivete and an unwitting self-revelation that are at times

embarrassing. . x The Fisher legend is too well known locally to need summary ‘here. From Prest-O-Lite and Speed- | way, the hard-driving, hyper-ener-|getic promoter went on to the Lincoln and Dixie highways, Miami | Beach and the ill-fated scheme to | make Montauk Point, L. I, a great resort and time-saving harbor for Bassengn vessels en route to New

. EJ w STRENUOUS in his living, bold in his planning, Carl Fisher evi-! dently had « degree “of integrity many promoters have lacked. His costly struggle to oust mid-1020's realty sharks from Miami Beach is an example. And his final years of progressive illness and alcoholism, when he used dwindling resources to delay financial disaster, form a tragic chronicle. “Fabulous Hoosier” is a chatty, informal record of Fisher's career, with frequent disgressions backward |and forward in time. ‘There are {passages of quite vivid description, | especially of the gradual transform{ing of a mangrove swamp into a {millionaire's paradise at Miami | Beach. There are: illuminating bits jon Fisher's whims—his passion for steak, fried potatoes and apple pie, |

Viking, $2.75.

ciplined emotion, and leaves you unsatisfied men and women, at odds

Speedway pioneer, might have been subtitled “The Big Money™ The book in part is a study of the great American phenomen we call Boom, like the “Big Money" portion of John Dos Passos’ “U. 8. A."

There the resemblance ceases, -

fe Has

her first husband, Oerl G. Fisher, on

however," since: “Fabulous Hoosier"

- SATURDAY,

pinned to her sables a

VON ™

ATURDAY, FEB, 2, 1 orl Fisher's First Wife Has Written |Breezy, Intimate Biography of

"FABULOUS HOOSIER: A STORY OF AMERICAN ACHIEVE: MENT." ‘By Jane Fisher. New York, McBride, $3.

By HENRY BUTLER

Promofer

too many 8 parti neglected, made frequent § to- Europe. wy ati “Sometimes there were gay jaunts

Were entertaining men In Par ready to kiss the hand, dance and sympathize with the neglected wife of an American millionaire, “Carl might have no time for me, but leisurely Paris gave attantion to the wealthy American who drove through the Rue de la Paix’ behind a uniformed cha-ffes In a Minerva town car, | cluster white camellias from the gartes: of

{her villa near Paris.

TELLS OF AUTO MEN-— Jane Fisher, whose "Fabulous Hoosier," biography of Carl Fisher, concerns daredevil automotive pioneers, S way City and other local historical matters,

equalled by his detestation of foreign cooking; his unconventional manners, such as leaving his own dinner table without apology when he got bored with the guests; his impetuous extravagance. i J » » ‘ THERE'S QUITE a bit about the first Mrs. Fisher herself. When the 1920's boom-time and prohibition simultaneously’ hit Miami Beach,

Steinbeck Novel Portrays Minor—But Real—Slice of Life

“THE WAYWARD BUS." A novel. By John Steinbeck. New York,

JOHN STEINBECK'S new novel, “The Wayward Bus,” down the muddy road of human stupidity, illiteracy, frustration Xo undis-

with an unforgettable picture of with themselves,

It is a better yarn that “Cannery Row” and contains some acute

of Wrath” and the sensitivity of

portraits of human vegetables, but lacks the social force of “The Grapes

“The Red Pony." In the:parade of Steinbeck books it is a minor slice of life, but inside its limitations it is completely true. It presents a combination of people for whom sex is not a happy, vital expression but something suppressed into furtive attempts at slimy substitutes. A bus breakdown maroons them at a highway lunchroom-garage and they take out their .irritations on one another. ’ There arrives a rather alluring tramp named Camille, who says she is a dental nurse but actually performs nude at stag dinners. She acts like the presence of Maupassant’s Boule de Suif (Ball of Fat) in a wholly different situation, in putting ideas into the heads of those present. . » * THE BUS is run by Juan Chicoy to carry passengers from San Juan de la Cruz, Cal, to the Greyhound lines at Rebel Corners. He is of Mexican - Irish parentage, with Mexican predominating, a tough, dependable laborer, whom ence has taught to handle people patiently. He is the best characterized of the men. The lunchroom is run by his wife Alice, tense and concerned, who takes out her defeats on her assistant, Norma, and her husband. Mr. Steinbeck gives a complete report on her biological makeup. Norma dramatizes’ her imaginary tie with Clark Gable, a stock situ'ation for maids, but also likely to be a California phenomenon. Juan's helper is known as Pimples, eats too much pastry and ogles girls, » » » ENTERTAINING minor episodes deal with the routine of the bus men. Here is the driver who figures how much time he has to win over a girl passenger and get her phone number. He maneuvers her into the seat behind him, but a crabbed old woman spoils his game. Here is [the bus porter who finds a wallet and can’t appropriate it because the window-washer has seen him pick it up. Mr. Steinbeck knows the irritations of the highway. His minor figures are sometimes stock characters, but when he explains their tantrums he is anything but conventional. He shows that the businessman, Pritchard, is hen-packed because the Pritchards are sexually maladjusted, and even reports their physical defects. Their daughter Mildred is frustrated, too, but Mr. Steinbeck assures us that physically she is all right,

seemed to surround her and to caress her, Mildred felt a little weak and sirupy in the pit of her stomach. A quick and sexual picture formed in her mind.” In

Horton, man of ideas. Horton invents gadgets, including a facsimile of crushed toes, made of plastic, which comes supplied with a bandage and a bottle of artificial

asks us to contemplate these lives and see “how transitory we be all day.” The Book of the Month club is solemnly sending the story to nearly a millign readers. How far it would get with an unknown name attached is problematical. Possibly as far as Juan’ Chicoy’s bus® —H, H.

‘Three Came Home' to Be April Book Selection

The Book-of-the-Month club selection for April will be “Three Came Home,” by Agnes Newton Keith (Atlantic, Little, Brown). “Three Came Home” tells. the story of the author, her husband and their 5-year-old son during the three and a half years they spent in a Japanese prison eamp. The club's March selection is “The Wayward Bus,” by John Steinbeck.

b CURRENT NON-FICTION

sums, $3.76 Oscar Wilde. His life and

Pearson » “The Roosevelt I Knew.

By Frances ; $3.75

Perkins “As He Saw IL”

, “Paris appreciated me—La Dame aux Camellias.”

*. LIFE MIGHT Xave worked ows

|better for them both, the author

believes, if their only child -had lived. Even after they were divorced and both remarried, they continued the best of friends, she says. ’ “Damé aux Camellias” passage is fairly typical in tone of the book's personal episodes. I think that kind of thing

mented biography of Carl Fisher might prove a valuable addition to recent American history, Meane “Fabulous Hoosier” hag plenty of ingredients for popular reading.

I3 Local Students Contribute to 'Mss'

CONTRIBUTIONS by 13 Indie anapolis students are included in the second issue this year of Manuscripts, Butler university English department quarterly, according to Miss Mary Alice Kessler, editor, Indianapolis student writers represented are: Robert Bowles, Miss Judy Johnson, Miss Allyn Wood, William T. Edwards, Richard Jowett, Rex Van Trees, Richard J. O. Greene, George W. Coffin, Wil« liam DeWitt, James Sullivan, Miss

Castle, and Roger Chittick, Kalispell, Mont. Theodore Wade and Joseph Hooper, both of Indianapolis, have been appointed to the magazine's art staff, Miss Kessler has announced.

Trollope Novels

-'To Be Republished

Oxford University Press is plane ning to bring out an illustrated edition of the novels of Anthony Trollope. Beginning this year, the novels will be issued in groups, the political novels scheduled to appear first. A 2000-copy first edition of this group, for sale only to subscribers, will be printed on special paper, and will include a full-color title page, 18 full-page illustrations and 30 dec~ orations. Michael Sadleir is general editor of the new project.

a —

BOOKWORM

reminds you:

"You can get any book reviewed on this page in Block's Lending Library or

New Translation Oxford University press has received from Louis Bromfield the introduction he has written for a new translation of “The Georgics” of Vergil, by Cecil Day Lewis. The volume will appear in April,

written by members of the Overseas - Press club, will be published March 4 by Dutton. The book is described as a Beries of news stories previously unpublished owing to censorship and other factors.

ration for this novel, he was not there during the war,

» » »n AFTER JUAN has given Mildred a going-over with his eyes, she is ready for rebellion. “His warm eyes

Jie

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