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University Daily, Kansan Thursday, March 26, 1964
Popular Titles Include Fitzgerald, Wouk, Lewis
THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED BY F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner Library, $1.95).
This brings to four the Fitzgerald books in this distinguished paperback format. University students who have read "This Side of Paradise," as a starter, are hereby advised that the pretty look at the lost generation has become sullen.
Maybe, perhaps, because even by 1922 Fitzgerald's own look was being altered, even though Fitzgerald denied that his life and Zelda's was the life of Gloria and Anthony Patch in the new novel. The Patches live glamorously, freely, selfishly and rebelliously, and wind up in despair.
The novel represented an improvement over the earlier book, but only a step on the way to "The Great Gatsby by" and "Tender Is the Night." Fitzgerald maintains even further his feeling for life and the vernacular. He also shows his understanding of the jazz age, depth that reveals him to us today as perhaps the most accurate chronicler of that period we have had in America.
THE CAINE MUTINY, by Herman Wouk. (Dell, 95 cents).
Though its literary qualities and its social perceptions do not rank with those of, say, "From Here to Eternity" or "The Naked and the Dead," this may be the best pure adventure story to come out of World War II. There is likely to be an audience ready for "The Caine Mutiny" for years to come.
The novel won the Pulitzer prize, formed part of a fine Broadway play, and became a good though not great movie. It is, of course, the story of Willie Keith and his experiences aboard the minesweeper Caine in World War II. But Willie becomes a character of lesser interest than the neurotic Captain Queegr or the dedicated Maryk, who leads the "mutiny."
Queeg has passed into the national imagination, the captain hated by his men as "Old Yellow Stain." There are many other characters, a riproaring typhoon, considerable humor, romantic interludes ashore (though not many), and the mutiny and trial. If you haven't read this book, here's a good paperback edition.
CIMARRON, by Edna Ferber
(Bantam Pathfinder, 60 cents).
The critics scoff at Edna Ferber, and the people continue to read her. It is likely that "Cimarron" would be one of the best-thumbed volumes in the public libraries of America, a novel of tremendous readership and appeal since its publication 33 years ago. It has enjoyed many reprints and two film versions, one good enough to win the academy award of 1931.
"Cimarron" is a fast-moving, exciting story of the Oklahoma Land Rush and the growth of Oklahoma that followed it. Like most Ferber novels it is largely about a woman, the Kansas-bred Sabra Cravat, who marries the footloose dreamer from Oklahoma named Yancey Cravat, and lives to become the first lady of the territory and a wife who sees her husband on only rare occasions.
DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK,
by Walter D. Edmonds (Bantam
Pathfinder. 75 cents).
In the mid-thirties, when depression-soured Americans were looking for a way to spend their time, the historical novel really flourished, and "Drums Along the Mohawk" was one of the most popular. Here it is again, in a new paperback edition, and it remains a stirring story of the frontier.
Edmonds was always an expert and accurate chronicler of the New York country, and in "Drums Along the Mohawk" he describes the people who lived in the Mohawk valley in 1776, especially Gil and Lana Martin, newlyweds who had to clear the soil, plant it, build a cabin, and fight Indians and British.
There is good local color in this entertaining novel, and some high excitement. This is a vivid way to learn early American history, as the Indians rip through the frontier settlements and destroy everything in sight. Long, slightly superficial, always diverting—this is "Drums Along the Mohawk."
CATCH-22, by Joseph Heller (Dell,
75 cents).
Another story of World War II that has been batting around now for some time and is going into its 10th Dell paperback printing is Joseph Heller's "Catch-22." It is different from "The Caine Mutiny" in plot and mood, but may entertain the collegiate generation even more.
The story is about Air Force men and the island on which they wildly carouse in the Mediterranean. It's also about their women, for these lads are much less inhibited than the higher types of "The Caine Mutiny."
Maybe it offers social comment too. It's more likely that "Catch-22" will be read as a wild and amusing tale than as an important picture of war.
ETERNAL FIRE, by Calder Willingham (Dell, 95 cents).
This is the what's-it novel of the last few years. We are led to believe that this shocking writer is saying something about our society, but what the book really seems is one sensation after another.
Beyond that, it's a kind of Gothic horror tale, with a little of Faulkner at his Gothic worst ("Absalom, Absalom"), "The Castle of Ottranto," "Wuthering Heights," and contrivances lifted right out of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Dickens and Victorianism. You see, there's
this ancient estate down in Georgia, where the evil Judge Ball conspires to deprive his ward Randolph of his intenitence. He keeps the boy from marrying little old Laurie Mae, and imports a seducer to go to work on that sweet child. Oh yes, Laurie Mae has a dwarf guard. Oh yes, the eternal fire of love wins out.
Sex, passion, alcoholism, lechery,
voueurism, idiocy, homosexuality,
sadism, lunacy, nymphomania, incest—what a movie ad that would make! For the folks who want a thrill but like it to be significant, bill this as a parable of good and evil. Or as satire. Or as a deep criticism of the South. Take your pick.
WORLD SO WIDE, by Sinclair Lewis (Fyramid, 35 cents).
This is a posthumously published novel by Sinclair Lewis, his last and unfortunately not his best. It is sometimes amusing, sometimes perceptive, several notches better than "The God Seeker" or "The Prodigial Parents," but far weaker than the books of the twenties.
"World So Wide" deals with the architect Hayden Chart, who goes to Italy after the death of his wife in an accident, and gets himself involved with two women. Clearly Lewis is returning to the scene of "Dodsworth," and Dodsworth is even a character (as Lewis in other novels uses the characters of earlier books).
KINGS ROW, by Henry Bellamann (Crest, 95 cents).
When this novel appeared in 1940 it swept to immediate sensation on the best-seller lists. The reasons are obvious today. It was in the critical tradition of "Main Street" but even more in the tradition that later gave us such trash as "Sironia, Texas" and "Peyton Place."
Though "Kings Row" is not a great American novel it is an exciting one Kings Row, we may assume, is a Kansas town, maybe even Topeka. Its Hero is Parris Mitchell, hero, that is, aside from the grim little village where the story takes place. Its heroes are two—Cassandra Tower and Randy Monaghan the first a mysterious wisp whose father is the town doctor and the town mystery, the second a loving and lovable girl from the shanty Irish part of town.
OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA by Alice Tisdale Hobart (Pyramid, 60 cents).
This, of course, is a novel of an earlier day. Mrs Hobart wrote the book in 1933, when our mental pictures of China were a combination of Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan and Pearl S. Buck. It was an effective storv, but it rings of the past.
"Oil" concerns Stephen Chase and his wife Hester, mining engineer people in the China of revolutionary days. We see conflict between wife and the organization,
and conflict between the wife and a strange culture.
It is a vivid, detailed story, somewhat slow-moving, better than the later Buck novels but inferior to "The Good Earth" and "Dragon Seed." The author had lived in China since 1910 and knew well that land of ferment. So her story is authentic, even though it is not first-class fiction.
TALES OF TERROR AND SUSPENSE, edited by Stewart H. Benedict (Dell, 45 cents).
A collection that has some pretty well-known names. Among the wild ones paraded here are "Mademoiselle de Seuderi," by E. T. A. Hoffman; "Matee Falcone" (not really very wild), by Prosper Mérimée; "A Descent into the Malehstrom," by Poe; "Mr. Justice Harbottle," by J. Sheridan LeFanu; "The Traveler's Story of a Terribly Strange Bed," by Wilkie Collins; "The Souaw," by Bram Stoker (who wrote "Dracula"); "The Hand," by de Maspant; "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," by Doyle: "The Strange Ride of Morrowble Jukes," by Kipling; "The Lodger," by Marie Belloc-Lowndes (about Jack the Ripper); "The Escape." by Hereward Carrington; "The Vanishing Lady," by Woollcott (an old standard), and "The Small Assessin," by Ray Bradbury. Though some of these must be labeled prosac, this isn't, all told, a bad bunch for winter—or spring—evenings.