The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1952-05-14
Key Books
BY A. de T. Cinsrss

(THE BAHAMAS MURDER
CASE by Leslie Ford, murder mys-
terry published by Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons, New York City. 1873 pp.)
Murder stalks the plush world Of
Nassau where women loll on bam-
bo chaise tongues, and golden CO.
coanut palms lean over terrace
pools.
For six years the woman in one
house refuses to know the one next
door. Then suddenly the pink paint
ed fence boards are down. The wo-
man on the other sid looks in with
hooking and malicious triumph
from between the grapefruit and
orange trees that have concealed
the entrance. And from that mo-
man on the other side looks in with
houses are as warm with evil and
mystery.
AT the same time a pretty girl
comes to live in the guest house
of one of the gardens. With back
ground of decayed gentility she
comes from a current secretary's
world where her mothers slips
and stockings are always tangling
with hers in their small urban
apartment. She thinks she is COM
ing to a warm sunny world where
a hooking bird thills in the salmon
bougainvillea, humming birds dart
into coral trumpet flowers and all
is peace.
But like dank poison liquid, the
past of the people in the two hou-
ses moves slowly and intrepidly
into her two weeks vacation. The
figure of her own dead father
looms out of her yesterdays. Mys-
terious voices prowl the gardens
when the dark comes. Into the sun
soaked world of blue skies come
warnings of death and murder.
Leslie Ford. with an unerring Sc
lection of characters, incident and
detail lines up the forces of death.
The reader curls up into a tighter
and tighter ball of suspense until
the last horrible chase and the last
hand to hand tussle with evil. The
author is master of this genre.
| AMERICAN LITERARY CRI-
TICISM 19OO-1950 by Charles /.
Glicksberg, collection of essays on
literary criticism, published by
Hendricks House, Inc, New York
City, 574 pp.)
One of the most interesting of the
twenty seven critical essays in this
volume is the one by Lionel Trill-
ing entitled Art and Neurosis.
A connection between art and
mental illness has been formulated
during recent years. and Mr.. Trill-
ing dissects this popular belief.
Bourgeois philistinism of the nine
teenth century is usually blamed
for the beginnings OF this theory.
Mr.. Trilling admits that this is par
tally true and the Victorian era did
establish the basic virtue of get
ting up at eight, shaving close at
a quarter-paSt, breakfasting at
nine, going TO the City at ten. COM
ing home at half-paSt-five. and din
ing at seven"
| Mr., thrilling points out, however,
that not only people hostile to art
have backed this theory, but many
intensely partisan to it accept the
idea that the artist is mentally i'll.
and 60 on TO make his illness a
condition of his power to tell the
| truth.
MIR. Trilling examines the opin-
ions Of Edmund Wilson and DR..
Saul RoSen1weig. and then goes on
to show the surceS of the prevail
ent idea For one thing there is
! the suggestion that power is gain.
ed by suffering The neuroue per
son 'unconSciouSly SubScribes TO a
! system whereby he gives up some
/ pleasure or power. or infliets pain
on himself IN order TO secure some
other power or some other plea.
sure.
Also there is the belief that a
person is taught by. or proved by
the endurance Of pain Here is the
authors eyalustion Of these two
sources.
The idea Il natural compeaSa-
ton for the sacrifice Of some facul-
~ also says something that can he
nationally defended. one cannot be
ard DO everything and the whole.
hearted absorption in any enter.
/ prise art fc~ example. means that
We must give up other possibilities.
even parts II ourselves And there
IS even a certain validity 10 the
belief that TIE individual has fund
q undstgerenaated energy which
presses ;hc harder upon What cut.
lc'S are aV9Ilab.e 20 II when II has
been deprlt ~ " the normal rur-,.