The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1951-12-20
Key Books
BY a. de T. GINGRAs


about half this volume is another
version of the eternal triangle. A
soldier wounded during World War
II comes into the home of an Eng
fish country draper to recuperate,
and falls in love with his wife, Lou
Use,
The draper is a round blurb of a
fellow with trembling cheeks and
I full blue eyes. The wife'S charact-
erization suggests in motivation.
/ Fiaubert's Madame Bovary The
/ lady has been reading IOmances.
Husband William and her current
milieu do not in any way simulate
the lush printed version of love.
The lean emotionally starved
young soldier comes much closer.
Passion threads its way through
eggcaked breakfast dishes. over
piles Of unwashed sheets. and
through cords of wood brought in
from the yard.
While authoresS Barker offers
little that is new inplat in her tale
and IFS inevitable conclusion, she
does some very nice writing One
scene in which the wife goes with
the young soldier TO a rOadhouSe
and dances with him for the first
and only time is excellent in its
penetration into the emotions and
minds of the two characters.
There is little of the cliche in
Miss Barker's writing. She speaks
of continents of cloud crossing the
sun, of clock Ginning the hour
and then the silence flocking back
and singing in the ears. An intro
ductory description OF the wife,
reads:
a Luise had never been com.
plieated. Adolescence made her
solid, young womanhOod, dreamy.
Marriage with Edward had not
made her anything at all. She liked !
TO imagine herself with a string of
overs. dreaming the sale drea,..
without impotence or undue pas
sion year after year as she tied
up the suet pudding and darned
Edwards underpants. The dream
was her standby. Wet or lonely
days she dipped into il as into
tin of sweets. She did not dwell
on the physical side of her affairs;
that was partly from innocence and
partly from caution; even in
thought one could plunge too deep.
An ardent duke might sip up the
drops of wine from her bare Shout
ders, but that was on the verge OF
abandonment She had read it in a
book, il was too richly sinful tol
forget
of the ten short stories which
make up the remainder of the book
1.-THE Freak" is one of the finest
this reviewer has ever read. II has
all the agony of rejected first
love. and yet the delightful and
very truthful ending leaves the
reader laughing with all humanity
at its absurdities. Most of the other
stories are well worth reading.
JUNIOR SELECTIONS.
(THE SQIRREL THAT REMEM.
BERED, written and illustrated by
Dana Saintsbury, fiction for child
rem 5 to 10, published by Viking
Press, GA pages.)
The gray park squirrel running
along curve of branch in the win
ter sunlight, nibbling a peanut in
the city square. sitting in the new
bud lace of tree with his tail
fluffed. all of us have known him. /
This little book is the story of
squirrels the Nuteracker family
of Central Park, near the Zoo, in
New York City. Grandma Nut.
cracker who came from England
as a squirrel-deb, is the heroine.
The hero is the late Grandpa Nut
cracker.
And TO Sub-plot the squirrel ro-
nance of Grandma and Grandpa
Nutcracker, a human hero and
heroine are introduced. The lady is
an art student from England who
paints the squirrels and pigeons in
the park, and the man an Ameri-
can who loves her very much and
wants her to remain in New York
and marry him.
(THE HOUSEWIFE by Runner
Golden. illustrated by william Pc
ne du Bots, fiction for children 5
to 10, published by Viking Press,
New York City, 4s pages.)
This is the tale of friendship be-
tween q house mouse with dream
in her eye and a turtle dove who is
unhappy because he is Gagged. The
housewife goes about her duties
collecting crumbs of food for
her husband and herself. and in the
midnight playing with other mice
on the floor.
And when she looks out the win
dow and sees apple blossoms and
biuebellS and autumn leaves and
snow, her husband says. II think
about cheese. Why don't you think
about cheese"
The housewife and the Gagged
turtle dove become friends. He tells
her OF dew ON the grass. and flying
over the fields, of roofs and tops
of trees and wind blowing on corn
fields.