Evening star., 1938-02-06

His Extence-Moden Guliver Deals in
HIMSELF.
DefOe Himself.

regime in power, the hatred and fear
of individuality manifested by public
leaders, the cowardly tactics employed
by oficials-all these things are tar
gets for Mr.. Warmers satire and it
seems to the reviewer justly so. Yet it
should not be thought that this Is q
treatise; it is anything but that. It is
as enthralling a story as "Gulliver"
and it has something of the ferocity
OF Gulliver's great author, too. While
the reviewer will recommend 1t only
to those who know themselves to be
tough-minded, she will promise that
nobody who takes the work up will
lay 1t down unfinished.
DEFOE. BY James Sutherland.
Philadelphia: J. B. Nppincott Co.
WHEN the moving picture, "zola"
was recently playing at the
National Theater. the reviewer went
to see the exhibition and was so
exalted by what she beheld that,
afterward. while imagining herself
standing on the corner of Thirteenth
and Pennsylvania avenue waiting for
a cab. she actually walked the mile
or more to her home and did not real
ize. until she found herself obliged to
rummage for her key, that she had
done any moving at all-and this,
because, as she was saying to herself
all the while. "Zola was a writer. And
I am writer. tool" For in that
picture, she thought, there was a
vindication Of all writer's honest toll.
Subsequently. reading in Esquire, she
noted that the cinema critic OF that
periodical had thought likewise-all
writer's. said he in effect, should see
"Zola." And so it appeared that the
impression had not been unique to
the present reviewer after all.
The matter is mentioned here be-
cause the present book seems likely to
hold the same sort of inspiration for
journalists. 1t is the history of the
man who wrote Robinson Crusoe, "
but it covers the writing of that novel,
together with the writing of all the
works which followed it, in a single
brief chapter. The rest of the book
is concerned with Defoes career as a
journalist and indeed it was that
career which occupied the greater
part of his life and literary labor.
Today his journalistic work, placed
beside the great monument of Robin
son Crusoe," is overlooked completely.
But in his own time it was as a
journalist that he chiefly functioned
and 1t was as journalist that he
chiefly thought OF himself. and so,
in setting up a picture Of the man in
his time, Prof. Sutherland has done
wisely in arranging his proportions as
he has.
And what story of journalist
Defoe's life makes! What a doughty
performer he was in that day when
the owner of newspaper was not
only its editor but its chief, and some
times only. writer, when libel laws
were incredibly severe. when the pill
ory or imprisonment or both was the
punishment for infringement and
when an indignant reader could ex-
press his disapproval with horsewhip
or with open threats of assassination! !
The good old days indeed. In the
past year there has been great num-
ber Of autobiographies of modern
journalists published, and in some Of
these the authors have told of physical
dangers undergone to get a single big
story. The owner-editor- manager
writer of Defoe's day. however, went
in physical danger all the time. And
if he we're overtaken, and hailed into
court, he could be reasonably sure
that all the prejudices would be
against him.
But Defoe had ink in his blood. He
was one Of those men who simply had
to write. He was not a good reporter
in the modern sense of the word. for.
as Prof. Sutherland brings out, he
habitually revised truth to the re-