Evening star., 1948-05-02

IDIOH1 WOH0T
Wise Satire
.On'CeIebrities'
THE LOCUsTs HAVE NO KING
BY Dawn Powell. (Charles Serb
ner's Sons; S3.J
The hero of Dawn Powell's
droll and worldly wise satire on
the success clique" of New York
might as well be a man from the
Middle Ages, so bemused is he
amid the clamor of the jukebox
and the glare of the neon lights.
A 36-year-old scholar whose
erudite essays have been artistically
If not commercially appreciated,
Frederick oliver is dragged from
his withdrawal in his books and a
deep and decorous love affair with
a married woman playwright into
a greedy, garish world where art
Is cigarette ad and literature is
soap opera"
Frederick's disastrous descent into
the market place is undertaken in
humiliating pursuit of promiscu-
GUS little celebrity hound named
Dodo Brennan. To appease Aer in
satiable appetite for great names
and expensive places, Frederick
neglects his true love, takes on the
editorship of sensational magazine
and continues to teach-at the League
for Cultural Foundation, whose en-
rollment is derived from Ambitious,
undereducated young Office workers
who craved a conversational mask
for their deficiencies without the
labor of basic correction"
His progress through Vanity Fair
is much accelerated when his pub
fishers, smarting under the adverse
publicity attendant on their best
selling, full-bosomed, plagiarized
best-seller, decide to recoup prestige
by promoting one of Frederick's OBJ
scure works. He soon finds out that
his success is considered an affront
by his new cronies, that he must
atone for his tactlessness in achiev-
ing recognition by regaling his for
merly undemanding roommate with
delectable tales of hard luck, plying
him with choice proofs of human
incompetence. Even Dodo despises
him for daring to make the grade.
Miss Powell has the great virtue
of being as instructive as she is
witty. Mercilessly and often h;la-
riously she punctures every pre-
tense, deftly turning inside out the
sham and hypocrisy and malice
worn by these Would-be artists
whose one true talent is for feeding
on good names. She impales a
number of specimens: The ruthless
ly kittenish publishing house eff
cheney expert a pair Of aging ca
reer girls clinging together in spite
and alcohol, and baronial pub
Usher whose only claim to intel
lectual authority is his inherited
fortune. Even the characters toward
whom she is sympathetic are made
to see their own folly while they are
compromising it in a world where
values are all awry. She makes you
see that it's no place for an artist.
SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE
BY Marion Hargrove. William
Sloane Associates; S3.)
Home and career clash head-on in
Marion Hargrove's pleasant little
novel about two young matrons who
decide that they, too, can have a
radio program. They carve out a
nice little 15-minute spot for them
selves called Airing Our Children" /"
under the sponsorship of a rapacious
tycoon who makes lotion for little
people and wears elevator shoes.
Their husbands, both free-lance
writer's, are included in the deal,
but so, unfortunately, are such dis
rupting elements as engineers, auto
graph hunters and various promo
ters and hangers-on. The program
f1ourishes. but the two good mar
riages wear very thin under the
strain.
1t might all have happened to the
famous young author of See Here,
Private Hargrove," himself, he writes
about the whole business so feel
ingly, especially when he comes to
describe the dazzling, dismal parties
the girls feel called upon to attend
in Difference to their sponsor. His
presentation is beguiling, but the
plot is on the slight side and spin
ming 1t out with verbatim reports of
baby-talk doesn't help matters much.
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
BY Howard Vincent O'Brien.
obbs-MerriH; $3.)
Howard Vincent OBrien, a man
Of eminent good will, wrote a daily
column in the Chicago Daily News
for Is years. His subjects were
varied, his style simple, his philos-
ophy sane and uncluttered. When
he lay dying of cancer, he con-
tinued to set down his observations
as before with no hint of his agony.
That valor and dignity are reflected
IN this collection of his work.
Besides selections from his daily
output, which relate his cross-coun
try travels, his experiences with his
children and his grandchildren Che
has an uncommon understanding of
the young), the volume contains a
fragment of autobiography, which
is distinguished chiefly for his mild
but shrewd analysis of Al Capone
and other noted itchy fingered
Chicagoans.
Howard Vincent OBrien was not
a great writer, but he could set down
with great restraint the deepest
feeling, as in his memorable COL
llnnnS m the death ~ tis o,.l,, .o,.