Evening star., 1932-09-05
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

Use Of the bookmark by book readers
is an old-fashioned but sensible habit,
one which no amount Of sophistication
has been able to stop.
The very latest volumes, treating Of
the newest devices of mankind, will be
discovered with bits of paper stuck
between two leaves, where ambitious
readers left off for the time being.
Not all the books in the world cause
readers to sit up half the night to
finish them. Even when they co SO
stimulate the dear reader, often he has
other things to do.
He must go to the theater or meet
friends or go to bed or go to work
There are as many reasons for laying
down a book, once begun, as there are
perfectly good ones for never beginning
certain one in the first place.
Reading, in the last analysis, is
largely matter of temperament.
The happy reader is he who reads
because he wants to read, and who
has enough common sense to make
certain that he reads what he wants
to read.
In this happy process, however. he
will not be swayed by natural trends,
but often enough-at least for his own
goodwill read what he is sure will
benefit him.
There is duty here as elsewhere.
Often the duty to read a certain
book is paramount.
Only a few people in the world will
read Sir Arthur Salters Recovery,
the Second Effort" because they find it
an unmitigated reading delight.
Most who read it have done so be-
cause they felt it their solemn duty.
Many have admitted that they did not
understand it, that economics is mysti-
cism, almost magic, as far as they are
concerned.
Treatises on the present economic
situation go far beyond the mental
depths Of the average reader; not that
he hasn't the brains, but more that
the words used. the concepts created,
are beyond his depths. He Is swimming
In strange sea, and it Is questionable
whether he will ever touch bottom, or
even get his head free again.
Especially in such reading a reader
will find it advisable to use a bookmark,
to keep his place" for him during the
breathing spells.
If he does not do so, he will find
himself almost under the necessity of
beginning the entire work over again
after every time he puts 1t down.
Perhaps this would be the best way,
after all, to read such books as Keynes
Essays in Persuasion" and "A treatise
on Money" Soules "A Planned Society,"
and "A Primer of Money" by Wood
ward and Rose.
Written by exacting and painstaking
men, they must be read by readers
who will demand as much exactness of
themselves as they are able to muster,
and who are willing to 60 to all possible
pains (indeedD to understand what
they are reading.
With such works bookmarks are in
dispensable; they are scarcely less so
when one is reading the latest popu-
lar novel.
Novels are experiences, slices of life,
each one different. as life itself is diff
ferent. So many men, so many stories.
Each story has a legitimate interest
because its facts, its people, its places,
all belong together, and especially to
each other.
There is no taking the characters
from one book and inserting them into
the scenes of another book. 1t has been
tried, with uniformly dismal results.
One ambitious writer combined Dumas
D'Artagnan and Rostands Cyrano, but
nothing came Of 1t.
Few novels are worth reading back
ward and forward in the effort to find
ones place, after it has been lost by
actual lack of physical contact for a
time.
Perhaps that Is one reason for the
fondness of many people for serialized
stories. Each installment Is complete in
itself. and makes no further demands
upon the reader. When the next chap
ter arrives he is sure that he has read
the previous ones. There is no fun
bling around with "he said" and ''she
said" for a dozen pages, to realize at
last that they are precisely the "he