Evening star., 1934-08-26

tics, but advises keeping out Of po-
litical parties and away from politi-
clans. To-day you are 10 times
stronger outside of all parties than in
any one" Organize your generation"
he says, first in the city. then in the
county, then in the State, then in the
Nation. set up headquarters in
Washington; in other words, don't
slump out of life, inert and embit
tered, while others do the organizing
and get the results. A two years
campaign is mapped out, with home,
a job, freedom from debt. health and
reasonable leisure as objectives. The
book is so packed with excellent
counsel, and, incidentally, with much
spicy comment on American politics
and present economic and social
ideas that 1t is difficult not to quote
voluminouSly. The estimates of all
the political parties are recommended
to voters and to all those who enjoy
criticism with punch. "The Chance
Of akLifetime" can be read by every
oneyover 40 as we'll as under 40, with
great profit and interest. Its basic
idea, that the world does not owe
every one living, but that individual
effort and team work are still effective
even in a disordered world, is one
which badly needs stressing nowadays,
when Government does so much that
there is danger of atrophy Of indi-
vidual will and energy. Mr.. Pitkin
thinks we are in want Of some of the
pioneer spirit of our forefathers. not
for conquering the wilderness, but for
conquering the modern world.
~ ** -
EXILE'S. RETURN. A narrative Of
Ideas. BY Malcolm Cowley. New
York: w. w. Norton g. Co.
DROFOUND dissatisfaction with the
L past and the present of both lit
erature and society and only a doubt
full hope for the future have appar-
emily inspired this book of really
critical criticism by the literary editor
of the New Republic. In his prologue
he speaks of what Gertrude Stein
called the lost generation" that is,
the generation which came to matur-
ity during the World War period and
found itself cut loose from traditional
moorings. Mr.. Cowley thinks it was
literary generation, probably the
first real one in the history of Amer
lean letters" Thus is the generation
of Emerson and Longfellow swept
from the map. Among the personnel
~ Iao Ia
Dos Passos, Hemingway, Wilder,
Faulkner, MacLeish, Bromfield, Jo-
sephson, T. S. Eliot. Most of them
survive, but as individuals, not as an
army of rebels. 1t is the story of this
"lost generation" and its return from
exile" which Mr.. Cowley attempts
to tell.
His distribution Of sympathy and
satire proclaims him also a rebel;
sometimes against hypocrisy and cor
ruption, sometimes merely against
tradition, whether of morals or of art.
Postal censorship is the subject of
most scathing treatment and one
censor, whom he calls generically "Mr.
Smith," he says, received a comfort
able salary from the Government and
a larger one from several of the sex
then at the height of their
popularity. His duty toward them
consisted in reading each issue before
publication and making changes to
meet the postal standards" Mr.. Cow
ley, with consideration for his readers
which many other writers might well
emulate, explains categorically the be-
liefs which underlie his narrative of
ideas" but, though he is not dogmatic,
his beliefs seem not to be any more
consistent with each other than those
of most people. He believes that art
is good and propaganda is false and
and that the two cannot
well be mixed; but he believes also
that artists should take part in the
class struggle, because they are men
before they are writer's or painters"
and he hopes that many will be on
the workers side. On whichever side
they are, it will be difficult to avoid
propaganda, as the work of an in
creasing number Of writer's is showing
today From the readers point of
view, any propaganda probably spoils
imaginative art. But what is the ma
ture of art and what are its func-
tions? Mr.. Cowley does not pretend
to know. Who knows?
X X X X
THE BALLIOLS. BY Alec Waugh.
New York: Farrar g. Rinehart.
FEELING that his 35th birthday
anniversary was landmark that
demanded some retrospective refiec-
ton, for comparing the world as he
found it with the world as it now is.
Alec Waugh started to write a book
about it and found himself turning
the book into a novel, because the
story teller is interested not in groups,
but individuals" So he took the
Balliol family and tells their story
from 1907 to the present time. In
1907 Edward Balliol was on the brink
of 40 and his wife Jane, somewhat
younger, the mother of four children,
was vaguely feeling that zest had gone
from her life. She made feeble and
futile attempt to restore that zest by
a brief philandering episode with Roy
Hickman, young business associate
of her husband, whom they first in
vited to their home while prospecting
for a husband for Edwards sister
Stella, to save her from the militant