Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1938-08-07

REFUGEE PLAN is OFFERED
Miss Thompson Solution of Problem of Caring for Exes From
Europe Is More Noble Than Practical-Hsory of
Texas Newspaper Is Well Worth Reading

| ate the problems which confront the
Jew everywhere in Europe and at all
times.
It Is a tragic book, written with q
lucid, childlike sort Of beauty. It
might easily be no more than the
presentation of a case, with the sub
ject matter which 1t uses but actually
1t contrives to be something more. It
has a quality of universally in it
which lifts 1t out Of time and place.
which raises 1t, too. above the level
Of the race problem with which 1t
deals and makes 1t a tragedy of hui
mainly. a portrayal Of all the defense
less against all the oppressers. It Is
q fine thing.
It tells the story Of one family, the
Fishmans. They are not wealthy nor
particularly gifted. They are humble
people who want only to be let to live.
Both the father and mother have
dreadful memories of oppression be-
hind them, and the boy whose story
is the theme of the book wakens to
life in the course of a fight from a
village from which his people have
been ''evacuated." Yet on all this
background of horror, the Fishmans
try constantly to live normal lives,
loving one another. taking pride in
their children and so on. But always
they are thwarted.
1t is impossible to read the book
without some response of emotion
against the stupidity which clings so
closely to power, and which is, in all
countries and at all times, the COM
mon enemy of the humankind.
SCOOP. BY Evelyn Waugh. Boston:
Little Brown & Co.
FOR your lighter hours, you can
hardly do better than read this
novel, one more of Evelyn Waugh's
brittle bits of nonsense, shiny and
smart-aleck, to be sure. but also quite
amusing. 1t is novel built on a
case Of mistaken identity. the plot
being that harmless nit-wit writer Of
nature notes" for a great London
paper is mistaken for high-powered
correspondent by the papers owner
and ordered of. willy -nilly to the
scene of the latest war. Whereupon,
complications eQsue.
Mr.. Wodehouse does much the same
sort of thing, without ever having
gathered, as Mr.. Waugh has, repu-
tation for being brilliant satirist.
PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.
BY Dorothy McCleary Garden
City. Doubleday Doran Co.
THIS is a surprisingly good novel,
very gentle treatment of theme
on which many works of literature
before 1t have likewise been based
that is, that human beings seldom or
never understand one another. 1t
begins with a young married couple.
who, after five years. have child,
They have called themselves until
then "a closed corporation" secure
in their faith that nothing can reach
through the magic circle of the love.
With the advent of the baby, however,
the whole fabric falls to pieces and
after dozen years they are shown to
be two strangers, at best mechanically
| affectionate
The goodness OF the novel lies in
Miss McCleary's wise demonstration
of the fact that. even before the child s
birth, the germs of the disaffection
were there. and that the couple owed
their happiness and illusion of oneness
to their fear of life rather than to the
positive nature of their emotion. They
had chung to one another After the ar
rival of the child, however, the mother
gives expression to her natural middle
class inclinations, deeming them best
for her daughter And thus she de-
stroys her old championship with
her husband which had been based on
suppression of these habits, rather
than on any real affinity.
1t is all done mildly and with so
little comment that reader must read
with some subtlety to get the ironical
implication.
IT'S ALL ADVENTURE. BY Peter
Freuchen. New York: Farrar &
Rhinehart.
THE author of this book is a Dane
who was sent some years ago by
his government to look after a colony
| in Greenland. When he returned from
that undertaking. he wrote the book
Arctic Adventure" In his present
work he undertakes to tell how he
managed to get along in "civilization,
after having stayed so long among the
SHOWS of the Far North. He con-
cludes. as his title indicates, that being
| civilized is an adventure. too.
He writes here of lecturing. doing
newspaper work, editing a magazine
and other methods Of gaining a live
lihood which he undertook. But by far
the best part of his book deals with
his return to the North, for he did go
back He did not 60 as lone explorer
this time, to be sure, for he had lost
a leg as the result OF frostbite and
was incapacitated. But he went as a