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Wednesday, March 6, 1963 University Daily Kansan
Page 7
Hearst, Lawrence, Earl Long Intrigue Writers
CITIZEN HEARST, by W. A.
Swanbender (Bantam, 95 cents).
Here is a publishing feat that should bring joy to many readers. "Citizen Hearst" is one of the finest biographies of recent years, and is easily the best thing ever written about the famous newspaper publisher. The book goes to almost all readers with the highest recommendations.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, by Anthony Nutting (Signet, 75 cents).
It is the first biography of Hearst that is not loaded, either for him or against him. W. A. Swanberg gives us the young, somewhat idealistic, always flamboyant Hearst as well as the aging, bitter, cynical, ultimately unsuccessful Hearst. We see the crusading young Democrat who was almost Socialist, and we see the old man who was almost pro-Nazi and certainly a darling of the America First movement.
We see the party leaders, and Joseph Pulitzer, and we see Marion Davies, Arthur Brisbane and the Hearst boys, all vivid characters. This novel, recommended by the Pulitzer Prize Advisory Board for a prize in biography though ultimately rejected, should be read by all readers interested in American currents of the past 70 years.
This paperback coincides beautifully with the well received new film biography, and it brings up once again the old argument as to whether the amazing Lawrence was hero or egotist who created a myth around himself.
Anthony Nutting was British foreign minister during the Suez crisis, and he knows his subject. He starts with the illegitimate birth of Lawrence and carries Lawrence through his celebrity in the Middle East. Nutting suggests that it was during the desert campaign of World War 1 that Lawrence began to think of himself as a Messiah. In the concluding chapter, the author attempts to understand just what Lawrence was. He fails—as all probers of Lawrence have failed.
THE EARL OF LOUISIANA, by A. J. Liebling (Ballantine, 75 cents).
The Wayward Pressman of the New Yorker did this biographical sketch as a piece of reporting, and although one cannot entirely fall into line with the support given "ole Earl," it's a gusty and absorbing story that Liebling tells.
The hero is Earl Long, and the book appeared not long after Earl's tragic last year, spent trying to get himself re-elected governor, and later congressman, and out of a Texas insane asylum. It's also a striking look at southern politics from the inside.
It's also, quite frankly, an apology for Long. He was a rank demagogue and a coarse political operator, but he was a liberal, especially on racial relations. Though a reader may emerge from this book with a different notion about Long than he originally had, he doesn't necessarily come out loving the guy. For all his charm, on the stump and at the bursting banquet table. Long still was not the stuff heroes are made of.
CAPIL SANDBURG, by Harry Golden (Crest, 50 cents).
Here is a warm and glowing story that is both biography and tribute from a close friend. In Sandburg and Harry Golden America has been doubly fortunate, and this is a book that celebrates the men and the friendship.
Many could give the biographical facts about Sandburg, the Illinois boy who became beloved through his prairie poetry, his fondness for folk music, his biography of Lincoln, and his elder statesmanship of American letters. Harry Golden is able to do more by providing understanding based on his association with the poet.
AUTOPHOTOGRAPHY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, with introduction by Dumas Malone (Putnam Capricorn,
95 cents).
Jefferson, like many who sit down to write about themselves, unfortunately did not possess much insight into his meaning in history. Furthermore, this slim volume carries him only to the beginning of the republic, so we get nothing of Jefferson the president or even Jefferson the secretary of state.
Yet we still have here Jefferson
the architect of the Declaration of Independence and Jefferson, the envoy to France. We obtain insights into other early leaders, and we have an excellent introduction by America's leading scholar on Jefferson. For these reasons, this little book should be on the shelves of all students of American history.
ROOSEVELT IN RETROSPECT. by John Gunther (Pyramid, 75 cents).
Only Robert E. Sherwood so far has treated Franklin D. Roosevelt so lovingly. Yet this historical profile of FDR is not overly slanted. The characteristics that made him the beloved president to many Americans and "that man in the White House" to others are well described in this biography.
There is no mistaking the Gunther conviction that Roosevelt shall occupy an important and revered place in history. He regards the depression-and-war president as a man well suited to his time and place, a man capable of meeting challenges others might have shied from. Gunther believes that Roosevelt, more than any other president, expanded the institution of the presidency, and educated the American people in doing so.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A JAPANESE GENERAL, by John Deane Potter (Signet, 60 cents)—the story of General Yamashita of
the Imperial Japanese Army, who was executed as a war criminal. The book is available in no other edition. Potter contends that Yamashita was in the old-fashioned tradition of oriental generals, and would have been out of place in the post-Hiroshima world.
THE LIFE OF MICHELANGELO,
by John Addington Symonds
(Capricorn, $1.85).
Magnificently illustrated, carefully documented and written, this book should be read by all who think Irving Stone's "The Agony and the Festasy" is the definitive work on Michelangelo.
Besides being a fine biography, this also is considered one of the most sensitive works of art criticism yet written. Michelangelo as the universal man of the Renaissance is considered—painter, poet, architect, sculptor.
The black and white plates give special value to this paperback, a quality volume that merits special recommendation.
DEATH BE NOT PROUD, by John Gunther (Pyramid, 50 cents).
How does one set down on paper an experience as shattering as that of reading this book? It is the kind of story one tends to shy away from himself, and then go around telling other people to read once the job has been done.
a decade ago, this book has achieved almost the status of a modern classic. It is the story of John Gunther's son Johnny and of the brain tumor that killed him when he was only 17.
Gunther is a splendid reporter, and he reports the bare facts of the boy's long fight against death. But it is more than facts; it is a story full of understanding and deep compassion. Here was a boy who was as well favored spiritually and intellectually as a boy could be, yet who died when he was just beginning to live.
Since it was published more than
MARIA MONTESSORI HER LIFE AND WORK, by E. M. Standing (Mentor-Omega, 95 cents)Here is the biography of a woman whose educational methods have been revolutionary. An Italian, Dr. Montessori was a pioneer in progressive education, and today there are several elementary schools affiliated with the American Montessori Society, teaching children to write at four, read at five, and do higher mathematics at six.
A DIARY FROM DIXIE, by Mary Boykin Chestnut, edited by Ben Ames Williams (Sentry, $2.45).
This document is a classic of the Civil War. In no other source can one obtain, first-hand, insights like those found in this remarkable diary.
It was written by a grand lady of the Confederacy; a holdout who
gradually sees the futility of the fight. She tells her story from many places in the South — Charleston, Montgomery, Richmond and so on. There are gossip, chatter, lively descriptions, wit, bitterness — what one would expect to find in a book by a literate southern woman of 100 years ago.
LAN-LAN, by Harry Roskolcnenko (Signet, 50 cents)—An original novel, set in Cambodia, dealing with a French doctor and his concubine. The time is the 1920s; the author is a New Yorker who has traveled in much of the world, served in the French Foreign Legion in the Indochinese war, has worked for the Voice of America, and now is setting down his experiences for his readers.
CANDIDE, by Voltaire (Bantam Dual-Language Book, 95 cents);
FAUST, by Goethe (Bantam Dual-Language Book, 95 cents); THE SUFFERINGS OF YOUNG WERTHER, by Goethe (Bantam Dual-Language Book, 35 cents)—Here is one of the brightest publishing ideas in paperbacks in years. We have been glutted by paperbacks of the classics, and one can find many standard works put out by several publishers. But here are books which offer classics in the original and in translation—in the same volume, on facing pages. There are notes, fine introductions, and glossaries to assist the student.