Evening star., 1937-05-08

u HOOct " AULSI tCuH EJC uUu
business. Iippincott)
illusion is to keep intact his private
uncommunicative being and that alone,
a man Of no ambitions Of no concern
for material well-being, Of no thrift,
no industry and very casual morals
One may also write that it tells Of this
mans life in his native town, small
Norwegian port, and of how his track
crossed those Of his neighbors In that
place. But that Is mere reporting.
The essential thing which it presents
Is its picture of incorruptible human
Observation-Disclosures, mind you, the in
dividuality OF the great, the genius
Of one kind or another but the in
dividuality of the obscure, the drifter,
the worldly failure.
Pursuing this aim, the author does
not, however, deal with his hero
primarily as drifter, or as a failure.
Abels aimlessness and his unsuc-
cess are incidental. 1t is his intense,
silent ego that Is the subject of the
portrait, the ego Of the completely
uncivilizable male, the graceful, COM
plete and anti-social ego OF the human
tomcat, in plain words. That Is about
what this hero is.
Yet, as the cat looks at the moon,
so does Abel have his dreams One
is of friend who went to prison for
him. and whom, in vague and incon-
elusive fashion. he plans to succor.
Another is Of his boyhood sweetheart,
whom, occasionally, in spasmodic
fashion, he seeks to please. But 1t
Is neither the portrait Of the individual
nor this vague pursuit Of vaguer nlu-
sions which gives the book its excel
lence. 1t is the generosity Of the con-
cept and the splendor OF the work.
manship. There is no vagueness in
the execution. The novel unrolls
indeed in terms OF utter con-
creteness. To read it Is to see,
visually, the life Of the man and OF
the little, curious town, as if one were
sitting on bench in the public square,
day after day, making ones own
observations. Making them through
the always unobtrusive medium Of
Knut Hamsun's Interpretation, one
comes into the pity, the terror, the
comedy, the warmth and the clatter
of life in its everyday aspect. But
there is something more than that
too. That always unobtrusive med
ium" supplies 1t. It IS the medium
Of literary art. that very rare COM
modify.
DEAR THEO. The autobiography Of
Vincent Van Gogh. Edited by
Irving Stone. Boston: Houghton
Mif1in Co.
THIS autobiography is nothing less
than the edited letters which
Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo
during the last 10 years Of his life.
The complete letters have already been
published They appeared in an Eng
lish edition some years ago, but only
a limited number Of copies was Of
fered for sale in this country; more
over, the complete edition made q
three volume work Of over l 500 pages.
it has seemed, therefore, desirable to
bring out an American edition which
will be of lesser length and available
at popular price. To do this Irving
Stone, author Of the novel on Van
Gogh, "Lust for Life" has been en-
ployed to edit the original letters. He
describes the undertaking as follows:
1T has been my purpose to keep
in every line Vincent wrote that has
retained its beauty, significance and
countless pages of repetition, unim-
portant detail and comment which
have since lost both meaning and
value.
my aim has been to edit the 1,67o
pages Of material down to swiftly
flowing. continuous normal sized
book. ~
This aim seems to be well accom-
plished, for the present volume brings
convincingly before the reader the
beautiful figure of the tragic painter,
its simplicity and its humanity.
That he was writing an "auto-
biography" in the letters which he
sent to his brother Of course never
occurred to Van Gogh. He was, as
Mr.. Stones preface remarks, one Of
the loneliest souls in the world, and,
like lonely souls both before and after
him, he had vast deal to commune
cate. Lacking companions Of COM
parable flneness, he put this store Of
thought In written pages which he
sent his brother. Set down thus, un-
calculatingly, his inner life can be
seen in his writings with uncompli-
Gated directness. He stands before
the world naked. He used no artidce
whatsoever.
And how fortunate this was! No
one could ever explain him as he has
himself. The most elaborate analyses
OF the most eager psychologists would
have fallen to the ground before the
wildly unfamiliar phenomenon which
he presented-a man in whom simple
goodness was combined with an artists
understanding Of his fellowmen. What
does than yield to the researcher who
is incapable at once Of understanding
such mind, or Of believing in it? A
machine cannot interpret q mans
soul, though 1t may record his knee
jerks with perfection.
But for those capable, here Is Vim
cent Van Gogh's profound, simple and
beautiful essence. It Is a good thing
that it has been made more easily
available.
RETURN FROM THE U. S. s. r. BY
Andre Glide. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, Inc.
IN THIS book an ardent Communist,
who is also a man Of letters, tells
Of what he saw In visit to Russia
last year. His work. has been hailed
as "shattering" by Miss Dorothy
Thompson and announced as stirring
up "a tempest" by the Nation. Yet
the present reviewer was able 70 road
T