Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-09-16
Prize-WinningN Novel.
Depicts Life in a
Dairy Community
NOT IN OUR STARS

NOT IN OUR STARS
By Josiah E. Greene. Mac
milan So
The distinguished house of Mac
milan this year rounds out a CEN
fury of publishing. To celebrate the
occasion it offered a series of prizes.
They were for the best fiction and
nonflction written by American
citizens serving in the armed forces
of the United Nations, with similar
offers to British and Canadian born
men and women serving in the
forces of their respective countries.
The American novel prize went
to Josiah E. Greene for the manu-
script of Not in Our Stars" He is
a sergeant in the Army Air Force,
has written two other novels, both
mysteries, "Madmen Die Alone" and
THE Laughing Loom" and has done
some short stories for boys. He
is a graduate of Brown University
and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
His novel is brave attempt to
depict the life of community
in which he obviously feels are to be
found certain typical modern con-
ditions. The community in question
is a dairy farm near New York City
where some 80 or 80 people are
employed, with a substantial number
of them living on the farm grounds.
The typical modern conditions are
differences between management
and labor and spiritual poverty on
the part of the workers.
Sergt. Greene's approach is dis
passionate and his coverage of his
farm is practically encyclopedia
He goes into every level of the life
of the place and carefully shows the
rounded view of every question. He
has no central character and no
main action For these reasons, his
nearly 600 page book moves with
extreme slowness. Any one sufh-
cienty devoted to the novel form to
appreciate his intention will, how
ever, want to see him through. He
has undertaken to write a natural
istic novel on huge scale. One
suspects that the work OF James
Farrell has had some influence on
him.
Unhappy People
What he shows us is group OF
unhappy men and women who have
no idea of how to remedy their I'M
happiness. The workers on the farm
are not exploited. They have
grievances and the management
does not always give them redress,
but it has, on the whole, an enllght-
ened policy and, throughout the
book, is made to work slowly TO
improve conditions.
One understands, however, that
It is not matter of wage increases
which will change the unhappiness
of the people. AS Sergt. Greene
draws the picture, there are few men
and women who can face the fact
that they are likely to perform
humble tasks, even at decent pay,
all their lives, and not be dissatisfied.
Yet among his farm workers there
are only two or three who have it
in them to rise. So we have the title
their discomfort has its reason not
in their stars but in themselves.
Fighting Limitations
He shows various individuals
fighting their limitations in various
WAYS. One does it by organizing
against the management. One does
it by refusing to join the organl-
cation and claiming to see the man
agements point of view. One does 1t
bv keeping aloof from all the others.
One finds his escape from his own
dreary reality by imagining plots
against himself. The women OF the
place cover up their disappolnt-
ment in their men by gossip and
scandal. A few brave souls try to
dream of model community and
few more tough ones manipulate
circumstances until they force their
way up or out. What is there, the
sergeant seems to ask, Tor people
who, by their own capacities, know
that they are inferior?
His meditations on the ques-
ton are the serious fault in the
books structure. The naturallstlc
novels virtue is that it lets condl-
lions speak for themselves, and that
virtue justifies the inclusion OF an
infinite deal of realistic detail. But
when you are given the detail and
then have to hear the argument, too,
the argument which the detail is
meant to obviate, you lose the value
of the form.
Moreover, as Sergt. Greene
handles it. you lose the value of
the realism, for when he meditates
he does so through the mouths OF
his people and the abrupt intel
lectual flights which he makes them
take are decidedly out of character.
One concludes that he does not
have the temperament of the ma
turalistic writer, in spite of his adj
miration for the naturalistic meth
3D. He cannot let well enough alone.
After he has implied thing, he
has to say it, too.
Even so. his tremendous thor
oughness in depicting his chosen
community must invoke admiration.
He may learn discipline in time, or
Nn n