THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDA, OCT. U 1 IN THE WORLD OF BOOKS Favors Ideal Of Non-Combativeness CHI1LDERS, Depicts With Sympathy Tragic Interracial Friendship Literary Embryos Give Promise Of Freed A merican Thog ht White Banners HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN $2.50 By JAMES A. BOOT. R Hannah believed that giving-up, letting-go, and sacrifice, generate in-+ side one a peculiar power that ca used in the achievement of gre things. Weak people stick up their rights, says Hannah, knov how weak they are inside and b afraid other people will find it 0 "Strong people don't go to mr bother defending themselves their 'rights.' When the milk is and they're getting the blame it, and feel sure it wasn't their ft they find the mop and say to th selves, "I'm bigger. I'm stror I'll do it. Not because I'm to bh but because the others aren't sti enough.' And then the weak on usually willing to help, and ev4 thing is all right again." White Ban'ners tells the story, well, of Hannah Parmelee andl her simple and straightforward still ungrounded philosophy woven into the thoughts apd fected the lives of a score of pers This Hannah Parmelee, dressed i dowdy black coat and a -ridicu cheap hat, but well-worn expen tan shoes, was blown into the fr door of a middle-west profess humble home one wintry day w the household felt the ineptitude the mistress of it. She was pedd an apple parer for twenty-five ce If it had not been such freez weather, Marcia Ward, holding a t negligee about her, would have qui ly shut the door with a brisk' thank you." But it was the le she could do to ask the woman i the hall while she insisted on d onstrating the instrument withf gers equally as red as the apple held in her other chilled hand. T was Hannah Parmelee ushered i the lives of Marcia and Paul WE and the story of her quietly effici management of the impractical fa ily's economic affairs only bre the way for her entrance into t, thinking with her simple philosop And so Lloyd C. Douglas is off track down another elusive religi belief-the sort of thing he hand so well in Magnificent Obsession. is a rather inconceivable philosot when reviewed summarily by sophisticate. A fanatical belief non-combativeness that seemed consume the emotions of Hann Whether it was the ideal itself well-spaced intervals. And the reader is apt to find the "sermons" intensely refreshing and banked by something more than fanaticism. The reader will, after having reluctantly closed the back cover, often thereafter won- der quite unconsciously what would Hannah have to say about this prob- lem or that, if one might have a heart-to-heart talk with her in herl kitchen. A pastor in the Congregational Church in Ann Arbor for five years, Mr. Douglas is remembered by many here as a capable and wise figure in the pulpit and out of it. Wandering, accidentally into the writing of fic- tion, he has seen his first three novels, "Green Light," "Magnificent Obsession," and "Forgive Us Our Trespasses," sell 350,000 copies. And White Banners will add considerably to that total, as it is a book with an easy readable style, and with a theme that can well appeal to our higher intelligence. Those five years the author lived in Ann Arbor crop up now and then in a paragraph, a chapter, or a single phrase. He talks knowingly of the University Club, where Paul delivered bright little talks on Edmund Spen- ser to his colleagues, talks also of the University Hospital, of the Eng- lish department and its inner-work- ings, of the university town's feud in social life between town and gown. Hannah used her religion thor- oughly. She didn't do it deftly, with a light and easy touch; it was tough going for a servant to arrange and rearrange the destinies of a family and to affect the destinations of others, and being all the time in the background. But then, aren't gen- erals awa rl s in tha ha krd? 1 Sigratures, Work in Progress, ex- trarts from forthcoming books, to- See 'In The Deep South' gether with a Signature of Poets, pub- lished by Jchn H. Thompson, De- A Novel About a White Man and a trcit. Number Two, 750. Black Man. By James Saxon Chil- Last spring a rather novel and in- ders. Farrar and Rinehart. $2.50 teresting literary enterprise was un- dertaken by John Thompson, a De- troit publisher, in an apparent effort By WILLIAM R. SIZEMORE to exploit and at the same time stim- ulate interest in contemporary Amer- The most h important feature of In can literature, especially the work the Deep South is that unlike most of new authors, by publishing ex- novels about the Southern States,it tracts from forthcoming books in a does not depend on a revelation of compact, low-priced semi-annual pe- weird customs and practices of South- riodical. Judging from the second By JOSEPH GIES ery- LLOYD DOUGLAS * * * andhthe forceful personality that had an ht unwavering faith in it, that accounts but for its gentle pervasion into so many was lives, is conjectural. But be it or not, af- Hannah, as a mere servant in this ons. professor's home, served to straighten ious out practically all their affairs, and s she did it with this intent religion of oit hers that even she admitted not un- ont derstanding fully or knowing exactly hen how to put it into words. of "All I know about it is this: If ling you find that you're related to people nts. -all kinds of people-so closely that zing if you make war on them you're hin fighting yourself-and if you don't ck- trust them you're not trusting your- "no self-there's a strange power that east begins to give you more than you nto had lost by being defrauded now and em- then. If you walk quietly and trust- fin- fully-you have something to show she for'it." hus At first this unusual credo was nto' pooh-poohed by the Wards and by ard, most people to whom it was trans- ent mitted, but gradually the thing m- worked into them and affected their aks outlooks. heir Although Lloyd Douglas has not hy. faced a congregation for some years; E to now, he is still at the business of' ous preaching. Such a quality in his lied writing is noticeable every now and It then in the speech of the many char-; phy acters who amble through his book. the There's Adele, the friend of Han- in nah's, there's Eleanor Trimble, the to petite banker's wife, and there's Han- ah. nah herself, who moralize on the or serious occupation called living, at ern people for its gain interest. Rath- er, it is the story of a true problem. It concernsathe attempt of a south- ern white and a Negro to carry on in the South a friendship formed at a northern college. Most of the novel is an expression of pity for the tragedy of the south- ern Negro-and the southern white. Although Mr. Childers is thoroughly a southerner, it is without question an impartial account of the trouble encountered by each of the main characters. Specifically the book tells the story of Gordon Nicholson, a member of one of the better families of Birm- ingham, and Dave Parker, a south Georgia Negro, educated at a north- ern school and given a Harlem polish by a short residence in New York City. The two met in college, and, in spite of Nicholson's instinctive dis- like for Parker, they were drawn to- gether by their mutual love of music and football. number of Signatures, the effort de- serves a success which such cour- ageous attempts at literary pioneer- ing too seldom receive. As might perhaps be anticipated, Signatures contain a large propor- tion of rural material, rather typ- ically American. The first episode included is a short story by Glenway Wescott entitled The Sight of a Dead Bcdy, recounting with a surprising deftness the discovery of a corpse by a farm laborer, the subordination of the horror to more speculative reac- tions in the man's mind, and then the sudden dull shock. Less than four pages long, the story is almost perfect in its completeness. Evelyn Scott is perhaps the best- known writer included in the group. A section of an unpublished novel, Land of Change, depicts the effort at happiness of an unfortunate American writer exiled in poverty in a small French village, shackled to a lovely but selfish wife and two half-grown boys, thwarted in his work, hanging on hopelessly on the edge of starvation, tortured by the indifference of the woman he loves and trying to find solace for an eve- ning in the excitement of his son at the town fete. This is the most artful writing of the issue; some of the subtle emotional play of the man's troubled self-despising mind casting back in the constant remoldings of the past with which weak men try to comfort themselves. As his wife leaves the fete, he watches her de- parting up the dim street, and thinks, "With a bank account, could they re- capture the old tang and flavor of experience?" A bank account! Form of criticism supreme! The opening chapter of David De- Jong's second novel, Light Sons and Dark, has a Michigan farm back- ground, dreary and disconcerting, and rather grim. Ben, discouraged by the failure of his life and the hopeless- ness of his future and disgusted by the bestiality of his brothers and the tawdriness of his sister-in-law, urges his youngest brother, Joe, to leave' the farm and escape the rut in which Ben finds himself. The scene be- tween Ben and his sister-in-law, in which he resists the woman's at- tempt to seduce him, is a masterpiece of direct, brutal simplicity. A very brief but memorable bit from an unfinished novel of Nathan Asch dealing with the dust storms of 1934 portrays with graceful and ef- fective touch a fleeting city-street in- cident in Dallas, the adventure of a country girl not long in town who i ths just lost her job at the five and ten. The episode is mostly dialogue, j.t the ordinary every-day talk, of the lower classes, no dialect and no dirt, but none the less dramatic. Another chapter of A World I Never Made, by James T. Farrell, a section of which appeared in the first num- ber of Signatures is another gem of dialogue, as well as a penetrating but sympathetic character study. The last section of Signatures is devoted to A Signature of Pc rti; mostly random bits from new leftist works. The first of these, Muriel Rukeyser's Eel, is one of the most forceful, and contains one admirably expressive line, "We were too earnest. We had to lose." Louis MacNeice, widely known English radical poet, has several short Verses, the best of which is Lyrics from a Play, striking the key- note: "But stuck in a world of life insurances I cannot fly," Kenneth. Patchen, whose BEfore the Brave created a sensation lat year, contributes three poems to the issue, of which one, a stab at Nazi Germany, is outstanding. Kirker Quinn, editor of DireAor, strikesda compelling note with a bit entitled Melodrama, which ends: "Soon they'll kill me. But I have a son And he has one. There will always be a voice comrades, striving To keep you silent men alive." Isaac Gerneth, a young Detroit poet, contributes several excellent pieces, of which perhaps the best is the shortest, a fierce bit entitled Communist; crying defiantly, "Harvester of change, I'll flee No panic patricide or war." w ,. mmmmw, " i " l l "11LlIagrI In the four years that followed Private courage was Hannah's in their first meeting their respect for no little measure, and she had great the abilities of the other developed need of it, many times. And most into a strong linking and finally into of all perhaps when witnessing her a true friendship. In between grad- son Peter growing through the years uation and the portion of the story of his marriage and afterward, think- involving the real problem of friend- ing she was only his aunt. She was a servant, you see, and she didn't ship in Birmingham, Mr. Childers want him to know. But she was al- brings in a lot of material, which is ways there, guiding his life where she somewhat important but not as much was able, from a distance, even as so as to warrant the space he gives she quietly guided the lives of the it. Highpoint of the story comes Wards whom the reader will come to when Dave Parker is introduced to love in their tribulations and suc- Nicholson's sister, bringing about the cesses. And to love Hannah Parme- dangerous situation of a white wom- lee, who gives the impression of the an and a black man in the South. dignified calm of a great ocean. Problems develop when Parker comes several times to the Nicholson house to work on his symphony. First Forthcoming Books to object is the sister's fiance. From this beginning the knowledge spreads FIGHTING ANGEL By Pearl S. and finally the ire of the prominent t1k R. R &irh n4k $25n n white men is aroused. This grout JUST RECEIVED- HOMANS New Fourth Edition TEXT- BOOK OF SURGERY" Price$ A Complete Stock of Medical Text and Reference Books -at- WAHR'S ; .I i UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE 316 SOUTH STATE t I L-----= ~ttC -wd~ g. wi14 RYTEX SK ETCH IES Clever little deckled edge informals - gaily bordered . . . indis- pensable for short letters, informal invitations, "thank-you" notes . . . and delightful for gifts. 100 IN FORMALS - 100 ENVELOPES Printed with Name, Address or Monogram on informals in smart- ly correct lettering styles. White Vellum, Grey Threadloom or Ivory Threadloom ... borders in blue, green, red, and brown. At this special low price be sure to buy a supply for future use and for Christmas gifts. THE COLLEGE _I tuc. . eynal M ILCOCK Z.D. . THIS ENGLAND By Mary Ellen1 Chase. Macmillan $3.00.E LEVEL CROSSING By Phyllis Bottome Stokes $2.50. SUN DIAL TIME By Don Marquis. Doubleday, Doran $2.00. ICROSS SPOON RIVER by Edgar Lee Masters Farrar & Rinehart $2.50. MY FATHER, PAUL GAUGUIN By Pola Gauguin Knopf $4.00 G. K. CHESTERTON'S AUTOBIOG- RAPHY Sheed & Ward $3.00. THE KAISER AND ENGLISH RE- -LATIONS By E. F. Benson Long- mans, Green $3.50. IHE SECRET JOURNEY By James Hanley Macmillan $2.50. TOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS By Graham Greene Doubleday, Doran $2.75. The fifth volume of Lloyd George's War Memoirs, the recent publication f which in England has caused so much disturbance on this side of the Atlantic because of the author's crit- cism of Pershing and the A.E.F., will be published in America on December 1. Among the BOOKS We Have FOR RENT Are: HUXLEY- "EYELESS IN GAZA" MITCHELL-. "GONE WITH THE WIND" DOS PASSOS- "BIG MONEY" SINGER- "BROTHERS ASHKENAZI" RATES: 10c For First Three Days 5c Each Day Thereafter ADRIAN JAFFE RENTAL LIBRARY 1309 Wilmot ... Phone 2-1631 threatens Dave with emasculation. The trouble comes to a head when the newspaper building where Gor- don has worked since returning to Birmingham is burned. Dave is ac- cused of being behind this act and is indicted by a jury of prejudiced white men. After much struggling he is acquitted but Nicholson's §ister comitts suicide because of the gen- eral mess of affairs. Here the story comes to a rather dismal conclusion. This leaves one thing evident that as conditions are now, such a friendship as described cannot exist in the i. 0 0 K--ome of the Best of This Year's Titles 11 I I South. 3f From the standpoint of style the book is in general brilliantly written, although slightly vague in several spots. Fspecially commendable are the verses which introduce the divi- sions of the book. The division of the book into sections dealing with the life of each major character takes away a lot of interest from the gen- eral arrangement of the story. How- ever, the book is well worth reading, if only for a close-up of the southern situation. Latest Fall Books Now For Rent ! "Great Laughter" -Fannie Hurst "Farewell Romance" -Gilbert Frankan "strange Melody" -Neil Bell "Whiteoak Harvest" -Mazo De La Roche "No Hero - This" -Warwick Deeping "Men of Danger" -Lowell Thomas "Mussolini's Italy" Dr. Herman Finer "Streamline Your Mind" -James L. Mursell, Ph.D. BLUE BIRD Book Nook UPTON SINCLAIR - Co-op (A Novel of Living Together) ................... LOUIS ADAMIC - Cradle of Life ......................................... I. J. SINGER - The Brothers Ashkenazi .... ... ............................ FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG - Far Forest .................................. WINIFRED VAN ETTEN - I am the Fox ................................... WALTER D. EDMONDS - Drums Along the Mohawk ..... ............ . MARGARET MITCHELL - Gone With the Wind ........ . ...............: . DuBUIS HEYWARD - Lost Morning ...................................... . KATHLEEN NORRIS - The American Flaggs ............................. L. M. NESBIT - Gold Fever.......................................... W. R. BURNETT -- King Cole.. ... .............................. . ELIZABETH CORBETT - Mrs. Meigs & Mr. Cunningham ................... GEORG7 F. HUMMEL - Tradition ................................... DELLA LUTES - The Country Kitchen ................................... BESS STREETER ALDRICH - The Man Who Caught the Weather, other stories NEIL BELL - Strange Melody ................................ .......... RALPH BATES -The Olive Field................................... CLARENCE DAY -After All....... ............. ....................... de la ROCHE- White Oak Harvest ....................................... LLOYD DOUGLAS - White. Banners ...................................... DORIS LESLIE - Fair Company .......................................... MILBURN - Catalogue ........ . .......................................... . MARGARET FLINT - The Old Ashburn Place .................. .......... SHERWOOD ANDERSON - Kit Brandon .................................. 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