davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1961-04-16

style is wasted on a shaky plot
featuring private eye Tim
Smith. busy stalking the city
big-wig who wants him dead,
before a reform group moves
in. A carnage-filled finale,
Sparked by Smith, is the last
incredible straw. Perhaps the
author is trapped with the
heel-hero. A change of type
could put him back on top.
MRS. MEEKER'S MONEY,
by Doris Miles Disney
doubleday & Co.; $2.95).
Mrs. Disney never disappoints.
Postal Inspector David Mad
den, looking for mail fraud,
finds murder, too, when a
wealthy widow is victimiZed
by a con man posing as a
detective hunting the grand
son Of the widows old love.
THE DEVIL WAS HAND
SOME, by Paurice Proctor
Harper & Bros; $2.95). An
other first-rate story of In
spector Martineau and his
men on the Granchester
force. Sergt. Devery has a
new partner-a pretty police
woman named RoSamund who
doesn't hesitate to try jiu
jitSu on a man twice her size.
Drug theft. rape and murder
are all tied in with a hand
some man with a perfect alibi.
Evening star., 1961-04-16
PAPER BACKS

MYTHOLOGY. BY Edith
Hamilton. (GroSset's Uni
versal Library: A Little,
Brown g. Co., Edition;
$1.95.) Miss Hamilton's
book on mythology dates
back to 1910 in standard
editions. A cheap paperback
pocket = sized edition was
published some time ago
and now we have a regula-
tion book-sized paperback
with the advantage of large
print. This is the best mod
ern version of the myths.
ANCILLA TO CLASSICAL
READING. BY Moses
Hadas. columbia Uni
versity Press; $1.950 This
is a fascinating, informal,
anecdotal account of how
some Of the worlds great
est classics were written,
published" and preserved
in Greek and Roman SO,
ciety. Human and humor-
GUS sidelights on the
giants who gave us our
first great books. Origi-
nally published in 1854.
PLAINVILLE, U. S. A. BY
James West. columbia,
$1.55D A readable socio-
logical study of main
street" America - re-
printed.
Evening star., 1961-04-16
On the Subject Of Men,
Morals and MARRIAGE

the conversations about the
careful gradationS of necking
and petting, the agonizing
over the surrender of virtue.
Against the World
One trouble with "a Step
Beyond Innocence" is that
Miss johnson asks her reader
to take several important
points on faith. She has
other characters remark fire.
quently on Sally's distinction
without ever conveying it;
she says the Heel is very
funny without proving it. But
the real trouble with it is
pointed out to Sally by an
Italian Catholic girl who is
going off with a man for the
Easter vacation. She points
out to Sally that she is go
ing against a whole world"
whereas if Sally did the same
thing her mother would think
it romantic and her father,
maturing. Sally herself be-
walls the lack of code
against which to measure the
preSsureS of her romantic
adventures and experiments.
So Miss Johnson's novel.
for all its competence and
liveliness is like many others
we have today. All it lacks is
conflict and a point Of view.
Without these things fiction
can be readable, but never
very satisfying.
Evening star., 1961-04-16

now been at sea for three
weeks. 1t may have been a
foolish idea of mine to follow
her, but I never hesitated
when I realized I could watch
her daily for two months,
perhaps more, perhaps less"
Night in a Bad Inn
The 81" Of the story is a
famous ,columnist under SEN
tence of death from a dread
disease. The She" is a
fatally beautiful widow. The
scene is a round-the-world
liner. The commissioning
for one of his tribe-never
tells his love for a creature
who may strike the reader
as the source of some of the
most crashing banalities in
Evening star., 1961-04-16
Reel Thriller

BACHELORS GET LONE
LY, by A. A. Fair by Erie
Stanley Gardner (William
Morrow & Co.; $2.95). Loop
holes in the plot are easily
forgiven in this Sprightly DON
aid Lam-Bertha Cool yarn.
Either Bertha is mellowing or
we are, for we found her less
Objectionable than usual.
Donald could have told her
to think twice before agree
ing to track down an office
spy. but Donald wasn't asked.
When one businessman is
murdered, the respectability
Bertha sought in her diStin-
guiShed client blows up and
Donald is suspected of the
crime. The book aboundS in
fair ladies, including one un-
inhibited stripper who tries
to trap the killer.
B. M.
Evening star., 1961-04-16
A STEP BEYOND INNO,

N - Ia DA OAND AANANO0
CENCE. BY Nora johnson.
atlantic Little Brown;
$4.)
This novel is really more
of a documentary on the sex
life of the American college
girl. 1t has no particular
plot and no sharp resolution.
1t is the first-perSon story of
a Smith girl named Sally
traits, whose mother, a
feather-headed relic of the
Jazz Age, keeps telling her
she will be falling in love all
the time.
After a slow start, Sally
does just that: First with a
Heel, next with a Stuffed
Shirt and finally, with an
Interesting Older Man. But
what Sally finds out from
these absorbing but incon-
elusive encounters is what
she suspected all along-that
she wants to belong to her
self before she belongs to
anyone else.
Through it all, Sally and
her classmates endleSSly dis
cuSs the subject of men, NOR
ais and marriage. Her house
mother upbraids her ulti-
mately for this obsession,
which is, Of course, common.
to the young. Miss johnson
recreates brightly the college
atmosphere, reports candidly
Evening star., 1961-04-16

aboard, never abandon Gerry
Lowell, the THIEF Of Rupert
Croft-Cooke's novel by the
same name Doubleday &
Co.; $2.95). Lowell and Parti-
ger both came from a poor
background where being a
"ScrewSman," or thief, didn't
mean oStraciSm. Lowell, a
personable young family man,
is attracted to crime as an
other man to medicine.
Thief" records the impact of
his career on him and those
who love him. Original and
good.
CALL THE WITNESS, by
Edna Sherry Dodd, Mead &
Co.; $2.95). Clannish town
mems rejection of a young,
outsider lawyers story when
his wife is brutally murdered
leads to his indictment and
absorbing trial scenes. The
book is quick-moving and in
teresting. even though one
ma iOr incOnprlIitu in the nlnt
points to the murderer.
KILLING TIME, by Donald
E. WeStlake random House;
$2.95). Mr.. Westlake hasn't
brought off his current
"shifty but honest" hero as
well as the .cool-cat killer of
his arresting first novel, THE
MercenarieS." His astringent
Evening star., 1961-04-16
How q Small Southern
Town Was 'Victimized'
THE JUDGMENT. BY Ton

Wicker. (Sloane: $3.75O
The calm. traditional ways
of a small Southern town are
shattered, in this novel, by
the arrival of a stranger who.
in the guiSe of a handsome
youth. symbolizes evil and
violence.
The town, Chesterfield, in
the Piedmont country, is
startled first by the discovery
that an old man, a recluse,
was murdered the night be-
fore, presumably for what he
had in the cash drawer of
his country store. The old
man was despised because,
years before, he had killed
his wife and escaped with a
few years in q mental inSti-
tuition. No native ever went
into his store.
We know from the first
that the mysterious stranger,
Luke Freeman, killed the old
Storekeeper. Luke next ap-
years at a juke-box resort
frequented by teen ayers.
The girls practically swoon
over him, and the boys nat
urally resent him. Luke holds
the boys at bay with O
Evening star., 1961-04-16

becomes a creative entity in
it's own right. A man will
forget just what Mark Van
Doren wrote about the poetry
of Dryden in 1920, exactly
how F. o. MatthieSSen made
Thoreau, Emerson, Haw-
thorne and Melville come
alive in his great work,
American Renaissance" and
precisely what Joyce says of
Hamlet in Ulysses" but he
will always remember the
aroma of these three books,
and they will always be a
force in his awareness of life.
Perhaps Mr.. Steiner'S book
will be one of their number.
All men, says Mr.. Steiner,
are aware of tragedy in life,
but tragedy as a form Of
drama is far from universal.
Oriental art knows violence,
grief, and the stroke Of nat
ural or contrived disaster.
but that representation
Of personal suffering and
heroism which we call tragic
drama is distinctive of the
western tradition" The Ju-
daic sense of the world is not
tragic: it is based rather on
justice. The Book of Job is
not tragedy, for God COM
pensates his servant fairly.
"Marxism is enthusiastically
Jewish in its insistence on
justice and reason" observes
Mr.. Steiner, "and Marx re-
pudiated the entire concept
of tragedy. Necessity he
declared, lis blind only in so
far as it is not understood
Tragic drama arises out of
precisely the contrary aSser-
ton; necessity is blind and
mans encounter with it shall
rob him Of his eyes, whether
1t be in ThebeS or in GAIA"
In England tragedy on the
stage was struck q blow from
which it never recovered by
the closing of the theaters in
l640. during the Civil War.
Elizabethean and Jacobean
audiences had Is theaters
to choose from; when the
theaters were reopened in the
16S0s, they were only three
Evening star., 1961-04-16

current fiction. Instead he
decides his love loves an
other, a bluff, stupid Col.
Blimp. There is a welter of
misunderstanding, cross
purposes, false starts and
weary musings on the part of
the journalist.
1t is, I gather, a race be-
tween love and death, but
the element Of suspense is
not present. When the winner
is announced, the reader
will wonder exactly what
Miss Sackville-West had in
mind beyond proving the
truth of the saying by Saint
Teresa of Avila (of whom
she once wrote a brilliant
biography that life is a
night spent in a bad inn"
Evening star., 1961-04-16

amDltlouS SClrrlng, man is
tracked across faceless eras
to supply perspective and in
sight for one bold purpose:
To find out how he may
change to avoid his fate.
This is Mr.. Mumford's con-
cern-the simple framework
for this far-ranging, chal-
lenging work.
In the process of bringing
his vast scholarship and re-
Elective power to bear on
what he views as mans in
ertia over reSurgently uneasy
ages, Mr.. Mumford raises
many questions and suggests
a few answers, both about
the fate of the city and the
fate of man.
But there are few conven-
tional bits and pieces of city
planning and city design to
bring the reader down to
earth, or to elbow him away
from the pasSionately re-
affirmed central theme that
man must alter-and that
there is still hope that he
will.
If the 657 pages of this
book belabor the fate of man
unduly-or seem occasionally
to cant a bit too far towards
pessimism - Mr.. Mumford
may be forgiven. For, aside
from his words-and those
of a few others-who is left
with hope high enough to
express concern? Who but
an optimist in disguise would
dare bother at all?
Survival of the Cities
To weld the theme and the
title, The City in History"
treats of the urban place as
if it were synonymous with
civilization, itself, and not
alone its product. Mr.. Num-
ford blames the city person.
ally for the faults of man for,
in his view, the city is mans
own embodiment.
Only as cities change from
their past forms and func-
tions can man avoid nuclear
humiliation. Only as man
turns away from his past can
cities survive. Have faith in
the genius of cities to change,
he seems to be saying. and
you will gain new confidence
in the survival of mankind it
self. For the city, as such.
has become part of the mind
and memory of man, and is
thus an instrument central
to his fate.
In a brief and diverting in
Evening star., 1961-04-16
Some Matters of Style
In the Graves Matter
THE READER OVER YOTTR

THE READER OVER YOUR
SHOULDER. BY Robert
Graves and Alan Hodge. (The
Macmillan Co.; $2.25D
Nobody can read quite as
fast as Robert Graves writes,
so why huff and puff in a
futile race? Rather let Mr..
Graves continue in his gar
gantuan assignment Of Gre
ating Singlehanded a national
literature of Mallorca, and
pause to SAVIOUR one of his
earlier books-"The Reader
Over Your Shoulder" written
in 1943 in collaboration with
Alan Hodge. 1t is now re-
issued as q paperback by
Macmillan.
Early in the book, the au-
thors declare that opinions
attributed to I'VE" are held
by both Mr.. Graves and Mr..
Hodge, so, since I'VE" shows
no signs Of schizophrenia, I
shall create a Mr.. Graves
Hodge to help the fluidity of
this notice.
Graves Hodge starts what
he calls his handbook" with
an admirable account of the
salient qualities of the Eng
iSh language as compared
with other modern languages,
continues with a considera-
ton Of the confused state of
English prose today, and
winds up the first half Of his
book with a highly personal
appraisal of the masters of
English prose from Chaucer
and Maundeville to e. e. cum
mings. His half-page Wig
nettes of the best creators
of English style are remark
ably sharp, sometimes con-
tentiouS. To. the familiar list
of names I thank him for
adding one hitherto unknown
to me - Harriette Wilson,
whose memoirs were pub
hshed. in 1925. Who could
resist a book which yields
such a quotation: 1T was at
that critical period of his
1.-THE Duke Of Argyle'sl life,
when his whole and sole pos
sessions appeared to consist
in three dozen of ragged lawn
shirts, with embroidered COL
lars, we'll fringed in his serv-
ice; threadbare suit of snuff
colour, a little old hat with
very little binding left, an
old horse, an old groom, an
old carriage and an old cha
teau. 1t was to console him
self for all this antiquity, 1
suppose, that he fixed upon so
very young a mistress as my
self. :" I am glad to be
able to report that these
memoirs were reprinted in
1855.
The marrow Of Graves
Hodges book, however, Is in
its second half. Here are codi-
fled rs categories Of faults
that sin against clear state
ment, and 16 shortcomings
in the "graceS or decencieS"
Of prose. Then passages from
81 prose works, written be-
tween 1914 and 1941 are min
utely dissected to see to what
extent they defy the Graves
Hodge caveat. Finally, the
passages are rewritten &C
cording to the critics hearts
desire.
Now Graves-Hodge is far
from a pontifical pedant. He
is we'll aware that good prose
is not written to rule, that to
Evening star., 1961-04-16
Warfare in
Mountains
OF Tibet
BAYONETs TO LHASA. 2


Peter Fleming. (Harper;
$4.95.)
This may be the book for
the Civil War buff who needs
a change. For here is the
story of a military campaign
concerning not the very life
of our own Nation but an in
consequential facet of a polit-
ical struggle between Russia
and England. 1t involves
no heart-rending blood
letting on our own soil but
limited and sometimes
pathetically inept warfare in
the mountains Of Tibet. 1t
pits not brother against
brother but British, Gurkha
and Sikh soldiers against
primitive, poorly armed
Tibetan hordes.
The British set out for
Lhasa, Tibet's forbidden
CITY," in 1904 to counter a
supposed Russian infiltra-
ton. The invaders soldier
diplomat leader, Col. Francis
Younghusband, accomplished
his mission - a treaty with
the TibetanS-deSpite harasS-
ment from an unenthusiaStic
government back home, bit
ter cold and attitudes such as
no troops ever faced before
or since, and a running feud
with the commander of his
military escort.
This unimportant and
sometimes ludicrous military
adventure might not seem an
engrossing subject. But in
the hands of Mr.. Fleming,
best known here for his de-
lightful Brazilian Adven-
ture" and The Siege of
Peking" Cthe story of the
Boxer rebellionD. it is just
that. 1t is authentic, we'll
rese earch ed history and
thanks to Mr.. Fleming's tai
ent and skill. fine escape lit
erature with a military flavor.
CHARLES B. SEIB.
Evening star., 1961-04-16

in number. Managers, hav-
ing to serve much larger and
more heterogeneous audi
ences, had to cater to a COM
mon denominator of interest
far below a taste for tragedy.
Later, Romanticism was alien
to tragedy, for tragedy is i'm
personal and fated, while
the essence of Romanticism
is an awareneSs of the self.
Mr.. Steiner quotes Heine with
perfect appositeneSs: Both
my anguish and my out
rage have I poured into my
art"
Mr.. Steiner shows how vir-
tually all English poets after
Shakespeare revered the
tragic art and attempted it.
Most of the plays are COM
plete failures-those by
Wordsworth. Lamb, Keats,
and many other poets Of the
first rank are of little value,
and although Shelley's
"Cenci" is a great play, it
is for the closet rather than
for the stage. But the COM
mon characteristic of all
these plays, good and bad, is
imitation of Shakespeare.
The Romantic poets we're
ordinarily original, even ICON
oclastic, but through drawn
to tragedy, they could only
initiate it.
Mr.. Steiner's discussion of
Racine, the last and perhaps
greatest of all the tragic
dramatiSts, is the most SEN
Sitive and memorable sec
ton Of his book. A consid-
Grafton of topical interest to
WaShingtonians is why,
although few tragedies were
written in France after
Racine, has classic tragedy
remained a central and DOM
inant force in French cultural
life? Has the French aSSo-
citation with the spirit of
tragedy kept alive a national
theater devoted to the per-
formance Of tragedy, or has
the tragic theater by it's ex-
istence perpetuated it's audi
ence?
Evening star., 1961-04-16

hold a piece of writing up
against oSsified criteria is
the work Of a pathetic gram
marian. No rules" for good
writing have the force of any
law behind them. A writer is
absolutely on his own-if, like
Humpty-Dumpty, he is the
master Of his words, he can
use them in any way he likes;
if not, no rules, no models,
nothing can do him any good
at all.
But Graves-Hodge feels
that, even among men of
education and literary emf
nence, writer's frequently
seem not to know, not to be
aware Of, precisely what they
are saying. Literary eccen-
trlcitieS are one thing,
whether a man writes for the
world or for himself alone is
not a subject for criticism,
but Graves-Hodges finds it
intolerable to come across
evidence that a writer is de-
ceiving himself. Therefore, in
and effort to divorce writing
from style, matter from rhet-
oric, to expose the bare
bones of writing, Graves
Hodge has evolved a list of
faults many Of which can be
committed to good effect, if
they are not committed un-
consciously. He certainly
does not believe, for example,
that the adjective perfect"
must never be used with any
trace Of comparison. There
are too many excellent ex-
amples of more perfect
perfect enow," and "very
perfect" to contradict the
validity of the rule, but
a man must be aware of the
basic meaning Of "perfect"-
then he can do what he
wants with it.
Among the faults in
GraveS-Hodge's list are the
inappropriate word, the am
biguous word, the self-evi-
dent statement, the untitled
promise, irrelevancy, change
Of standpoint, mispunctua-
ton, the mismating Of meta
phors, and the miSmating of
styles. Among the writers
pulverized and remolded are:
T. S. Eliot, Hemingway,
Aldous and Julian Huxley,
Day Lewis. an editor of the
oxford English Dictionary,
Ezra Pound, Herbert Read,
Bertrand Russell, Bernard
Shaw, and Alfred North
Whitehead. Graves-Hodge's
fault-finding is purposely
hair-splitting and lint-pick-
ing, but it is never obtuse nor
bad-tempered. His recon-
structions are in every case
greatly superior to the origi-
nal; II the reader is just a
bit delighted by the malice of
seeing the mighty fallen, he
is also impressed by the JUS
tice Of the analysis, and
amazed at the ability of
Graves-Hodge to exemplify
his point in his rewriting.
Their length makes it i'm
possible in a notice of this
kind to cite passages In er-
tense, and the inter-relation
Of the criticism makes ex-
cerpts Of little interest. Con-
trary to common custom, I
will not follow the statement
that this defies quotation"
by quoting. I can assure any
Evening star., 1961-04-16

terlude, Mr.. Mumford some
what mischievously warns
over some of his earlier opin-
ions on L'Enfant's design for
Washington. by providing
for everything" he says,
the French officer lost even
the little he might have
achieved"
Even less we'll supported Is
his statement that George
Washington had more re-
spect for his fellow land
owner, Daniel Carroll, the
greatest landlord in the Dis
trict, than he had for the in
tegrity of L'Enfant'S plan"
A Complex Issue
The letters of Washington,
jefferson and L'Enfant clear
ly show the issue was not as
simple as that.
AS the French Ambassador,
Jules Jusserand, pointed out
As years ago. long after
LEnfant had been restored
to honor-the French Off
GERS tendency to see things
'en grand, his unyielding dis
position, his increasing and
almost morbid fear of Specu-
lators, wrecked more than one
of his undertakings"
There were two sides to
L'Enfant'S dismissal, as the
records abundantly prove and
as the author of this book
if he reads them in full
would doubtleSsly agree.
But all this is past-and it
is to the future that Mr..
Mumford's words have most
meaning.
The task of the coming
city. says Mr.. Mumford, is
Ito put the highest concerns
of man at the center of all his
activities; to unite the scat
tered fragments of the human
personality 80.
The entire planet is be-
coming a village and, as a
result, the smallest neighbor-
hood or precinct must be
planned as a working model
of the larger world"
This is Lewis Mumford's
goth book in a writing career
spanning 40 years. Mature
and eloquent, it's rush Of
words can be considered q
final plea for man to master
himself, create order in his
world, and restore meaning
to his life.
ROBERT ]. LEWIS.
Evening star., 1961-04-16
Other Books of the Week in Brief

$3.50 A delightful little
collection of the entertain
ing, often ennobling words
of Byron. The freshness
of the prose quotations will
surprise many, from light
cynicism e.. on a pin
nacle we are most suscep-
tible of giddinesS"O to the
deeply felt cI am always
most religious upon a SUM-
shiny day; as if there were
some association between
an internal approach to
greater light and purity,
and the kinder Of this dark
lanthorn of our external
eXistence"D.
YOU AND YOUR HOR-
MONIES. BY Max R. Rubin
stein, MD. (Twayne: $4D
LADIES IN THE ROUND.
By Ann Goodrich. (Abel-
Schuman; $2.50) A comic
chronicle of the perils and
joys of losing weight at a
milk farm.
S TRATE EGIC INTELLI-
GENCE AND THE SHAPE
OF TOMORROW. BY Will
liam M. McGovern. (Reg-
merry; $4.)
THE KOHLER STRIKE. BY
Sylvester Petro. (Regnery;
So The story of one of the
longest and most violent
labor disputes on record.
FROM ST. LOUIS TO SUIT
TER'S FORT, 1856. By,
Heinrich Lienhard. (Uni-
versity Of Oklahoma; $685.
Crossing the plains before
the gold rush.
TIDEWATER SPRING. BY
Evening star., 1961-04-16

switch-blade until the con-
ScientiouS young sheriff ar
rives. Luke is arreSte d,
charged with numbering the
old man. He wiggles out of
this. but the town is not
through with him.
We have, in the cast of
characters. the common
Evening star., 1961-04-16
Something Is Amiss
In the Novelist Ranks
By MARY McGRORY
Star Staff Writer

NO SIGNPOSTS IN THE SEA. BY v. sackvlle- West.
Doubleday; $250)
What has happened to English lady novests this sea-
son? Something is amiSS at the writing tables the tight
little isle Jon Golden wrote story about triangle
posed of man, woman and dog. Now v. Sack
vile West usually distinguished reliable con-
tributor to the bookStaS with ugubrious story
moribund journalist which reads like parody of Victorian
novel,
The opening paragraph gives you the idea: I'VE have
Evening star., 1961-04-16
LIFE AND LOVE
IN THE SUBURBS
LOVE AND THE TWEEN
TIETH VOLUNTEERS.

LOVE AND THE TWEN-
TIETH VOLUNTEERS.
BY Charles P. Breen.
doubleday & Co., $685.
The author of this light
weight novel about subur-
ban life deserves some
praise for introducing the
seasons most ingenious
femme fatale, a cleaning,
bright-red fire engine, but
the giddy story rarely pro-
duceS the kind of visual
comic pictures needed to
match its daffy inspiration.
There's nothing wrong
with the David Niven COR
Cary Grant, approach to
the problem of modern
life, but Mr.. BreenS de-
tailed report of the revolu-
ton wrought in the life of
six commuters by the
towns new fire engine,
alass is more appalling
than appealing.
BERNIE HARRISON