Evening star., 1938-12-25
Writers Make Forecasts
OF Home and Alien Trends
Congress New Alignments
And Europe's Changes
Offer Material

| odA AiCWo, dllu tIldI IlOI-COllIIOs
versial sections of the late reorgani-
zation bill will be passed.
| The only other January magazine
on the stand as the reviewer writes
these words is Esquire, and ESQUIRE
has nothing to say about politics.
|
That, of course, is not unusual.
Esquire seems generally to swing
between the innocuous and the Of
fensive. And yet the reviewer al
ways gets laugh somewhere in
the course OF the magazine-at the
pictures, of course. There is almost
always one really funny one In an
issue. In the present number the
good one was, for the reviewer, that
in which a lady has covered the
green of the family pool table with
a flowered print and is shown con-
fronting her husband and saying
delightedly,' Look, honey-isn't this
nicer?"
It's no devastating gag, Of course,
but something about 1t made the re-
viewers diaphragm contract and
Immediately thereafter she heard
the local welkin ringing to her
pleased amusement. The picture Of
| the broken community Christmas
tree and the platform speaker ask
ing if there is tree surgeon in the
house is also funny :. The reviewer
does not remember whether she has
ever mentioned it or not, but she
rates Shermond the highest among
| the long list of Esquire cartoonists.
And the reason is that Shermond
has put real interpretative pene-
| tration in her version of the beauti-
full dumbbell without whom men
cannot live. The slyness and SNUG
ness, the complete absence of brain
they are all there in that familiar
duck -mouthed, wall-eyed caricature.
She is not exactly a girl you'd love
to trust, is the Shermond damsel,
but indisputably she is the ideal of a
large portion of the race.
Whereupon. of course. hangs a
very profound truth around which
the reviewer will some day write a
seven-volume tract, at present con-
densed in the following few words:
That men have SO great a necessity
to feel superior to women that they
will grovel in abject gratitude before
a woman who is so flagrantly stupid
that her simple presence treasures
them; this stupidity they will call
charm. or cuteness, or innocence. or
feminity or what have you: they
will make great jokes about it when
they are together or be tender and
sentimental about it, and they will
write novels exploiting it and such
endeavors will build them up tre-
mendously, and then they will 60
back and grovel some more and la
dumbbell sans merci will know her
self quite accurately to be invincible.
But, for the present, enough.
The reviewer was quite nasty about
the last issue of Verve, she remem-
bers. Well. now the new issue Of
that quarterly is on the stands and
she wishes to say that it is absolutely
stunning as far as its illustrative
material goes. Pictorially, it is a
thing OF near perfection, even in this
day OF improved graphic representa-
ton. But, alas, the texts are still
vapld to the point of incredibility,
and vapid too with a lofty, pseudo
mystic pretentiousness which is
acutely irritating. The reviewer sug-
gests that the editors hereafter do
away with textual matter altogether
and conflne themselves to what they
handle well-which is color printing
And that they find another title.
For "Verve' suggests movement and
their magazine is nothing In the
world but contemplative.
There is new digest out. 1t
seems likely to make huge success.
too. Tor 1t is designed to furnish en-
tertalnment to people who do not
care about literature and do not care
Tor books. There are a lot of sucIl
people in the world. as every orc
knows. and one thing they all want
is something to read. A publisher
who hits their taste. therefore, will
assuredly do well. He will do so well
indeed that he will have no need TO
thlnk OF the taste of people who do
care about literature and do care
for books. For they are, after all,
contemplate minority.
This new digest is called Omni-
book. One does not know why the
"Omnl,' however. for the express
purpose OF the thing is to publish
parts OF books, or, as its editors deli
cately put it, abridged editions"
In other words, it is playing the old
digest game; it is putting out lust
enough of book to allow its rea ders
TO get the main idea" and to save
the time wasted on reading all those
long descriptions. Or, in still other
words, it is publishing scenarios of
authors work.
Now there is no use in decrying
such a practice. Not at this date in
our beloved land Americans have
already committed themselves to a
nasty getting of main ideas" which
means. OF course, that they are also
committed to skipping considerations
OF symmetry, proportion, logical de-
velopment and beauty; they would
rather have foolish book that is
easy to read than wise one that re-
qulres mental exertion. They regard
books as idle filters of idle time and
not as treasures, or friends, or as
material for study or opportunities
for developing taste and broadening
understanding. We have the rise
OF the cheap lending library to
prove that this is so; who that cares
about literature and cares for books,
Will be satisfied short of possessing
the volume which has delighted
MN? Yet the libraries flourish and
tnere are people quite able to buy
VINO will wait for long weeks to get
the volume which they have heard
praised, and who, having read and
enjoyed the work, will then return
~ and let that end the matter.
wherefore one cannot expect less
than success for a magazine which
oners at low price the time killing