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NMc\ATILLILN4S:Factual Background
C For The Joads-...
F~ACTORIES IN THE FIELD, by
Carey McWilliams, Little, Brown
and Company, Boston, $2.50. Cour-
tesy Follett's Bookstore.
By ELLIOTT MARANISS
After the publication of John
steinbeck's great novel about the
efugees from the dust-ridden hills
f Oklahoma who went to California
o starve in the sunshine, a wave of
xcited indignation swept over the
lmerican people. Stunned by Stein-
eck's story of unbelievable human
nisery in the shantytowns and jun-
le camps of the "heat countries",
nd frightened by his powerful re-
'orts of bloody riots, great strikes, of
ery stakes burning on hilltops, and
f vigilante terror, Americans began
o demand further facts.
Mr. McWilliams' book provides the
nalytical and factual background
or the "Grapes of Wrath." It tells
he bitter truth about a section of
he country which, despite an ugly
ecord of exploitation that goes back.
> the first Spanish grandees, has
lways been regarded as a golden
ad at the end of the rainbow, a
harming and idyllic state in which
fe was easier and abundance an
ccomplished fact. This book re-
tes a segment of the history of the
ate thathconflicts sharply with
me of the fantastics still being
>un by the fabulists of the Calif-
rmia Chamber of Commerce. De-
gned primarily as an exposition of
ae development of the- State's first
idustry, agriculture, Mr. McWill-
,ns' study emerges as a compre-
ensiveguidetorthe social history
California.
The history of California agricul-
ire, as related by Mr. Mc Williams
in many respects, a melodramatic
ie, a story of theft, fraud, violence
nd exploitation. It is a story of
early seventy years' exploitation of
.inority racial and other groups by
powerful clique of landowners
hose power is based upon an ana-,
hronistic system of landownership
ating from the creaition, during
panish rule, of feudalistic patterns
f ownership and control. One of
ae most shameful chapters in the
istory of . American industry; the
light of farm labor in California, is
s old as the system of landowner-
hip of which it is a part. It is, as
[r. McWilliams indicates, a story
ith many ramifications. It is im-
>ssible, for example, to understand
7e early race riots, the fierce anti-
hinese campaigns of the seventies
nd nineties, and the hysterical "yel-
w peril" agitation against the Jap-
aese at a later date. Apart from
close study of the changing pat-
rns of agricultural operations in
e state. It is likewise impossible
understand the social phenomen-
n known as "vigilantism"--a pecu-
arly Californian phenomenon -
ithout some knowledge of the his-
>ry of farm labor and farm owner-
lip in the State. Here again Mr.
[cWilliams performs a valuable serv-
e: he pushes aside the official his-
ries and presents the facts. Vigi-
ntism appears not as a peculiarity
f the California climate but as a
force whose roots are to be found in
the history of California farm labor.
The implications to the rest of the
country of an army in tatters num-
bering 200,000, of the evolution of a
new type of agriculture-large-scar
intensive, diversified and mechanized
-and of feudalistic exploitation, are
of the utmost importance. Califor-
nia should bear close scrutiny in
these critical times: there the me-
chanism of fascist control has been
carried to further lengths than else-
where in America. There, too, is a
rematkable example of land reclam-
ation, accomplished, of course,
through untold human suffering, but
which nonetheless gives one an im-
pression of the immense potentialities
of some of the other waste regions
of the country. Agriculture in Cali-
fornia is a created industry, a forced
plant-the product of irrigation. Des-
erts have been changed into orch-
ards; wastelands and sloughs have
been converted into gardens. One
reads Mr. McWilliams story of how
the amazingly rich agricultural val-
leys-Imperial, San Joaquin, and the
Valley of the Sacremento-have been
reclaimed from the sagebrush and
the desert, and the thought immed-
iately arises of the tremendous in-
crease in the national wealth that
could be accomplished by similar
reclamation, accompanied this time,
not by human exploitation, but by
resettlement, rehabilitation and dem-
ocratic public control, of the Ari-
zona, New Mexico and Nevada des-
erts.
To the problem of migratory labor
Mr. McWilliams believes there is
only one real solution: the substi-
tution of cooperative agriculture for
the present monopolistically own-d
and controlled system. As a first'
step in this direction, he insists, agri-
cultural workers must be organized.
Once they are organized they can
work out the solutions for most of
their immediate problems. They can,
for example, regulate employment
through hiring halls similar in oper-
ation to those used on the water-
front.
'olden Swan M~urder' Fa ir
As Mental QuirkThril lers Go
Miss BabsonIs
Novel Follows
Familiar Plan
'All The Tomorrows' Like
Genealogical Novels
Of Thomas Mann
ALL THE TOMORROW, by Naomi
Lane Babson. New York: Reynal
and Hitchcock. $2.50.
The so-called genealogical novel
dealing with the social unit of family,
and the tension between successive.
generations, has become one of thel
most important types of fiction in this
changing world. "Buddenbrooks," by
Thomas Mann, and the "Small Souls"
series by Couperus are masterpieces
with which it would be unfair to com-
pare Miss Babson's novel; but on the
other hand, instead of the ordered
life of Lubeck or The Hague, Miss
Babson has for background China in
transition. There more than any-
where else the concept of family is
bound up with the old culture, sancti-
fied by persistence through thousands
of years and, within the family, the
struggle is a desperate one between
that culture and the demands of
western progress, which are the ines-
capable conditions of national sur-
vival.
Miss Babson has chosen her charac-
ters, or, as she would say, they chose
themselves, as representatives of the.
various aspects of that struggle. The
placid charm of existence in the ex-
tensive household of the rich mer-
chant, Lo Yu-chan, in 1862, gives
way to the mingling of East and West
in the family fo his Eurasian grand-
son, Felix Lo, who prides himself on
his modernism= in the midst of his
ancestral inhibitions. .,In the "chil-
dren of the latter we have the con-
flict in acute form, with the bombs of
Japan bursting about them. Through1-
out the 75 years of the story persists
the figure of Apricot, who anticipates
the revolution by refusing to. have her
feet bandaged and, in breaking 'pur-1
dah, becomes the mother of Felix,,theI
grandmother of Pearl and Jade, and;
the great grandmother of. Freedom,1
daughter of Jade and a Communist
officer. Beside these the male- char-j
acters are pale. Miss Babson reveals
a perhaps unconscious feminism in
minimizing the ancestral predilection
for sons, and asserting that the- fu-
ture of China is in its women-as it is.
- Robert Morss Lovett
in the New Republic..
Novel Demonstrates
A New Talent . .
CHRIST IN CONCRETE, by Pietro'
Di Donato. Bobbs Merrill, N.Y.
$2.50.
By HARVEY SWADOS
Esquire magazine has a policy of
printing stories by unknown writers
and labelling those writers as "dis-
coveries." Some of the discoveries
have made the grade, some haven't.
A few years ago Esquire printed a
story by a young bricklayer named
Pietro Di -Donato. It was terrific,
sensational, epical. The magazine
sold out and they brought out the
J story in book form. It sold. A dis-
covery had made good, both for him-
self and for Esquire. The story was
called Christ in Concrete.
Now Mr. Di Donato has published
his first novel with the same title
and with the famous story as the
first chapter. At the outset, I think
it can be stated flatly that Christ in
Concrete is the best title of any novel
in recent years. But how about the
book itself?
Well, the novel can't be called eith-
er a good novel or a bad novel. And
I'm not weaseling on this, either. In
the first place, the story that Di
Donato tells is not new. It is the
story of the Italian immigrants who
form the real wage-slave base of our
society. It is the story of the coming
of age of a sensitive boy, who goes to
work at 12 to support his family, who
loses his religion but not his faith in
humanity and his own people.
But Di Donato has attempted to
do something new with his prole-
tarian theme. His dialogue is writ-
ten entirely as though it were a literal
translation from the Italian ver-
nacular, and a good deal of his prose
is written in the same way. Thus,
"Children to bed! It is near mid-]
night. And remember, shut-mouth'
to the paesanos! Or they will send
the evil .eye to our new home even'
before we put foot." This kind of
writing has a special flavor for peo-
.ple who, like this reviewer, possess
just a smattering of Italian, or for
those who have heard the speech of
the people in Italian restaurants and
saloons. The rhythm is there; some-
times it is "picturesque," sometimes it
is pathetic, but no one will deny that
it is there
Di Donato has attempted more'
than this, however. His book is?
written in the most impressionistic
manner. There is no regard for the
niceties of sentence structure anda
conventional usage, but there is plen-
;y of regard for color and sound and
smell. When this kind of writing is
successful, its impact is tremendous-
:y powerful, as in the first chapter.
When it is unsuccessful, it is pretty
bad-overwrought, sophomoric, and
at times even incomprehensible. So
on page 62 "Paul clutched. his fists."
This would seem to be a feat worthy
of a superman. Try it and see.
But it would be unfair to quote
from the worst without quoting from
the best. Here is a section from the
scene of the building collapse in the
first chapter:
"The strongly shaped body that
slept with Annunziata nights and was
perfect in all the limitless physical
quantities thudded as a worthless
sack amongst the giant debris that
crushed fragile flesh and bone with
centrifugal intensity.
"Darkness blotted out his terror
and the resistless form twisted, cata-
pulted insanely in its directionless
flight, and shot down neatly and de-
liberately between the empty wooden
forms of a foundation wall pilaster in,
upright position, his blue swollen
face pressed against the form and
his arms outstretched. caught secure-
-New Books -
POLAND, by W. J. Rose (Penguin.
Books, 25 cents). A usciul, pocket-a
size book, full of simply stated facts.
Not so much concerned with Danzig,
and the Corridor pros and cons as'
with the general historical and physi-
cal background of the whole country,
its racial and political problems and
material assets. Has maps and a
bibliography of suggested reading.
IRON BREW, by Stewart H. Hol-
brook (Macmillan, $2.50). A ka-,
leidoscopic history of the iron and'
steel industry, with primary emphasis
on rip-roaring personalities, homerict
brawling and generally vivid pion-
eering details.
IN A WORD, by Margaret S. Ernst
(Knopf, $2.50). "Some 250 speci-1
ments just to have fun with," of word
derivations. Fascinating material,
but the fun is all the author's. Itf
isn't scholarly. It is over the heads
of the nursery, but in its arch and
impossible humor, its wooden sense of
word values, it certainly got its start
there. Worth owning for its 63 il-
lustrations by James Thurber (done
for what reason no one could guess).#
-The New Republic.c
ly through the meat by the thin round
bars of reinforcing steel.
"The huge concrete hopper that
was sustained by an independent
structure of thick timber wavered a
breath or so, its heavy concrete roll-
ing uneasily until a great 16-inch wall
caught it squarely with all the ter-
rific verdict of its dead weight and
impelled it downward through joists,
beams, and masonry, until 4t stopped
short, arrested by two girders, an
arm's length above Geremio's head;
the gray concrete gushing from the
hopper mouth, and sealing up the
mute figure."
It can be seen, however, that there
,would not be unanimous agreement
among the critics as to the literary
merit of the above excerpt. But few
critics, I think, would attack the de-
scription of the marriage feast far-
ther on in the book. It is related
with Rabelaisian gusto (and I don't
think I'm dragging in Rabelais with-
out justification). Di Donato shares
the delight of his people in the "bitter
green Sicilian olives and sweet Span-
ish olives, whitings and squid pickles
in saffron, Genoese salami and mor-
tatel, pickled eggplants, long pointed
peppers and cherry pepper ... chick-
en soup rich with eggs, fennel, arti-
choke roots, grated paramesan, and
noodles that melted on lips... broiled
fat eels garnished with garlic and
parsley . . . a glossy dark brown
suckling evenly sprawled in a thick
bed of truffles and potatoes, its back
and sides stuck with cloves and cov-
ered with spices ,the hollowed-out
eyes packed with figs.. ." and plenty
more.
Di Donato gains, with his peculiar
style, a richness, a flavor, a real feel-
ing for the goodness of the joys of
"simple" people, and a bitter anger
against that system, and the repre-
sentatives of that system, which de-
grades and enslaves the true builders
of America. He loses the continuity,
the flow of narration essential to. a
well-built novel. For one of the major
failings of our American novelists
has been their inability to follow the
short story writers in building tight,
well - knit structural - foundations
around which their stories can be
told.
So you will probably finish Christ
in Concrete with the same mixed feel-
ings that I did. Di Donato has the
power and vitality of a Thomas
Wolfe; whether he can harness it to
the careful and stern craftsmanship
of a James Joyce remains to be seen.
!mil
THE GOLDEN SWAN MURDER, by
Dorothy Cameron Disney. New
York, Random House, $2.00. (Pub-
lication date, Oct. 10).
By JAY McCORMICK
There are a couple of schools of
detective story writing that sell to-,
day. One of them is the straight
blood lust sort of thirl'g with three
or four dandy murders, and a master
detective, or God, who not only solves
Chinese puzzles from the bottom up,
but smokes Egyptian cigarettes as
well. The other is the psychological
study, or long hair yarn in which
plot and action are subdued in favor
of the mental quirks arising out of
such an abnormal situation, and you
will have to admit it is an abnormal
situation, as .murder.
Now detective stories are not artis-
tic things. They have to . conform,
to a pretty well defired pattern, and
that pattern cancels out any chance
of really good writing. True it takes
a lot of sweat to turn out even a
mystery thriller, but most of the
work is mechanical, not soul plumb-
ing.
All of which .leads up to a mild
protest against the psychological
penny awful on the grounds of it
being just a bit phoney. It isn't
fair to pan the authors who try this
sort of thing too much, for obvious-
ly they work harder and longer, and
significantly get less money for what
they write than the balls of fire such
as the late Edgar Wallace, Sax Roh-
mer, or J. S. Fletcher who have only
one plot and three characters, and
grind out fifty or sixty novels with
their aid. And yet as long as they
are writing detective stories, they've
got to appeal to the rabid fan, the
lending-library patron who gobbles
thrillers by the pound. Which they
don't.
Real fans get beyond the apolo-
getic stage almost immediately, and
admit freely that they read the things
with relish, but don't know why. Any-
body who says 'he reads detective
stories to sharpen his wits, or for
the keen analyses of character in
them is either jiving or punch drunk.
And without lots of fog, darkness, sin-
ister super crooks, and virtuous
maidens, the reader might better be
reading a serious, well written novel.
Consequently, having reasoned
thus, there is only one thing to say
about Dorothy Disney's newest book,
The Golden Swan Murder, which is
that it isn't by any means the worst
of psychological detective yarns, but
also not by any means the best of
detective stories m general. It reads
well enough, and toward the finale
verges into tense, moonlit action,
showing that Disney could probably
write the sort of thing that addicts
stay up late at night to read. But
save for the murderess in the piece,
most of the cast are traditional fig-
ures who have been appearing in
similar books since beforebustles
were here :for the first ' time. The
prim maiden aunt from Philadelphia
is there, and the misunderstood young
man who could have killed if he
chose, and the erratic Hollywood
niece who marries, him, and the
police captain who is wrong of course.
The aunt injects good comedy here
and there, but the total effect of the
whole thing is not prepossessing.
Concerning the blurb writer's re-
marks which rank Dorothy Disney
in a bracket with Rhinehart, Chris-
tie, and Sayres all that can be said
in "what is the difference?"
...FROM Alpha
To Omega
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Don't miss EARL "FATHER"
HINES, J-Hop orchestra, at
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Intramural Building, Oct. 7th.
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