Evening star., 1945-07-22
By Mary-Carfer Roberts

By Mary-Carfer Roberts
The reader will find in this auto
biographical volume a constant
mingling of naivete and sophistica-
ton. 1t is the work of man who,
In his mid-40s, has, by his own con-
fession, found himself for the first
time. . He has worked off at last
an accumulation of spiritual bur-
dens which he picked up early in
youth-and he wants to tell about
1t. The desire is naive. At the
same time, in reaching this point,
he has used a good mind on
variety of subjects and, in relation
to those subjects, acquired good
deal of sophiStication. He uses the
sophistication now on naive oc-
caSion.
Oliver La Fargo, novelist who
attained some reputation in the
late '2os and early '30s, is an Amer
ican born into favored social class.
He relates that he is the fourth
generation of his family to be an
artist; he adds that all these artists
have also been gentlemen. They
were New England gentry-an old
family with claims of distinction,
and economically secure if not vul-
carly rich. But against these generic
rights to complacence Mr.. La Fargo
had as he relates, some individual
CONFERENCE.-The.
AS boy he was clumsy and
pigeon-toed, he had cowlick and
wore glasses. When he duly went
to Groton he acquired an unpleas-
ant nickname. AS result he also
acquired a roaring inferiority COM
plex." That drove him to variety
of activities but always with sense
of failure in being" which, he knew
in advance, could not be cured by
any success in doing. His class
superiority was his only one, but he
could take no satisfaction in it be-
cause he secretly disagreed with
many class canonS.
"The Groton Boy"
AS he tells it, there was set up in
his mind an ideal, the "Groton Boy"
who was a complete conformist to
all the standards of best New Eng
land society. He knew that he was
no such paragon, but he tried to be,
aware always that he would fail. So
he went round and round, wearing
his groove deeper through Harvard
which followed as the night the
day on Groton.
When he got out of school and
began to work for a living among
other people working for livings he,
for while, seemed to lose his night
mare sense of oddity. He started
life as an ethnologist, not as
writer. But his writing, begun as
an avocation, caught on and he
made money. Then at once he began
working at being the Groton Boy
grown older Gf that development
be possible). The compulsion, in
short, was too strong for him. He
finally got off his squirrel wheel,
he relates, by his association with
the American Indians-by which, of
course, he is also most widely known
as a novelist.
Himself at Last
This statement may well cause
the reader to smile for escapistS
with assorted complexes have been
bolting off to the Indian country
for the past Is years at rate which
would make one wonder that there
were any left outside. But Mr..
La Forge declares sturdily that he
was none of these. An ethnologist,
he first took scientific interest in
the redmen. Then, oppressed by
their misery, he became interested
in political efforts to help them.
Out of this endeavor, he says, grew
his eventual liberalism. Came the
war and the new-made liberal got
a Job with the rank of major as
historical officer of the Air Transport
Command, after having defeated the
War Department on the question OF
his physical fitness which it had
disputed. Now, after several years
in uniform, he writes that he is
himself at last.
I do not think that I need to
labor the naivete which I have men
toned. The sophistication is ap-
parent in Mr.. La Farge's comments
on life, literature and society as he
goes along. One may legitimately
take him at his own value, for
there is no question about his sin
cerity. But one may also reflect
that the New England ruling class
is enduring stuff and that, If cir
cumstances ever suggest to it that
its survival depends on changing its
conservative point of view, it will
find an excellent conservative rea-
son for doing SO. At any rate, that
has been its history. Maybe Mr.. La
Fargo, therefore, is more repre-
sentative member than he has been
able to think.