PAGE SrX THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 1935 THE BOOK PAGE Van Doren's 'The Transients' Blends Fantasy With Realism MDWrites Of Inconceivably Naive George Brush.. - HEAVEN'S MY DESTINATION. A Few Very Short Glimpses At I I a { THE TRANSIENTS course, an old theme, but there is aI By Mark Van Doren. Morrow. $2.50. freshness and strangeness about Mr.# Van Doren's people that a reader will By DR. ARNO L. BADER find delightful. The whole book is aI Of The English Department o'urious and romantic-realistic idyll. In this novel Mr. Van Doren, who What Mr. Van Doren means by his has been known in the past as poet,, I:tcry is another thing. There is a con- -holar, and anthologist, makes his tant invitation to the reader to al- ;Ir t venture into the field of prose legorize', to set up symbols, to con- -.ion. The result is an unusual book, tri ct a philosophy, a criticism of life, od enough to stand out from the from the narrative and from the talk "'neral run of fiction of the day, yet of John Bole. This would not causeI zct a really first rate novel. The story ithe reader discomfort were it appar- is one of fantasy and realism, with! nt that fantasy alone was intended. metaphysical overtones. But .it seems clear that some definite John Bole and Margaret Shade, meaning supposedly underlies the beings from another, unspecified I whole -- the book is a comment on, world, find themselves in Connecti- I or interpretation of, life - and thisl cut. In John's words, "A man found I meaning is nebulous.j himself suddenly in a world which! The novel, as fantasy, is unusual was strange to him, though he had I .n that it is fantasy told with such often dreamed of it. Al.l of its ways 'a marked air of realism. Both itsI were absolutely strange." '*fiey meet, strength and its weakness are derived travel together for a time, and then, I frcm this fact. There is a peculiar oeca use John Bole wishes to return :harm gained by the mixture of im- to his own world at a. stated time and mortal beings and the petty realities Margaret wishes to become a mortal, of this world, but there is also the he escapes from her by the simple matter of credibility: John and Mar- cevice of having himself imprisoned aret ale not quite convincing, either; as a hitch-hiker. A love affair with I as real persons who eat, sl-p, walk, the jailer's daughter develops. Mean- 1:alk, and make love, or as spirits from while Margaret is found walking the another world. Imagination in a high roads by Stephen, the scion of a I degree is necessary to such a tale; it is walthy family, and here again love of noticeable that Mr. Van Doren is most z.rtal for immortal enters the story. ctonvincing when dealing with the tuI h John and Margaret abandon contrasts between mortal and immor- their worldly lovers, however, and live tal. Margaret and Stephen, John and to ether in a ruined house in a wood Madge the jailer's daughter -here until the time comes when they must fantasy and realism go well together. n:ake the decision either to return to The last section - the idyllic worldly th 1ir own world or to remain and live life of Margaret and John, both im- a, mortals. John elects to return, mortals - is the weakest. The au- .id Margaret follows regretfully - thor's imagination has not been equal whether to a future reuniting is not to the task. One wonders, however, made clear. whether W. H. Hudson could have The synopsis is banal, but the ac- sustained his realistic fantasy if he tual novel is not. The visitation of had created for Rime a mate of the cther-world beings to this earth is, of same bird-like race. I ,{ By Thornton Wilder. Harpers. $2.50 By PROF. EARL L. RIG+GS j Of The English Department. As in The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Thornton Wilder writes Heaven's My Destination in a style so simple and so direct as to disarm criticism. Mr. Wilder apparently has no profound mEsage to deliver, no new theory to piopose, no sweeping indictment ofc civilization to suggest. His new novel,' to be sure, deals with problems of- current interest, but all he seems to ask is balance, sanity, and judgment in human conduct. But let us be more specific. The hero, George Marvin Brush, a a successful salesman for the Caulkins Educational Press. He has become (oi was born, one suspects) excessively introspective. Morbidly sensitive about an affair with a farm girl, he sets out to live a life com- patible with a literal reading cf the New Testament and the philosophy of Gandhi. Thus he is a pacifist, save on one memorable occasion when he: defends the honor of an elderly spin- ster; he is committed to voluntary poverty; and he considers his natural abilities (for he is endowed not only with rare physical strength but with a remarkable singing voice as well) at the service of humanity. His one ambition is to found an American! home and be the father of six chil- dren. He is narrow-minded, too. He dismisses scientific theory with child- like (or childish) simplicity, and he considers smoking and drinking as evidences of moral corruption. He is the graduate of an obscure Baptist1 college somewhere in South Dakota,t yet even the most cynical professor can hardly imagine any college grad-i uate quite so unsophisticated andt naive as Thornton Wilder presents George Brush as being. In fact, Mr. Wilder presents his hero as inconceiv-l ably naive. George Brush is trickedI into visiting a house of prostitutionl and imagines the girls to be daugh-t ters and wards of the woman int Some Recently Published Books FICTION which Mr. Helton condemns political planning and "future-chasing," and THE WORLD WENT MAD. By advocates living today for today. In- John Brophy. Macmillan. $2.50. A ; cidentally he attacks the practice of novel dealing with the psychological I issuing long-term bonds against an effect of the World War on persons income of the future. in England, France, Palestine, Egypt, INTOLERANCE. By Winfred Er- and the United States. nest Garrison. Round Table Press. MEMORY OF LOVE. By Bessie $2.50. Traces the history of intol- Breuer. Simon & Schuster. $2. The erance from the beginning of reli- exciting, romantic story of a summer's! gious worship and blames it on fear. love affair told from the point-of- An informative and interesting book view of the man involved; written on a timely or timeless subject. in the first person. JOSHUA TODD. By Fulton Our- sler. Farrar & Rinehart. $2.50. Local Best Sellers About a small town newspaperman who rises to a position of pre-emin- ence from relative obscurity. He is HEAVEN'S MY DESTINATION. given to idealizing women and is By Thornton Wilder. Harpers. dominated by them. Many of the: $2.50. characters are good. WHILE ROME BURNS. By Alex- DESTINY'S MAN. By T. F. Tweed. ander Woollcott. Viking. $2.75. Farrar & Rinehart. $2.50. The au- SO RED THE ROSE. By Stark thor of Gabriel Over The White Young. Scribner's. $2.50. House, writes another equally as- WINE FROM THESE GRAPES. By tounding story of international poli- Edna St. Vincent Millay. Harp- tics of the near future. ers. $2.00. SOUNDING HARBORS. By Elea- eORTY $2.00. nor Mercein Kelly. Harpers. $2.50. A B FORTY DAYS OF MUSA DAGH. collection of six romantic short stories By Franz Werfel. Viking. $3.00. laid in Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian GOOD-BYE MR. CHIPS. By coast of Jugoslavia, and Corfu, on the James Hilton. Little, Brown. island of the same name. $1.25. MELISSA STARKE. By Annulet THROUGH SPACE AND TIME. Andrews. Dutton. $2.50. The romantic By Sir James Jeans. Macmillan. story of a girl who overcomes hell and $3.00. high water to gain happiness. The HALF A MILE DOWN. By Wil- scene is the Georgia immediately fol- lam Beebe. Harcourt, Brace. $5. lowing the Civil War. LOVE'S HAZARD. By Concordia Merril. Doubleday, Doran. $2. More , ~ romance. This time the story is about ---- ==--- -- - Lynn Maynard, who has her troubles I THE in London, and, of course, finds hap- Colonial Book Shop pines.BokS p NO-FCs.NOld and New Books NON-FICTION 303 North Division Street SOLD OUT TO THE FUTURE. By Telephone 8876 Roy Helton. Harpers. $2.50. In =-__ __ -Courtesy The Detroit News. THORNTON WILDER charge: even when his friends seekf to disillusion him, he is unwilling to believe them. What after all does the novel mean? Its hero is a caricature, and the book may therefore, be pure foolishness. As such, it is rollicking good fun, with a distant flavor of Don Quixote. But this is unlike Mr. Wilder. Apparently we are to lay down Heaven's My Destination convinced' that he lives life most fully who main- tains always a balanced perspective. Thus an overwhelming attention to business dwarfs the cultural outlook; downright sensuality, as well as re- ligious fanaticism, destroys the hu- man spirit. If this is Mr. Wilder's in- tention, then the novel is a failure. For the adventures of a simple-heart- ed youth, who is as ridiculous and unreal as the situations in which he is placed, do not make good material for satire. No, even Heaven's My Des- tination will not convert us to hu- manism. I - --~----- --- - - -- ____ The Most Complete LENDING LIBRARY in Ann Arbor This Week's Feature is THORNTON WILDER'S "Heaven's My Destination" III The style of the novel varies some- what, from plain unadorned state- ment to a kind of poetic prose. Yet it is by no means a "poet's novel." The structure is admirable. If there is any marked weakness in the book, it is to be found in the minor characters, some of which are mere cut-out fig- ures. j"On the whole, The Transients is a good first novel of an unusual sort. By its very nature it will never have a wide appeal, yet it should find a fairly large group of readers to whom fantasy, good prose, and an invita- tion to think offer inducements to read. BOOKS FOR CHILDREN ! More and better books for Mich- igan children," is the motto of the Library Extension Service in its pro- gram of making the small towns and rural sections of the state more book' conscious. This work, which is made possible by funds supplied by the Children's Fund of Michigan, is carried on by keeping a number of sets of selected children boobs circulating about the towns of the state with populations of less than 2,000. Mostly About Books And Their Authors Ci' The Screen 7 Reviewed in today's Book Section W ITHAMS Corner S. Univ. and Forest Phone 2-1005 After passing through the hands of -- six different publishers in the course of about eight years, the series of fac- simile reproductions known as the AT THE MAJESTIC English Replicas has been definitelyv taken over by a seventh - the Fac- THE LITTLE simile Text Society, whose publica- MINISTER" tion work is done by Columbia Uni- A Pandro S. Berman production, versity Press, New York City. ' starring Katherine Hepburn and John The Society has already made avail- Beal, featuring Alan Hale, Beryl Mercer, able eight of these volumes and this Donald Crisp, Andy Clyde, Mary Gor- month is republishing seven more. j dcn, Frank Conroy, and Reginald Den- These are: Pilgrim's Progress, by John ny. Directed by Richard Wallace. Bunyan; Poetical Sketches, by John "The Little Minister" needs little Blake; Minor Poems and Areopagitica, or no introduction to Ann Arbor by John Milton; The First and Second Anniversaries, by JohnDonne; Poems,' movie-goers, having already become S1817, by JohnKeats, and TheDeserted as famous as its star as one of her Villa, byolivKertsGoldmTh. Dsete Mmost succe;Cssful vehicles. Besides Village, by Oliver Goldsmith. being widely heralded as such, there The first Lothrop book scheduled is a great deal more to be found in for 1935 is The Fun of Having Chil- this quaint, unusual, sometimes! dren by Katharine Seabury to be pub- whimsical Scotch story, the original lished Jan. 25. In private life the au- of which is from the pen of J. M. thor is Mrs. William Marston Sea- Barrie. bury of New York, wife of a well- Katherine Hepburn may be the - known New York lawyer and sister- primary reason why thousands storm in-law of Judge Samuel Seabury the box offices of the nation to see of Jimmy Walker investigation fame. "The Little Minister," but her pres- ence is by no means its sole attrib- Max Eastman is translating Leon ute. There is John Beal, a new- Trotzky's life of Lenin, which will comer, the excellence of whose per- soon be published by Doubleday, formance elevates the picture from t i 4 I i 7 7 f I I d i t I ~~~~1 ) r w +.. r a. a I coated that it is overlooked almost en- tirely. This has been ably commented on by Andre Sennwald in the New York Times, who says, "Although sev- eral of the neo-purist exhibits, notably 'Anne of Green Gables" and "The Little Minister," where photographed with extraordinary skill, they repre- sent to discerning critics a ruinous as- sault upon the beginnings of an adult cinema." However, "The Little Min- ister" should not suffer materially from the derogatory comments of these "discerning critics," because it is decisively superior to the common run of movie trash, -C.B.C. FebruaryBooks FICTION MARIANNE IN INDIA. By Lion Feuchtwanger. Viking. WILD PASTURES. By Rex Beach. Farrar & Rinehart. THE GUESTS ARRIVE. By Cecil Roberts. Appleton-Century. NON-FICTION LEOPOLD THE UNLOVED. By Ludwig Bauer. Little, Brown. THE ILLUSION OF IMMORTAL- ITY. Corliss Lamont. Putnam's. MIME.OGRAPH AD TYPEWRITE R SUPPLI ES Our stock is complete - We can supply any- thing from a TYPEWRITER RIBBON to an A. B. Dick Co. MIMEOGRAPHING MA- CHINE with prices guaranteed. Bring us your order for Mimeograph Paper, Stencil Sheets, Copy Sheets, etc., etc. EVERYTHING FOR THE OFFICE at WA/-IR'S BOOKSTORES A 0 -M k:l Typewriters New L. C. Smith and Corona, Silent, Remington, Noiseless, Underwood, Royal portables. Priced at $24.50 and up. Reconditioned typewriters of all Doran. makes bought, sold, rented, exchanged, cleaned and repaired. Convenient payments may be arranged. Printing Engraving 0. D.MORRILL Typewriting Mimeographing Sales of Fdward N. Westcott's David Hlarum have doubtless been stimu- lated by the recent popular Will Rog- er's movie. The Appleton-Century Company just ran off the hundredth printing of this novel that has been popular for 40 years. Ford Madox Ford's Provence: From Minstrels to the Machine will be pub- lished on March 27 by Lippincott. 314 South State St. The Typewriter & Stationery Store Since 1908 IF YOU WRITE, WE HAVE IT Phone 6615 the ordinary big star vehicle type. He is not food for Hepburn's person- ality. Nor are any of the other char- acters. Nor is the story warped until it is completely Hepburn's story. "The Little Minister" is beautifully de-_ signed, is full of a ripeness brought about by a romantic suspense involv- ing more than merely two people in love. is executed with insight that is not only sympathetic but is authen- tically Scotch and dramatically con- scious, and weaves its way into a charming unity. In former vehicles, Hepburn has been a Kentucky mountaineer, a stage struck New Englander, and a super innocent young writer. This versatility in her career is manifested further as we see her now as an adventurous young gypsy girl who is a complete mystery to the small Scotch town of Thrums. She ignores all convention, flits about in the woods, and generally upsets the peace of the community. A new minister arrives in town, a good looking young bachelor, and when he and the gypsy girl become interested in each other, the fireworks begin. These fireworks are deceivingly inno- cent in every aspect, and the -plot never has a trace of anything that the Legion of Decency would condemn.: What might be shady is so sugar- Lending Libraries NEW FICTION: Three cents, five cents a day. Greeting Cards. Fran- State Street :: Main Street I t SLATER'S CLEARANCE SALE JContinues! Reductions of One-third To One-half Off on HUNDREDS of FINE BOOKS, STATIONERY and FOUNTAIN PENS, in addition to a host of other items too numerous to mention. Inquire concerning the beautiful GLOBE to be given away FREE next Saturday. YOU WILL SAVE DOLLARS AT SLATER'S ALL THIS WEEK HUNDREDS OF BARGAINS !