The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-11-07
The Book Surrey digest of who's who and what among books and authors
By BRUCE CAPTION MIA garvioo Wftar

In American Beauty" Edna Ferber turns and traces the decline and fall of the traditional, hard shelled Yankee. In a novel that covers more than two centuries she examines one of the most in- teresting changes that the melting pot has produced-and, at the same time, achieve the best book she has yet written.
 The Oakes family settled in Con- necticut before 1,700, building a fine, spacious mansion of red brick, farming a thousand rolling acres and living Q free. colorful and full-blooded life as colonial
 But the passing of years thinned out the old New England stock. The nation expanded, and the rich soil of Ohio and Texas drew the farmers west. The energetic, red- blooded ones moved on and the timorous, the weddings and the soft hearted ones remained. So. ciety decayed, its life-blood drained off. The Oakes mansion fell into decay tenanted by eccentric old Judith Oakes. her niece, Tamar-- and the Polish hired man, Olszak. And Olgzak, of them all, was the most significant. For he repre- sented the new blood that was re- vivifying the land; the peasants from Poland, coming in to scan- dalize the natives and work the abandoned farms, to find plenty and richness in soil that had been cursed as barren. In the end 1t is the strain of Olszak that Is trt- umphant.
 Miss Ferber has told all of this with her usual feeling for color. her customary skill at character drawing. If the great length of time encompassed by. her book gives one, here and there, a feel ing of undue compression, that can't be helped. She has present. ed a bit of American pageantry in very fine style.
 How Society Deludes
 Itself in War Timc
 The way In which @ nation whips It's emotions up to the frenzy necessary for the prosecu- ton of war Is pitilessly revealed in Society at War;" by Caroline E. Playne.
 Miss Piayne presents Q careful analysis of newspaper articles, public speeches, pamphlets. ser mons. recruiting posters and simi- lar things issued in England be- twen the outbreak of the World War and the end of 1916. The re- suit Is a book that Is exceedingly informative-and rather horrify- ing.
 For all of these wartime ap- peals sound false and meaningless today; and that Is the measure of the way in which the world de- luded itself a decade and half ago. In order to go to war, now adays. society must abdicate its mental functions completely. II must i've by its emotions; 1t must whip up hatred and prejudice, sup press truth, give expert liars Tree scope and go without reservations into a soul destroying neurosis. So doing, in end 1t becomes ut- terly helpless. Miss Piagne shows that the war could have ended in 1916 on a fair. just basis. But it didn't-because, by that time, the English people (like the people of other lands) had got beyond the point where they could listen to reason. European society, in fact had gone quite mad: Miss Playne shows just how 1t happened. All in all, 1t is an immensely instructive book.
 A Very Interesting New
 Biography of Penrose
 I don't know just why the life story of a sinner should be 60 much more interesting than the life story of a saint. It is. usu. ally, and the greater the sinnei the greater the interest. This very likely, is too bad
 written a book called Power and Glory." which is a biography oi the late Senator Boies Penrose ol Pennsylvania, and 1t is one of thu most engrossing Biographies of thu year. It presents Penrose--qults fairly, I think---as a man of Ire mendous ability and no scrupies a all. 4 born arist0crat. he voiun tarily descended into the miasnli' bogs of ward politics; and he re mained essentially Q ward poiiti clan to the end of his days.
 Mir Davenport isas told the stor. just as 1t should be told. He l neither mortified nor apologetic He refuses to smack his lips ove Ithe oargantuan peccndiiioes Q the sonafor's private life, and h
 does not hold up his hands tn hor TOT over the mans cynical denIa of moral standards in politics. Fl simply presents the facts, toseths
 
 see 1t without the help of Q teIe scope. It remained q beautifu