Evening star., 1948-02-01

Themes Are
Drumotized

THE LETTERS OF POPE
CELESTINE VI TO
ALL MANKIND
BY Giovanni Papini. fE. P
Dutton G. Co.. 49,
THE SAINT AND THE DEVIL
BY Frances Winwar. (Hd"per &
Bros; $3.75.J
Reviewed by
MARY McGRORY.
Bold as he is eloquent, Giovann.
Papini has invented no less per-
sonage than a Pope to preach this
impassioned sermon on modern
mans imminent choice between
love and death. His imaginary pom
tiff couches an ardent and ALIEN
bracing appeal for one Christian
world in frankly emotional terms
and like many a preacher who does
not hesitate to use every oratoricai
means at his command, including a
little touch of the theatre, he seems
assured of a wide and intent audi
ence.
The letters, purportedly found in
an abandoned convent are the lit
erary relics of martyred prelate OF
uncommon zeal and fluency, whose
flaming concern extends beyond the
members of his flock to the whole
world. He alternately berates anc
beseeches, prophesies and exhorts
as he compares the ideal of muscu-
lar Christianity with its "fabby'
reality. He castigates the torpid
the tepid and the mediocre within
the church, taxing the politicians
with moral blindness, women with
expedient piety, the rich with spirit
ual poverty and the poor with g
querulous tolerance of their lot.
Mutual Need.
The vision of Pope Celestine is
the transformation of all peoples
for their eventual uniong and he ad-
dresses himself most effectively te
those outside the church. In his
dramatic pleas for a rededication or
the part of his own spiritual chill
dren, the great waves of oratory
gather and break with certain
monotony. But when he supplicates
the Hebrews to join the fold, he
makes the most stirring and pro-
found appeal of ALL basing his argu-
ment on the mutual need of Chris
tians and Jews.
Mr.. Papini, the author Of very
popular Life of Christ" is an Ital-
ian and a convert to Catholicism.
Frances Winwar has dealt dash
ingly with the life of a saint in "The
Saint and the Devil" which is a
new but not especially revealing
study of Joan of Arc, with a COM
panion piece about psychopathic
of the Middle Ages, GILES
de Rails. Miss Winwar, who is
known for her entirely readable. if
overwrought literary
writes sympathetically
of the controversial Maid of Orleans.
carefully skirting all such subtle
considerations as the origin of the
voices.
Hers is a human study of an in
spiredly simple and valiant girl
whose death was woven of her great
triumph. Joan's humanity rather
than her sainthood is stressed-her
womanly weakness in the face of
pain, her stern spiritual surveillance
of her troops, her complete made
quacy in the mazes of clerical and
courtly intrigue which led to her
execution. The background of the
100 Years War is drawn in lavish
and colorful detail.
In establishing relationship be-
tween the Maid apd GILES de Rails,
the marshal of France. who was her
comrade in arms, Miss Winwar has
been less successful. If De Rails, who
rode off after the coronation of the
Dauphin to his ancestral estates to
indulge in an extended orgy of MUIR
der and perversion during which he
corrupted and killed some 40 chill
dren, ever felt the Christening influ-
ence of his sanity leader, there is
little indication of it. The most
obvious and cruel parallel between
these two is the manner of their
deaths. Both we're burned at the
stake, but while Joan was subjected
to every terror and indignity and
the final agony of a slow execution,
the loathesome De Rails enjoyed all
the considerations of a brutal age.
Conquering America