The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1953-01-02
Key Books
by A. de T. Gingras

pages.)
Evelyn Waugh has also made his
contribution to English novels
which have found their inspiration
in World War II.
He has moved one of the fami-
liar upper class Catholic English
men of his earlier novels into
Britain at war. Guy Crouchback,
the hero, is Sc years old. A man
with an income, he has been liv-
ing in Italy for most of the s
years prior to his enlistment.
Crouchback is given commits
sion in the Halberdiers, and the
action of the novel follows his ex-
periences with the brigade, as it
advances through the training per-
iod in England to the battle front.
Because they are older than most
of the officers in training, he and
another trainee named Apthorpe,
are called uncleS. The author uses
Apthorpe and Brigadier Richie
Hoo as the other principal figures
in the story.
AS usual, irony is the FREEDOM
mating tone of the book, and the
impetus for the authors selection
of situations. But the irony is soft
pedaled, and sometimes very in
direct. 1t never reaches the sharp
mad satire of the Loved One"
Crouchback is his identification
with the Halberdiers, for the first
time feels himself as belonging to
his country and having a place
among his fellowmen. Waugh COM
pares the experience with a honey
moon.
1t is always question on finish
ing one of Mr.. Waugh's well
thought out, carefully worded
novels, as to whether he has con-
tempt or sympathy for the tradi-
tion-bound unoccupied Catholic
English aristocrat. And also the
reader is never sure whether Ca
tholiciSm is commended or blam-
ed for the situation in which these
EngliShmen find themselves.
Certainly they are shown out of
tune with the world in which they
live, they are men lonely and I'M
able to find satisfaction in mans
usual experiences and triumphS,
whether they be physical or arts
tic. Does Mr.. Waugh consider this
the rightful place for man, whose
only true happiness is purported-
ly in world beyond death where
he is united with his God? Or is he
wondering about the Soundess of
a system or & philosophy which
produces this type of man? The
love of a woman and a good job
seem on the surface to be awfully
sound and simple human solutions
for the problems which confront
most of them.
(SHORT STORIES by Frank KAT
ka, translated from the German
by Villa and Edwin Muir, publish
ed by Modern Library, New York
City, 328 pages.)
In these strange Daliesque stor-
les OF Frank Kafka, God has died.
A numb resignation unlighted by
any surprises of hope or grace pre-
vail in the selections. AS Philip
Rahv indicates in his introduction,
Kafka is obsessed with an inor-
dinate sense of inadequacy, failure,
and sinfulness a sinfulness cor
responding to nothing he had
actually done or left undone, but
lodged in the innermost recesses
of his being.
In the ''Metamorphosis," the
clerk Gregor SamSa, awakens one
morning to fi,Id himself changed
into a gigantic insect. Most critics
or scholars of the German writer's
works say the insect was a cock
roach. On her first reading of the
story several years ago, this re-
viewer somehow thought the in
sect was a grasshopper. This may
or may not have been her sub
conscious insisting that if the in
dignity of becoming an insect must
be thrust upon a human being,
let it be at least jolly fellow who
knows the beauty Of summer mea-
dows and sun on daisies.
But upon a perusal Of all the
stories in this book at one sitting,
she has no further illusions about
the insect Gregor Samas became.
He was a cockroach and Mr.. KAT
ka intended him to be just that.
The horrible succession of days
which follow in the life Of the poor
fellow as he lives in his own filth,
tries to balance himself on his silly
little legs, and eats out of pans
on the floor. is a study in ignominy.
And at the same time, the insects
remaining human intelligence
makes him see in anguish what
happens TO the sister and parents
he loves as . result of his mis-
fortune.
And the other stories are as
hopeleSsly and brilliantly dismal.
In Penal Colony a machine
needles into a criminals back. a
phrase describing his offenSe.