The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-05-28

| AXI &AGS9N kAAC AAOt-bAO0dO VA V0A Ay w 18th Century Spain tired of court life, intrigues, or felt change of climate might be more healthful, they looked to the Western Hemi- sphere for adventure, fortune, and glory.
 Pizarro, Cortes and 8 half dozen others have gone down the years in history books, while some of the lesser lights gained but local or passing fame. One of these was Don Gonzalo Jinenez de Quesada, the leader in the founding of Bogota, capital of Colombia.
 His bizarre, albeit both comic and tragic, story, is told at length and with scholarly disregard for TO- mantle trappings in ''The Knight of Fl Dorado" (Viking), by German Arciniegas.
 Quesada had not intended to be- come an explorer and founder. The law was his profession, but when misfortune struck at him through legal case, he joined the explor- ing de Lugos on journey of exploi- tation to Santa Marta in the New World. Once there, Quesa d q branched out with an expedition to search for treasure, and his story reads then like that of the great conquerors--sickness, death at the hands of hostile Indians, and the perfection of Spanish tortures upon the poor inhabitants.
 Arciniegas pulls no literary punches in telling the story of Don Gonzalo. In his early explorations, Quesada is pictured as a strong, virile conqueror. Witness the ex- quisite torture of Sacresaxigua, the Bogota chief, who fingered on vari- ous forms of the rack for five months but never told where his tribes gold was hidden. In his later years, Quesada ap- pears as an impractical dreamer an old man somewhat soft in the head, @ ghost buoyed up by the dreams of youth. In fact, as Senol Arciniegas suggests, Quesada was the inspiration for Cervantes' great windmills, Don Quixote."
 HENRY BELLAMAN, author ot H the best-seller and much dis cussed Kings Row" two years ago has not told as convincing a story in his latest novel, Floods of Spring" (Sinon & Schuster).
 It Is the story of Peter Retiring former Union soldier and school teacher, who takes his young Penn sylvania Dutch wife into sparsely settled Missouri (near the town of Kings Row) to seek solitude and self-Sufficiency through the land.
 Peter turns his back on every thing intellectual, will not read or allow himself any respite from the heavy work of making a success of his farm.
 Since at all times he is we'll financed, makes money, it is hard to understand anyone becoming as cantankerous, morose and unsocial as Peter. His wife never under stands him. His neighbors hate him. His two children fear him. The mere thought that the boys would dream of doing anything except following in his footsteps on the farm infuriates him, and this is the element which brings real tragedy into the story. Bellaman is a fine story-teller and this book is good reading despite the fact that Pe- ter's strange behavior is never justified.
 Y EGRAND CANNON, JR., has A reached full maturity as a writer as evidenced by his third, and best, book, Look to the Mountain" (Holt).
 This is a pioneer tale of New Hampshire, beginning in 1769, and 1t is full of fresh detail and fine characterization.
 Whit Livingston and Melissa But Ter find Kettleford not to their lik- ing and after their marriage, they set out for the unsettled north country by canoe and foot to Sand wich. where they are sheltered while White builds home on the land he has claimed. Their strug- gles and their life in this wild coln- try are told convincingIy by Can- non and the book assumes a right full place in American history. 
 MARY MCCARTHY hes found 4AA decidedly unique treatment for her book, The Company She Keeps (Simon 6 SchusteT), for 1t is the story of a girl told in six distinct episodes.
 Each phase of the story deals with the girl from . different angle and . different point of view. Her entire character is dissected by all of the men who make up "the coln- ! lpanV she keeps"