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BOOKS
By W. D. Paden Professor of English
GOD BLESS OUR QUEER OLD DEAN, by W. Storrs Lee. Putnam's, $3.95.
This book seems to draw upon the experience and advice of a number of the members of the National Association of Deans and Advisors of Men (NADAM) and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). It evinces a remarkable candor in relating instances of adolescent behavior—normal, irritated, drunken, and once or twice insane—and records with a kind of restrained fury the conduct of parents who have never grown up.
One chapter sketches the history of undergraduate discipline in the United States before 1890, when deans of men were invented; another notes the very different kinds of problems that deans of men faced in 1918, 1928, 1936 and 1946; a third analyzes the feckless behavior of a typical academic committee.
It is not easy to decide what group of readers the author had in mind. The reader starts out with an avid interest, which dulls as he slowly realizes that the anecdotes, which are good, could have been interchanged among the chapters without much effect on the whole. Any particular purpose that the author may have had seems to have been drowned in the flood of his anecdotes; it is possible that the text was originally written as a series of ten articles for some organ of NADAM or NASPA. Each chapter has its full-page line-drawing, unsigned but obviously done by someone who knows universities and has a neat sense of humor. The index is inadequate.
The preface by Robert M. Strozier, for 11 years the dean of students at Chicago and now the President of Florida State, is another matter. It is impersonal, compact, and consistent in its clear evaluations of ideas and ideals.
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism THE BEACH BUMS, by Jack Owen. Coward-McCann, $3.75.
They live at Waikiki, those who aren't at Malibu. They spend most of the day in worn-out swimming trunks, soaking up the sun, getting tanned. Some of them swim, some of them ride the surf. All of them drink. They sleep around, and they trade girls. They talk big about becoming writers. They go from bar to bar. They get beat up.
Then they just give up. They have no aims. They have no special frustrations. They're registering no particular protest. They're negative. They're nothing.
These are the bums that a young Mississippi,writer named Jack Owen is writing about. What Owen is trying to say is not clear. Why Coward-McCann has chosen to publish this novel also is not clear. If these beach bums were even the beat bums of San Francisco, who may make a lot more sense than some of us think, there'd be a point to this trivial little novel.
Roger Anderson is Owen's hero, writing a novel of the South, then tearing it to shreds. He drinks every night. He goes from dame to dame, and from pal to pal. Libby to Bunny, Bill to Jack. The relationships are unsavory. The friendships border on the homosexual, but aren't even as definite as that.
Some of the description is good, some over-detailed. Who cares to be told every day that the hero arose, showered, got dressed? Who cares for his descriptions of every male, every female, none of them worth remembering?
MAN OF MONMARTRE, by Stephen and Ethel Longstreet. Signet. 50 cents.
Add to such lurid novels as "Lust for Life" and "Moulin Rouge" another: "Man of Montmartre." The book, published a year ago, is now in paperback, and it's a highly readable, seemingly well-informed story. Here is the wild life of Maurice Utrillo, whose lovely Impressionistic prints of Montmartre are on many of our walls (one of our friends observes that she has a jigsaw puzzle of one of our favorites).
Utrillo does not stand in art history alongside Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Renoir or Degas. Nor does he stand even alongside Modigliani, whose wild orgies, most of them under the influence of drugs, make up part of this story. Utrillo came a generation after Renoir and Monet, yet his work is more like theirs than like that of a truer contemporary, Picasso, or another, Matisse, both of whom were experimenting with art forms as Utrillo was making his way.
The novel deals chiefly with the frequently sordid life of Utrillo's mother, Suzanne Valadon, herself a talented painter. Utrillo was her illegitimate child; her careless handling of him made him an alcoholic at 10, and sent him to as many institutions as even Van Gogh occupied.
His attempts to find himself in painting are of great interest. But what gives this book much of its appeal is the fact that the great painters of around 1880 on are leading characters: Renoir and Degas, for whom Suzanne modeled; Lautrec, who bought cognac and wine for the teenage Utrillo; Modigliani and Soutine, Utrillo's drinking companions.
FATHERS AND SONS, by Ivan Turgenev. Bantam Classies, 50 cents.
Though not generally classed alongside the works of either Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, "Fathers and Sons" is a significant novel of the 19th century because of the extraordinary prescience it exhibits. For the revolution that lay ahead is suggested in the conflict herein presented, between "fathers and sons." Turgenev wrote the novel in 1861, and created considerable controversy over both theme and characters. Of particular interest was the character Barazov, who represented the coming generation, a nihilist, bound to destroy philosophical ideas, spiritual values, and Russian traditions. It is fortunate that this fine series, Bantam Classics, has brought forth another notable work, in a new translation by Barbara Makanowitzky.-CMP
Fourth Grant To KU Chemist
A two-year grant of 6,680 has been made by the American Chemical Society's Petroleum Research Fund to Dr. Albert W. Burgstahler, assistant professor of chemistry at KU, for fundamental research on stereospecific angular alkylation, a new technique which may have applications in several industries.
Tuesday, July 28, 1959 Summer Session Kansan
This is the fourth research grant received from as many agencies by Dr. Burgstahler in 1959. The others are from the National Science Foundation, the Research Corp.'s Frederick Gardner Cottrell Fund, and the Cancer Institute of the U.S. Public Health Service. The four total $21,-280.
Preliminary work on the project, which is concerned with the introduction of carbon atoms into certain complex organic molecules, was supported by the Research Corp. and the University research appropriation. The June 20 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society reported successful preliminary applications of the method made by Dr. Burgstahler and Ivan C. Nordin, Lindsbord graduate student.
The new methodology has created considerable interest among chemists and led to invitations for Dr. Burgstahler to lecture last spring at Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin. He also discussed potential applications in the pharmaceutical industry with chemists of the Upjohn Drug Co. in Kalamazoo, Mich.
Successful Oil Century Is Prospect for Kansas
Kansas has been in the oil exploration business for 99 years, and one need look only casually at the statistical record or at the oil and gas activity throughout the state to conclude that the Kansas petroleum industry in another year, 1960, can boast a century of success.
True, oil and gas production in 1958 did not come up to the totals of 1957. But 1957 was a peak year in a succession of peak years. Besides, compared with the national trend, Kansas is holding its own, according to Edwin D. Goebel, in charge of the oil and gas division of the State Geological Survey of the University of Kansas. Goebel is senior author of "Oil and Gas Developments in Kansas During 1958," which will be available in early fall.
Drilling activity also was down, but 136 new oil fields, 16 new gas fields, and 5 oil and gas fields were opened during the year. Counting
Production of oil in Kansas in 1958 totaled 119,942,094 barrels, according to the statistical records of the State Geological Survey, a decline of 3.3 per cent from 1957. The value of the 1958 crude oil output was $362,225,124, compared with $380,845,912 for 1957. This can be attributed to decrease in price and production. Natural gas production for 1958-353.9 billion cubic feet (14.65 psia) valued at $58,953,118—was down 7.7 per cent in both production and value.
drilling permits issued for well drilling and wells of record, more than 5,550 wells were drilled in Kansas during the year. Of the 4,190 wells of record, 1,846 were oil wells, 227 gas wells, 58 both oil and gas wells, 1,884 dry holes, and 175 salt water disposal wells.
Proved reserves of liquid hydrocarbons (as of Dec. 31, 1958, were estimated at 1,121,986,000 barrels, only 1.2 per cent under that of the previous year. Natural gas reserves, however, were estimated at 20.2 trillion cubic feet, an increase of 4.9 per cent over the previous year.
The most significant development of the year was the Sherman County discovery that opened the Llanos field and brought commercial oil production from Lansing-Kansas City rocks at a depth of about 4,500 feet. Add to this the opening of Sappa Creek field in Rawlins County, late in 1958, and the Rueb field in Cheyenne County, and northwestern Kansas emerged in 1958 as fertile exploration territory.
The clothing the zebu wears is normal for the zebu.