Thursday, March 26, 1964 University Daily Kansan
Page 9
Melville Revival Evident in Current Volumes
WHITE JACKET, by Herman Melville (Evergreen, $1.95).
Here is a big, relatively unknown novel by Melville. It is a record of Melville's last sea voyage, and appeared after his return to Boston from the Pacific.
"White Jacket" takes place aboard the Neversink, "a floating hell upon a wooden-walled Gomorrah." Life was harsh for a sailor in those days, and Melville pulls no punches, indicting oppression on the high seas.
William Plomer wrote the introduction for this attractive new volume.
The book was read by many congressmen and is believed to have had a profound influence in abolishing corporal punishment in the Navy.
REDBURN: HIS FIRST VOYAGE. by Herman Melville (Anchor, 95 cents).
Here is one of the several novels of the sea by Melville, one that appeared a year or so after "Omoo" and two years before "Moby Dick." It is an adventure story, but one that offers insights and revelations that foreshadow that more-than-adventure story, "Moby Dick."
"Redburn" describes Melville's first voyage to England as a sailor. The author describes life in London and Liverpool, and gives an early view of an American confronting a civilization quite different from his own. He sees sights that remind one of Dickens.
Newton Arvin wrote that the book's "inward subject is the initiation of innocence to evil." Some readers will read the book on this symbolic level; others will enjoy it for its description, its narrative, its adventure.
MARDI, by Herman Melville (Capricorn, $2.25).
This appears to be the year for Melville in paperback, especially Melville novels not generally known. "Mardi" is the first book-
length work by Melville, and has long been out of print.
Like most of the other books by Melville, "Mardi" deals with the sea, and H. Bruce Franklin suggests in an introduction that only the later works of Melville keep the book from being regarded as a major work in our literature.
The author combines realistic adventure with satire, studies of science, poetry, history, politicals, philosophy, mythology and religion. Like "Utopia" or "Candide" it is a philosophic voyage in narrative form.
AMERICAN HUMOR: A STUDY OF THE NATIONAL CHARACTER, by Constance Rourke (Anchor, 95 cents).
Students of American culture find this volume one that is indispensable. Constance Rourke deals with many figures in our literature and our folk tradition, and sees humor as a basic component in our present-day arts as well as in our past. The late Bernard DeVoto called it "by far the most important book ever written in the field."
Miss Rourke deals with the legendary Yankee, the peddler, the sharp trader; the frontier boaster, like Davy Crockett; the Negro; the actor and the minstrel; the playwrights of the 19th century; Lincoln; Whitman and Hawthorne; Mark Twain; Henry James and his American abroad; Mr. Dooley and Vachel Lindsay. The book is a rich one, warmly written and perceptive throughout.
THE WIZARD OF OZ, by L. Frank Baum (Crest, 40 cents).
Scarcely recommended for the sophisticated collegiate, this children's classic may appeal to the parents. Or perhaps you want to compare it with that Judy Garland film that keeps showing up on television. Whatever your motive, you may find that "The Wizard of Oz" really is a fine book for children of all ages.
THE RED ROVER, by James Fenimore Cooper (Bison Books, $1.85).
In an attractive paperback printed from plates that go back more than a century, the Nebraska Press has presented one of the celebrated tales of James Penimore Cooper, but not one of his familiar tales of the forests. "The Red Rover" is about the sea; Cooper knew the sea and he loved it, and Warren S. Walker, who wrote the introduction to this volume, suggests that Cooper would have been a major American literary figure had he written nothing but his sea stories.
This particular edition is that of 1859, that often called the Darley Edition, and it helps to maintain the flavor of this early-day novel, which came from Cooper's pen in 1828. From his own sea experience, Cooper wrote of the Red Rover, a hero-villain who is both American revolutionary and pirate. He is in the Royal Navy, fights a duel with an officer, and is forced to flee the law. He then begins his war against the British fleet.
U.S.A. by John Dos Passos (Sentry,
$3.95).
Here, for the first time in a single-volume paperback, is the novel that many critics regard as the outstanding American novel of the 20th century. It is a new edition, entirely reset, but it includes the famous illustrations by Reginald Marsh found in earlier editions.
"U.S.A." of course, is the three novels, "The 42nd Parallel," "Nineteen Nineteen" and "The Big Money." The three form much more of an entity than later novels by Dos Passos assembled into one volume.
It is a sweeping picture of 20th century that Dos Passos unfolds here, and it also is a revealing look into the author's mind and changing attitudes, even though it is about as objective a piece of
writing as one could find. "U.S.A." is highly experimental, Dos Passos using devices earlier attempted in "Manhattan Transfer." Readers of Mailer's "the Naked and the Dead" will find that Dos Passos must have greatly impressed the younger writer.
MANHATTAN TRANSFER, by John Dos Passos (Sentry, $2.45).
When this novel appeared in 1925 some critics were disposed to shrug it off as a feeble imitation of Joyce or as a novel that the general public could not care about. It has survived for almost 40 years, and today is regarded as a fore-runner of the author's "U.S.A." as well as of other novels.
As a matter of fact, "Manhattan Transfer" seems almost old hat today, so familiar is its experimentation. Taking a group of New York stories, Dos Passos gives us a mosaic of the big city scene, all the stories coming together more or less to describe life in the twenties.
Its style was fresh and new, its vernacular believable. It had, and still has, the rhythm, the sights, the sounds and the smells of the city. The novel has achieved near-classic status, despite its shaky beginnings.
ACTION AT AQUILA, by Hervey Allen (Popular, 60 cents).
On the heels of his great success with "Anthony Adverse," Hervey Allen published this Civil War novel in the late thirties. Recent and continuing interest in the war should mean more readers for the book, even though it is not in a class with the other Allen books or even with the war novels of Mac-Kinlay Kantor.
It is conventional Civil War romance, and it is full of action. Allen was a writer who loved history, and he kept this story of the events leading up to a battle accurate and relatively unembellished with fictional nonsense.
MARGARET FULLER, AMERICAN ROMANTIC, edited by Perry Miller (Anchor, $1.45).
It is difficult to think of any American woman (Dorothy Thompson is a possible name to consider) who captures the imagination quite like Margaret Fuller. Even more than Emerson she was the center of Transcendentalism, and she fascinated people of our time even as she repelled them (Thoreau or Hawthorne) or drew them into her circle (Alcott or Channing).
Perry Miller, who has done similar services for other Transcendentalists, has collected writings of Margaret Fuller in this Anchor original. This woman who proclaimed that she accepted the universe is represented by writings from the Dial, that short-lived but quite important magazine; the New York Tribune, whose editor then was Horaee Greeley, her plea for woman suffrage, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," and other works.
THE OCTOPUS, by Frank Norris
(Signet Classics, 75 cents).
Recognized as a classic naturalistic literature is this turn-of-the-century novel, now in an attractive Signet edition. "The Octopus" was envisioned as the first of a "trilogy of wheat" by the young novelist, the second being "The Pit." Norris died before the trilogy could be realized.
"The Octopus," however, makes the name of Norris secure in literary history. It is set in the San Joaquin Valley in California, where the mighty Southern Pacific—the octopus of the title—is overpowering the wheat farmers. It is mighty and brutal battle fought there, and many innocent lives are claimed.
Though an indictment of the railroad, "The Octopus" also is a lyrical story of the land, with beautiful passages, in particular, of the sowing of wheat. The characterizations also are strong.
CAL PAPERBACKS for
NEW TITLES FALL 1963
THE INLAND WHALE
Nine Stories Retold from California Indian Legends by Theodora Kroeber. "The Inland Whale has pioneered in bringing the oral literature of primitive peoples into the realm of literary criticism and comparative style."—American Anthropologist. Cal 88 $1.50
SHAKEPEARE'S TRAGIC FRONTIER
The World of His Final Tragedies by Willard Farnham. "Professor Farnham has written a remarkably rich and perceptive book."—Saturday Review.
Cal. 85, $1.95
POSTWAR BRITISH FICTION
New Accents and Attitudes by James Gindin. "For livelier, and more acute, than anything written on its subject this side of the Atlantic."—Times Educational Supplement.
Cal 86 $1.95
A CULTURAL HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA
From Conquest to Independence by Mariano Picon-Salas. "Its style, warmth,
and freedom from doctrinaire attitudes should also win the approval of its
English-speaking readers."—Hispania Cal 90 $1.95
JOHN DONNE'S SERMONS ON THE PSALMS AND GOSPELS
With a Selection of Prayers and Meditations. Edited, with an Introduction,
by Evelyn M. Simpson. The glory of John Donne's prose at its best is very
different from that of his verse, but is equal to it; and there can be no question
that his best prose is in his sermons.
Cal 84 $1.95
JOHN DONNE'S SERMONS ON THE PSALMS AND GOSPELS
AN ANTHROPOLOGIST LOOKS AT HISTORY
Selected Essays by A. L. Kroeber. In fourteen essays, written during the last decade of his life, the renowned anthropologist studies aspects of culture growth, civilization, the role of style in cultures, and the interrelations of history and anthropology.
Cal 87 $1.95
Epigrams, Maxims, Memoranda, and Memoirs of an Apocryphal Professor. With an Appendix of Poems from the "Apocryphal Songbooks" by Antonio Machado. Translated by Ben Belitt. Antonio Machado is not only a major lyric poet of Spanish literature, but, in the degree to which poetry may be said to engage the metaphysical intuition, its exemplary poet-philosopher. Cal 89 $1.50
JUAN DE MAIRENA
By William and Charlotte Wiser. The original text of a triumphant pioneer work of a generation ago, with an added text telling of Mrs. Wiser's return to the North Indian village of Karimpur. Her account of continuity and change will interest not only the social scientist but anyone concerned with fresh insights into contemporary society. Cal 91 $1.95
RFHIND MUD WALLS. 1930-1960
SPRING 1964
Information Education Entertainment
CARMINA ARCHILOCHI
ARAB NATIONALISM
The Fragments of Archilochos. Translated and edited by Guy Davenport. Although he is little known in our time, all ancient authorities praised the supreme grace and mordant wit of the soldier-poet, Archilochos. The verve, courage and joyous insight of these poems are presented here in brilliant translation.
Cal 92 $1.50
AVANT-GARDE
An Anthology. Edited by Sylvia G. Haim. "One of the most important studies of the doctrines of Arab nationalism to appear in recent years."—Middle East Forum Cal 93 $1.95
The Experimental Theater in France by Leonard Cabell Pronko. "The best introduction to the avant-garde playwrights of France we have in English."—Howard Clurman in New York Times Book Review Cal 96 $1.50
ELEMENTS OF CRITICAL THEORY
By Wayne Shumaker. "The great critical synthesis of our time."—Virginia Quarterly Review Col 98 $1.95
A NEW APPROACH TO JOYCE
The Portrait of the Artist as a Guidebook by Robert S. Ryf. "Ryf furnishes a clear and intelligent blueprint for The Portrait that is at once available for any good reader's understanding."—Los Angeles Times Cal 97 $1.95
ISHI IN TWO WORLDS
A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America by Theodora Kroceb.
"The warmth and understanding with which Ishi's story is told give this book its special quality. It can, I think, without exaggeration, be called one of the great American stories, a contribution not only to our history but to our literature."
—Lewis Gannett "A book that all Americans should read." New York Times Cal 94 $1.95
ERAS AND MODES IN ENGLISH POETRY
By Josephine Miles. This is the Second Edition, revised and enlarged, of a work widely acclaimed as a masterly example of linguistic analysis combining statistical word-counting with informed, perceptive studies of poetic style. Cal 95 $1.95
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley