Wednesday, October 18, 1961 University Daily Kansan
Page 3
By Walter M. Hull
MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES, by James Thurber. Bantam 50 cen
The world of James Thurber is a world of oddballs. It is a world of ghosts in the night, of false alarms, of continual bumbling and ineptness. It is a world with which few of us have any experience, and yet with which we are all painfully familiar. It is none the less a very real world, the world of the little man.
IN THE BOUDOIR OR THE DRUGSTORE, on campus and in big business we find Thurber's little man, stumbling through his existence from day to day, somehow always surviving to come back for more. He "knows vaguely that the nation is not much good any more; he had read that the crust of the Earth is shrinking alarmingly, and that the universe is growing steadily colder, but he does not believe that any of the three is in half as bad shape as he is." And with this little man we are all bound to sympathize. While the world is struggling to see whether this nation or that will be the first to blow us all to bits, I am struggling with a cantankerous typewriter ribbon and you are wondering how to get by that unusually large dog and into your nine o'clock class. It is you and me that Thurber is writing to and about, and we are a bit flattered to think that perhaps he considers us more important than World War Three.
TO THE MONUMENTAL TASK OF WRITING the chronicle of the little man, Thurber brings a gentle but penetrating wit and a despairingly hopeful style that are by now familiar to nearly every reader. If they are not, they should be. This volume contains several of the author's older pieces, carefully slung together in an altogether delightful anthology, and affords to any who have not yet made his acquaintance the chance to do so.
THURBER HAS MADE HIMSELF A PART of American humor, but he has done something more. He has become one of the few men who have told their part of America's story with a really deep understanding. Perhaps he has succeeded so well because he knows his limitations and has not extended the scope of his work beyond his own confused little world, but he has chosen well the source for his writing, for his microcosm contains something that is truly universal. This is the sort of book that one should read once a year, at least, along with perhaps "Alice in Wonderland" to keep perspective from slipping away, and to remind one that none of us are alone in our aloneness. It is a book to change the cry of "Stop the world, I want off," to "Here goes nothing, again." It is, I think, a more hopeful cry; Thurber's little man is always undaunted, if only because he has no time to be daunted. It is a book which tells us that there, the grace of God notwithstanding, go you.
By Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
THE SHELTERED LIFE, by Ellen Glasgow. Doubleday Dolphin, 95 cents.
Ellen Glasgow's South is somewhat different from William Faulkner's or Erskine Caldwell's. On the surface, that is, for fundamentally Miss Glasgow wrote of the same South as Faulkner's—the South in transition, the South shifting from agrarianism to industrialism, the defeated South of the turn of the century, the South slowly yielding to the Snopeses.
Her Queenborough is a city of somewhat more refinement than Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Queenborough is Richmond, and Miss Glasgow shows us what was happening to the society of that city, and to the city itself.
Her people are people who cannot accommodate themselves to a new civilization, people unprepared for a new way of life. The life of Jenny Blair Archbald and her grandfather is a sheltered life, but every so often a bad smell—a smell of a factory—assaults their nostrils. It is a symbolic as well as real odor, for Richmond, like other southern cities, was making an effort to become part of Henry Grady's "New South."
Jenny Blair is a lovely child growing up, and then a lovely girl who finds herself completely unequipped for the shocking tragedy of a secret love affair. All of these characters in "The Sheltered Life" are similarly unequipped. The aristocratic class of the South was living in another world, civilized people who were almost anachronisms in the bustling of the new century.
Worth Repeating
When a Wet starts to quote Bibical authority, it's usually with bibulous intention—Craccio Houlder
The major problem on campuses is that the faculties are not sufficiently interested in students. The reason they are not interested is that they don't know enough about students. If that sounds paradoxical, I am nonetheless quite sure that it is true. They don't see students in a framework of a developmental psychology which would make each student fascinating to observe, with attention to where he is in respect to certain kinds of developmental goals. Actually, as we learn something about students, there is nothing more striking to behold than the struggles that develop, the regressions that occur, and so on. If we could show the faculty that this is really the most fascinating business in the world, watching and participating in the development of young people, we would really have done something.—Nevitt Sanford
On Bomb Shelters Editor:
I suspect I don't understand this business of the atomic fallout shelters as Professor Backus puts it. He said the U.S. government should begin construction of atomic fallout shelters but according to the Civil Defense program that is not the case.
THE PREMISE of the private shelters program, as begun under Eisenhower and taken over by President Kennedy is that in event of thermonuclear war each citizen must provide his own protection and be his own secretary of defense. The Defense Department, so called, as I. F. Stone puts it, turns out to be for offense only.
This approach is favored by the generals, who fear diversion of appropriations to Civil Defense, and the higher bracket tax payer, who can afford to build his own shelter and does not see why he should be taxed to provide them for those who can't.
MANY ANTI-NEFARISM elements like the Birchers, the Goldwaters, the YAF, etc., etc. might think that the United States would be better off if the unfit die.
How about those who can't afford bomb shells. Do they deserve to die? In a recent statement President Kennedy said, that "no less than 70 million Americans will die in case of war." To defend freedom or Communism with self-destruction is a fallacy. If Berlin is worth a thermonuclear war as Soviets and Americans see it, many of us, there and here, instead of shelters must start digging our own graves.
PERHAPS THE PEOPLE-TO-People program can make arrangements to provide shelters at KU, don't you think?
Luis Mayor
Placetas, Cuba, junior
P. S. To those students interested in shelters they the I. F. Stone Weekly in the Undergraduate Library. Also read in the same issue the full text of the Air Force Association 1961 Policy Statement. American people must be mobilized for complete eradication of Soviets. "Community of Fear" published by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions might be a good light in this insanity of nuclear war.
Explains Sunday Talk
Editor;
My talk Sunday at the Faculty Club had one major underlying theme, namely that we must conduct our foreign policy in such a way as to convince Khrushchev to abandon a policy of overt hostility into which I felt he had been pushed by some aggressive members of the Soviet oligarchy and to revert to his policy of peaceful coexistence. I suggested means by which this end might be accomplished, (1) by showing the Russians we really mean business by adopting a firm line with them over Berlin, and (2) by proving to them that we have the will to resist. Furthermore, I urged the desirability of keeping Russian diplomats talking with our diplomats.
I SPENT ABOUT half my time arguing why I believe Khrushchev to be the powerful chief oligarch of an oligarchy, and why, therefore, a major issue for us to consider is how to affect what I believe to be a struggle within that oligarchy over, among other things, the best foreign policy for the Soviet Union to pursue.
The headline in yesterday's Daily Kansas emphasized only the second of the means I stressed, i.e., the need of proving to the Russians our will to resist That headline emphasis, and the structure of the article tend to obscure my main point. Moreover, there is not one word of mention of my analysis of the essentially oligarchic nature of the present government of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, my view that the risk of nuclear war is infinitesimal, provided we take a strong stand, is not mentioned. I am sure the average reader of the article would think that I believed war to be around the corner. Such an implication would be inaccurate.
... Letters ..
IF ANYONE is interested he can see the text of my talk, which I had written out in advance.
Oswald P. Backus
Professor of History
Book Review Defended
Editor:
Your (YAF letter printed in the Oct. 16 UDK) smear attack on Frank Donner's "The Unamericans" is apparently typical of your attitude Instead of criticizing what a person writes, you just attempt to discredit his name. However, your adulation of the House Un-American Activities Committee is a little too obvious. According to the Congressional Record of July 31, 1961, the "extension of remarks of Hon. Frank W. Boykin of Alabama" is actually a speech by
Francis E. Walter to the Alabama American Legion State Convention of July 22, 1961. We know who Rep. Walter is—the chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee. Were you afraid to explain your real source? This speech by Walter is then quoted by you to support your claim that Frank Donner's book is an "inaccurate" picture of HUAC. Obviously the chairman would feel that such a book attacking his committee is inaccurate.
Apparently you were unable to find a less prejudiced source, so you attempted to disguise this one. For a fairly new ultra-right organization, you are learning fast. McCarthy would be proud of you.
Charles Nicol
Charles Nicol Blue Springs, Mo., senior
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