LVE THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY, MARCH 31, IN THE WORLD OF BOOKS Editors Qf Contemporary' Are, Doing Michigan A Real Service BLfIKE 'Riding The Mustang Trail' Is An Answer To Priestly . - .. 'The Barbarians Is A B ( )Ok Designed To Wrench Smiles April Issue of CONTEMPORARY. By PROF. WARNER G. RICE (Of The English Department) The editors of Contemporary have done Michigan a .real service, this year by establishing a magazine in which student writers can count upon seeng their work in print, and by drawing into cooperation a very able body of contributors. Their latest issue is a goodone. It would be even better, perhaps, if more of the interests present on the campus were represented.' There are plenty of local problems which might be discussed with profit to everybody- for example, student-faculty rela- tionships; the possiblities for, and the desirability of, Honors courses and tutorial instruction; the concentra- tion plans at present operating in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; the need for more reading rooms and libraries; the proper limits and the most efficient methods of student self-government; academic freedom in a State university; the probable fate of the fraternity sys- tem ; the values of particular kinds of courses and modes of teaching; and so forth. Letters to The Daily on such matters often fail to cover the subject in hand with thorough- ness and thoughtful moderation; and writers for Advance -ajournal in many ways admirable as an organ of opinion - tend to judge all sques- tions by the application (sometimes a trifle mystifying) of a talismanic Marxian dialectic. The pages of Contemporary provide a forum where debaters of many minds can make themselves heard. It is a pity that so few take advantage of the oppor- tunity. The contributors to the April num- ber have kept, however,. commenda- bly close to subjects within the range of their immediate experience. If Mr. Warshow fails in his depiction of the dully futile professor's encoun- ter with das Ewig - Weibliche, it is because he has treated his theme in a spirit of adolescent cynicism rather than with the- wit and comic insight which it plainly calls for. Mr. Roellinger's sketch of 'Arthur' is en- tertaining - and revealing; though his study might have been kept in sharper focus by allowing the ser- ious young man in the ivory tower to present himself more completely through speech and action. The material from the Freshman Hop- wood Contest is all of a quality which promises well for the future. Mr. Jones' story, Heaven from Earth, is neatly and effectively contriveld. Miss Kaphan, though confessedly a bit unsure of her aim, writes with sincerity and first-hand knowledge of the unlovely folk of Chichester, making the reader sharply aware of the pestilential misery which results from one type of economic tyranny. Perhaps an extension of the review of Mr. Pound's Draft of XXX Cantos into a full length critical essay would have been more timely; yet Mr. Kirschbaum's vade mecum to The Waste Land is competent and useful - it may, indeed, help puzzled read- ers to a method for attacking Mr. Bird's prize poem, Journey to Em- maus. The editors' wisdom in in- cluding a detached scene from Mr. Cohen's Unfinished Picture seems more doubtful. At least the excerpt loses considerably by isolation from the rest of the play, exhibiting crude- ness of character-drawing and of mo- tivation which are disappointing in the face of its reviewer's generous praise. The verse is generally suc- cessful. Certainly Miss Kavinoky, Miss Allen, Mr. Bird and Mr. Hakken should be encouraged to give us more of their work. RIDING THE MUSTANG TRAIL. By Forrester Blake. Scribner's $2.50I By PROF. ERICH A. WALTER (Of The English Department) In Harper's Magazine for March, J. B. Priestley asks these questions: "Why do American writers go and live in Paris and Grasse, Vienna and the' South Seas when they have such a country of their own to roam about in? Does not a man carry his own Art with him, like so much tinder waiting for a spark? And is there not here, among these mountains and ,deserts and illimitable plains, not a spark but a blaze?" To read Forrester Blake's story of the trail drive of wild mustangs from Mescalero Reservation, New Mexico, to Felt, Oklahoma, is to find a perti- nent answer to Mr. Priestley's ques- tions. In the summer of 1932 be- fore his senior year at Michigan, Mr. Blake had the good fortune to be in on this experience which will not be repeated until there are again enough wild mustangs in New Mexico to eat the grass away from the cattle and sheep. In normal times that would mean forty years. However, if the soil of that land continues to shift and blow about as it has for the last year, the author of Riding the Mus- tang Trail may well have seen the last wild horse round up in New Mexico. The thirty days of the drive are packed with adventures that seem to run the gamut. of as many years. Murderers, half-wits, old hags, crazy sheep herders, move along with the more normal human beings - the riders, the ranchmen, Indians and Mexicans. Ever present danger fills the pages of this story, whether it be water poisoning, starvation, starm- peding horses, slow death in the quick sand, or the terror of the rat- tlesnake. To look at this catalogue . gy match the exploits of Paul Bunyan. (Incidentally, Ann Arbor drinking water is neatly described as a fluid somewhere between stagnant and the kind one drains from automobile radiators.) To mention the beauty of Blake's writing is to give it a place of greatest emphasis in the review of his book. Night riding, sunrises, the beauty of genuine character, wild horses, lightning on the plains, a true friend- ship - they all combine to make the book unforgettable. Writes Mr. Blake: Like a curving arrow of white flame a star shoots downward, the head of the arrow dies out and the sparks in its wake flicker for an instant against the darkness of the universe, In a second it is over. I have seen the smoking dissolution of a world. Then from out the sky I seem to hear fast hoof beats. I know that 'Death is riding the. blue trails ofthe firmament in that greater darkness. And I lie there, snug in my bedroll on the ground, and am fascinated by the drama of the skies. Only in the desert, with the si- lence as deathless as the heavens, do I feel this way. Mr. Blake has not been abroad. He has found his material in his own country and has written about that part of it which he knows and loves. His first book is more than the "spark" which Mr. Priestley de- mands; it is a blaze which has al- ready lighted the fire of a second book, to be named Cow Camp. THE BARBARIANS. By Virginia Faulkner. Simon & Schuster. Virginia Faulkner's The Barbarians is one of those books calculated to wrench a smile from the sourest face. Miss Faulkner is the 21-year-old who produced Friends and Romans some time ago. Sne is one of those gay youngsters from whose mouth epigrams pop like papers from a high speed press. She writes about quite improbable people, manipulates them in a quite unreal Paris, and makes you like it. Paris is no longer galmorous. Bo- hemians in Paris have been old a hundred years. The epigram was old in Greece of the golden age. A writer undertakes a superhuman load when he (or she) combines all three. Miss Faulkner has a trick up her sleeve, however. Sne gets away with it by making her people real and a little pitiable. It is as if she were to say, "Kind reader, I know these are un- likely beings. But aren't we all? Aren't you" Besides, her Barbarians adventure afield. They go to the Riviera, and then to Tunisia. t FORRESTER BLAKE one might expect the book to be mor- bid. Not so. The four riders who finally load their mustangs onto the cattle-cars at Felt and ship them off to the soap factories know good stor- ies when they hear them. What's more, they tell them. Besides many examples of dry western humor, the author gives us two tall stories that Man's Placein God's World by DR. ARTHUR H. COMPTON Winner, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1927 Freedom versus Law. Tuesday, April 2, 4:15 p.m., Natural Science Auditorium What Determines Our Actions? Wed., April 3, 4:15 p.m., Natural Science Auditorium Intelligence in the World of Nature. Wednesday, April 3, 8:15 p.m., First Methodist Church Is Death the End? Thursday, April 4, 8:15 p.m., Hill Auditorium THE LOUD LECTURESHIP You Can Hear the Ma y Fstival He Sent Forth A Raven' Has A Remote And Fragile Charm I Visit Our LENDING LIBRARY 11 I I' ' Some Suggested Late Books CLAUDIUS THE GOD ........... Robert Graves HE SENT FORTH A RAVEN ...... Elizabeth Madok Roberts RIDING THE MUSTANG TRAIL.. ..Forrester Blake THE CORPSE IN THE GREEN PAJAMAS. R. A. J. Walling PROFILE OF A MURDER.. .. ....... Rufus King THE BARBARIANS......:....... Virginia Faulkner HE SENT FORTH A RAVEN. By' Elizabeth Madox Roberts. Viking. By JOHN SELBY, Elizabeth Madox Roberts has worked five years on He Sent Forth, a Raven, according to the jacket1 blurb, and yet she has brought forth a , book of only 255 pages. This seems1 almost a sacrilege in these days of3 vasty volumes, full of everything 3 under the sun. It is possible she wrote almost as3 many words as Thomas Wolfe in Of Time and the River, and that sher excised hundreds of thousands of them. The novel has the clean ap- pearance that comes to a book that has been properly barbered before being offered the public. In spite of which, it is founded on a bit of insanity. Stoner Drake, early in this century, made a vow that if his second wife died he, never again, would set foot on "God's greenrearth." There is never any doubt but that she} will die; she does, the neighbors at- tempt to persuade Stoner to re- ounce his mad vow, and Stoner re- fuses. From that time on Stoner rules his Kentucky farm without leaving the house. He compromises; there is a balcony, and in addition he builds a kind of observation deck and by doing so lets. a curious influence into his life in the person of the builder. The farm runs* along, and Stoner -I remains a baffling person to all and sundry. Parllel with Stoner's story there are stories of Martha, his daughter, whom he moulds to suit himself, and of Jocelle, the charming granddaugh- ter who grows into a woman in the span of the book. And parallel with these three stories is a whole regi- ment of implications. Miss Roberts' novel makes a strange pattern, going forward and back, setting in para- graphs which refer to buried pass- ages which again imply obscure mo- tives or thoughts. Nevertheless, the effect is precisely what she wants, it would seem. The book has a remote and fragile charm which belies the spareness of its prose. Next September Little, Brown & Co. will publish A. J. Cronin's The Stars Look Down. Cronin is the au- thor of Hatter's Castle. /Lending Libraries,Etc. NEW FICTION: Three cents, five cents a day. Francisco Boyce, 732 North University. RUSSIA: Books in all languages: Books on Russian History, Eco- nomics, Literature and Drama. Old and modern. Complete mail order service. K. N. Rosen, 410 Riverside Drive, N.Y.C. THE Colonial Book Shop Old and New Books 303 North Division Street Telephone 8876 Mostly About Books And Their Authors In April Viking will publish a new biography of Catherine the Great by Gina Kaus. Lewis Corey, author of The Decline. of American Capitalism, expects to have his latest work, The Crisis of the Middle Class, ready for publication by late summer or early fall. Doubleday, Doran & Co. of New York and Hamish Hamilton, Ltd., of London are jointly sponsoring a con- test for the best book having aviation as its theme. The winner will receive a prize of $2,500. 100 ENGRAVED CARDS AND PLATE FOR ONLY $1.50 We Print EVPS., LETTERHEADS, PROGRAMS AT LOW PRICES. THE ATHENS PRESS 206 N. Main St. , DOWNTOWN Our Location Saves You Money. WOE For a "cSon g)) . . . I Witharms Drug Store South U at Forest Phone 2-1005 eE Suggestions For VACATION READING V IN OT iR WORDS, the prices of Season Tickets for six concerts by "stars," orchestra, and choruses, have been reduced to $2.00, $3.00, and $4.00 for those holding "Festival" cou- pons, and to $5.00, $6.00, and $7.00 for others. ORDEiRS received with remittances to cover, will be filled in sequence. MARY MOORE, HELEN JEPSON, MYRTLE LEO- NARD, GIOVANNI MARTINELLI, and PAUL ALTHOUSE, all of the Metropolitan Opera.; MAXIM PANTELEIFF, of the Russian Grand Opera; WILBUR EVANS and ETHYL HAYDEN, American singers; THEODOREWEBB, Baritone; PAUL LEYSSAC, Narrator; RUTH POSSELT, Violin Virtuoso; b JOSEF LHEVINNE, Pianist, will be heard. THE University Choral Union, Moore and Hanson, conducting; the Chicago Orchestra, Stock and DeLamarter, conducting; and the Young People's Chorus, Higbee, conducting, will participate, presenting two important works, "Drum Taps" by Hanson, and "Jum- blies" by James, to be given for the first time; also Boris Godunof, in English, and King David by Honegger. - I° HE SENT FORTH A RAVEN. Elizabeth Madox Roberts. RIDING THE MUSTANG TRAIL (Reviewed in Today's Book Section. Forrester Blake COME AND GET IT. Edna Ferber. PYLON. William Faulkner. SUJRE! A REMINDER TO USE TOP-X RUBBER YOUI1EO!CEMENT It' sgat WRITESOME- curl oe stain the paper, WRIT SO4E-MAK4ES A NOTE BOOK THING IN MY REAL.IyvNEAT ! 800K PAP /' D t F .t r, I SPECIAL Easy now with KODAK "SS" FILM OLD the camera in your hands. Click the shutter only once. Snapshots are as easy to make as that. All you need is a camera with an f.6-3 (or faster) lens, two or three Mazda Photoflood bulbs that screw into any socket, and =Kodak "SS"I Film. Stop in for a descriptive leaflet: All neces- sary supplies herw~ If NEW SHIPMENT THE GREEN LIGHT. Lloyd C. Douglas LIGHT FROM ARCTURUS. Mildred Walker. SPY. Bernard Newman. FOR EASTER I1, Ivory and Fine Wood SIESTA. Berri Fleming. P YOUR PATRONAGE SINCERELY APPRECIATED. Slater's Incorporated Dial 3814 336 South State TOP-X Sold by ULRICH'S BOOKSTORE East University Ann Arbor Michigan Francisco- Boycer 723 North University 108 East Liberty May 15. 16 7, 13 1935 CARVINGS q I I I r BRASS WORK IllI LINEN WORK 11. 11 Just Ready-- "Riding the Mustang Trail" u< z~. ~ ~ cs'r ~r R. _T 11z hc4.atdfmn h 4' n * n.,hs-+his is the narrative.of Just Received.. . Another Shipment of Publisher's Remainders -Half Price or Less. SILK KOMONOS and PAJAMAS VII 11 II