Page 3
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
OURSELVES TO KNOW, by John O'Hara. Random House, $4.95.
In a novel that partakes of the techniques of both the flashback and the straight narrative, John O'Hara presents another saga of small town life in Pennsylvania, and attempts to search into the minds and motivations of his central characters. His title is from Pope: "And all our Knowledge is, ourselves to know."
The O'Hara style and treatment are, as usual, readable. The detail is realistic, amounting almost to documentation of the little town of Lyons, where.live the protagonist, Robert Millhouser, and his wife, Hedda (one wonders if O'Hara was aware of her similarities to Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler"), whom he murders in 1908.
Millhouser is 51 at the time of the tragedy, his wife 20. He has led a sheltered life, in a way, though he spent eight months in Europe with an artist friend of homosexual tendencies, and though he has consorted for years with the prostitutes in Fort Penn. But he has never really known a woman, except for his somewhat dominating mother, and he is a man of considerable naivete.
He shoots Hedda—and in cold blood, as she lies in bed asleep—because he has learned after two years of marriage that she is a monster, not merely a nymphomaniac but more likely a sexual pervert, who can know true pleasure in love only as the aggressor. What he does not know is that Hedda is pregnant with another man's child.
Millhouser is a town leader, president of the bank, widely respected. He is freed of the murder charge, but his life essentially ends when he presses the trigger in 1908. He stays on in Lyons, and in the late 1920s he forms an attachment with a younger man and reveals to him—on condition that publication be withheld for 20 years—the details of his life, and his marriage to Hedda.
O'Hara takes an unconscionably long time getting into the story, but that slowness, this time, is his very method. His narrator admits to the reader that much delay has been occasioned. The narrator pauses from time to time to reflect on the story he is telling, and to reassure the reader that he possesses the maturity to tell such a tale. This venturing back and forth in time is somewhat confusing, and one tends, on occasion, to identify the narrator with Millhouser himself.
What does Robert Millhouser learn about himself, by telling his story to another? This is not clear. He does not seem to be aware of what appears to be a bisexuality in his nature. He is aware that he is an unexciting chap (and O'Hara knows this, too, as he knew it about the hero of "Ten North Frederick").
Does Millhouser truly learn that he must bear some of the blame for what Hedda was? Even in his naivete he had ample opportunity to learn that she might be a terrible problem as a wife, that he might have to keep a constant eye on her, and that even then she might be luring some other male to destruction. Hedda is hateful; Millhouser, we're afraid, is just somewhat stupid.
O'Hara, as usual, provides almost textbook descriptions of the sexual act. Does O'Hara know any other theme? When it comes right down to it, what is "Ourselves to Know" about, if not about sex? Integrity? Courage? Morality? Decency? The fact that we must bear responsibility for our actions? This obsession with the bedroom (one must admit that O'Hara has written for some time in "Ourselves to Know" before he provides the first lurid passage) is getting to be a bit boring.
Walter Kerr, writing on "adult themes" in drama, says in a recent issue of the New York Herald Tribune:
"I wonder if we are in some danger of confusing the 'adult' with the merely ticklish. I wonder, too, if there is something in our society, or in our time, that urges us to state our problems, and even to locate our problems, in the image of adolescence, in the emotions of the helplessly immature. I do not know; but it seems to need thinking about."
This point, that John O'Hara seldom tackles a theme of any "adult" importance (homosexuality and perversion are hardly central problems of our time) tends to detract from an otherwise absorbing novel that contains fascinating and frightening insights into small town life and American society.
Too Many Painters
"Too many people paint, too many fourth-rate painters are treated with respect, too many second-rate ones with reverence and too many first-rate ones are deified as if they had genius instead of talent and ideas. The assumption that young painters should be encouraged is absurd and in the end vicious. No one owes than a debt of gratitude for their adoption of a dubious profession; they should be cut down in battalions, on the principle of weeding and pruning, to allow the ones with vigor to rise again.
"The critic should have no concern with the artist's problems. His job is to look at things as objectively as possible in a field where all values but his own may be subjective—not an easy job but one easily abused. Courtesy is not his function, although it is his constant temptation. He cannot expect to be loved."
"When he rejects a young painter as I did last week on the occasion of a first one-man show, he must expect a furious yawp—not from the painter in this case but from his well-wishers. He must also suffer from the knowledge that, although he is as honest as he knows how to be, he can be wrong." (Excerpted from an art review, "Tenth Street," by John Canaday in the Jan. 17, 1960. New York Times.)
Faculty reactions were varied yesterday as to the effects of McCarthyism on present-day college students.
Reactions Vary On Questions Of McCarthyism
Wednesday. Feb. 10. 1960 University Daily Kansan
The late Sen, Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin began his drive against Communist party members in government offices 10 years ago last night.
Did McCarthy leave an indelible impression on the operations of United States politics?
Are today's students aware of McCarthism?
In replying to these questions, Carroll D. Clark, professor of sociology and chairman of the sociology and anthropology departments, said he feels that his students are very much aware of the "insidious tendencies that were dragged from social-psychological depths by McCarthy."
Prof. Clark went on to state that even though there was a strong Senatorial revulsion against McCarthy before his death, he doubted whether all forces and attitudinal tendencies involved have wholly died.
Calder M. Pickett, associate professor of journalism, said, "Many students now look mystified when the name McCarthy is mentioned. Those who have heard of him think — mistakenly, I feel — that McCarthyism died when McCarthy died."
M. C. Slough, professor of law,
doesn't believe that any present-day student is fully enlightened concerning McCarthyism.
"McCarthy didn't realize the damage he was doing," Prof. Slough said. "Like many other Fascists and extreme right-wingers, he had a tendency to go overboard in his fight against communism."
Prof. Slough said that the main danger in the McCarthy rise to power was the inquisition-like aura of the proceedings. He said the basis of our court system was reversed, and guilt was assumed rather than innocence.
Prof. Slough said that there was a great danger to individuals contained in McCarthy's accusations which were fully quoted by the press.
"Fortunately," he said, "our governmental system proved to have enough counter balances to cope with the threat."
"I feel that press coverage should have been more general, concentrating less on accusations against individuals and more on the general aspects of the proceedings," he said.
In reply to the second question, Did McCarthy leave an indefile impression on the operations of United States politics? Prof. Slough said: "I don't think so. I feel the importance of the matter was overestimated. The impression left lasted only a few years. In fact, it could be that 20 years from now, he will have been forgotten completely."
Ethan P. Allen, professor of political science, snapped, "I have nothing to say at all"
Coming Soon our Second Anniversary
SALE
Watch our ads for the big news
University of Kansas debaters will be competing in two debate tournaments this weekend.
CAMERA CENTER
Two Teams to Arkansas
Kim Giffin, debate coach, and four debaters will leave Lawrence early tomorrow for a three-day tournament at Northwestern University.
Bill Maynard, assistant coach,
will take two teams to the Mid-South tournament at Arkadelphia,
Ark., the same day. The Mid-South Tournament is one of the big tournaments in that part of the country and many top teams will be competing.
The two teams going to Northwestern are composed of Ed Collister and Harry Craig, Lawrence juniors, and Leland Cole, Great Bend junior, and Alan Kimball, Derby junior.
Cole and Kimball have won 11 of 14 debates this year. They were in the semi-finals of the Southwestern tournament, Craig and Collister have won 8 of 12 debates.
The two teams will compete in eight rounds Thursday and Friday. The teams will be matched on a draw basis for the round robin series. On Saturday the top 16 teams from the eight rounds will be matched in the octafinals.
KU Debate Teams to Compete In Two Weekend Tourneys
Bill Olin Cliff Tatham
1015 Mass.
Next to the Varsity Theatre
Victors Last Year In 1958 Ray Nichols and Ken Irbv
won the Northwestern tournament. Nichols, a recent Rhodes Scholar winner, now is in England. Irby, class of 1958, is enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School.
Teams going to the Mid-South tournament are Bill Haught, Alamosa, Colo., junior, and Larry Ehrlich, Russell junior, along with Sondra Youle, Wellington junior, and David Rockhold, Winfield junior.
Haught and Ehrlich have won 9 of 11 debates this year. They won first place at the University of Arkansas Tournament. Youle and Rockhold have won five out of nine.
Try the Daily Kansan Want Ads
GREASE JOB .. $1
BRAKE ADJ. .. 98c
Mufflers and Tailpipes Installed Free
200 gallons of gasoline free
10 gallons drawn daily
PAGE'S SINCLAIR SERVICE 6th & Vt.
RUSSELL STOVER'S VALENTINE CANDY
Hearts ___ from $.85 to $7.50
International Club
Dr. John Ise Speaking
on General Topic of
"What the American and Foreign Students Must Learn from Each Other"
Fri. at 8 p.m. Jayhawk Room — Kansas Union
Coffee and Refreshments will be served
STEREO RECORD SALE
RCA-Victor Records
BELL'S
Downtown & Hillcrest