jS(S CS b Y ioe Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, October 16, 1955 Rainn October 16. 1955 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Oulruur ti y.vv.., ... ... _ .;., The Mountain People From the Kentucky Hills Io a Detroit Housing Project By ROY AKERS rHE DOLLMAKER" is a mag- nificent book filled with many )nderous kinds of things and ople. Between its covers one ids the sumac, dogwood and wild neysuckle foliage of the south- n Appalachians, the cindered :ell of a war-time Detroit hous- g project, and the all-prevailing ieme of a faceless bust of Christ ,rved in cherry wood. It is a woman's story: the story Gertie Nevels, who became ansplanted from her native ountain habitat, during the ars of the second world war, in- the frenzied environment of a etroit munitions plant. Gertie as merely one of the wives who llowed their hillbilly husbands to the Northern munitions cen-' rs during the period of hostility, it to many she will come to re- ain as a symbol for all of them. And this is good. For one occas- nally suspects that Gertie, in erself, is not really a character t all. That she is, instead, a look- Lj glass with the reflective xength of all the women who ter followed their husbands from ie wilderness into the city gates. ERTIE was a massive women of the Kentucky hills who want- I nothing quite so much as free- om and a farm of her own where ie could watch children, animals nd plants growing in the sun- nsed beauty of mountain air. But.even the people in the back ill regions of Kentucky are never uite removed from the effects of war. -A cartridge shell on a De- roit lathe is always infinitely more nportant than the dream a little irl might happen to be chasing round a shrub of chrysanthe- iums on a lonely Southern moun- ain. Clovis, Gertie's husband, is a ian with an affinity for tinkering rith machinery. He hies himself to )etroit, takes a job in a war plant, nd writes Gertie to bring the hildren and join him. Much gainst her better judgment and ertainly against her wishes, Ger- le takes herself and the five chil- ren to join Clovis. Before leaving he hills, however, she takes great are to send on to Detroit a huge lock of cherry wood upon which he has been whittling. with a dream or Max, the young bride, who was ever in quest of one. The very finest work in "The Dollmaker" is the characteriza- tion of little Cassie and Max. Cas- sie, Gertie's little girl, has a dream playmate whom she calls Callie Lou. Callie Lou follows Cassie from the mountains to the city but, up- on entering school, Cassie finds that she is losing her playmate. She goes out into the alley one day and is calling for Callie Lou under some freight cars when the engine of the train moves. Cassie is killed but, then, she is never forced to really lose her dream. And Max, the young bride, finds herself married to a man who couldn't even understand a dream, much less a wife who dreamed. It is Max who is always popping in and asking Gertie to tell her some- thing to dream about; a place.like the ocean that is always romantic and far away. Max finally leaves her husband and goes to the ocean, but the husband remains in the house always waiting for her to return. Non-dreamers in the world of "The Dollmaker" suffer too. THE INHABITANTS of "the al- ley" have been thrown to- gether by chance, and it is through Gertie that the reader comes to see and know them. Each of the char- acters here is a person, there are no stereotypes. They are little peo- ple, all of them, but in the face of, adversity they are big with cour- age, and in defeat they seldom; shrink from lack of faith.j Gertie whittles wooden dolls in the evenings and sells them for; money. From sheer frustration, she turns to whittling on her block, of wood through the empty and, lonely hours of the night. Her neighbors are first to see the likeness of Christ in the rough and, faceless wooden head. Only at the end of the book does there come to Gertie the sudden awareness of where she might have found a face for Jesus. But it is better to leave that as a pleasant surprise for the enjoyment of the reader. This, though, will not be the only surprise the reader will find in the novel Gertie inhabits. For, just as surprising, is the pace of "The Dollmaker" and, what might be termed, its author's intent. It seems to be. written in the ambling gait of the shuffling feet of hill folk who are not ashamed to pause beside a stream merely to admire the beauty of water flowing over pebbles. And in a very real sense, it is a book about the earth. For Gertie and her children were removed, only in physical distance, from the moun- tain clay. Their bodies and not *their hearts left the land. A Man's Hunt For a Red Fox By FRANCES RINKEL "HUNTER'S HORN" by Hare: ernow was published six years before her next book, "The Dollmaker." To r e v i e w "Hunter's Horn" at this date with- out an intruding aspect of com- parison is practically impossible. One point is immediately evident. "Hunter's Horn" is more than a first-novel of "promise," for it contains to as great a degree as "The Dollmaker" Harriette Ar- now's integrity with characteriza- tion. "The Dollmaker" shows the writer at full maturity, but "Hunter's Horn" stands on its own merit. In "Hunter's Horn," Harriette Arnow deals entirely with those persons shut away in the Ken- tucky hills-the superstitions and the self-made codes they live by and the stern injunctions of bibli- cal knowledge and interpretations. Under the creative hand of some they have been little more than caricatures, or presented more deeply, they have still remained beyond the ken of the sophisti- cate, the intellectual, or any one who has solely inhabited the large cities. These limitations are not in "Hunter's Horn." A Closer Look at Football ;a 1. Offensive Formations (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first In a series of articles explaining some of the technicalities of football as it is played at the University.) By MERRIT GREEN AN OBSCURE BIGSIDE player in 1823 by the name of William Webb Ellis defied the convention of the game by picking up the ball in his arms and challenging his mates to catch him. That his act was inspired by a sudden stroke of genius, as some authorities report, is highly doubtful. Whether moti- vated by genius, an ill-acquaint- ance with the rules, or by horse play, his open field run on that autumn day 132 years ago has been parlayed into one of the most traditional fixtures of the Ameri- can life. In its beginning football was little niore than a contest of strength - 11 men attempting to bully themselves and a little ball through, over, or under 11 other men who in their turn attempted to do the same. Over the years however the strategy of the game, aided by changes in the rules and the in- genuity of individual mentors, has found its greatest emphasis in speed, deception, and wide open play. Football as it is played In the larger schools today, is an ex- tremely complex sport, requiring extensive preparation and played within a detailed offensive and discussion of the defensive play. The rules require the offensive. team to locate a minimum of seven men on the line of scrim- mage. The four men comprising the backfield must be one yard or more behind the line of scrim- mage. (A special provision pro- vides for dn exception in the case of a T-formation quarterback). The rules also provide that only six members of the offensive team may advance the ball from scrim-. mage, the four backs and the two men flanking the line, usually the ends. These six players are also the only persons eligible to receive a direct forward pass. Within these general limitations the offense must be constructed. THE UNBALANCED LINE Before examining the details of the offensive formation it should be explained that in most offen- sive systems the position of the linemen remain the same regard- less of the formation being used; if there is a change in formations it is generally . executed by the backs alone. Many teams balance their offensive line with an end, a tackle, and a guard on each side of the center. However, at the University, as in the case of most teams using the single wing, the unbalanced line is used. An end and taokle are found on the "short" or "weak" side of the center, while two guards, a tackle and an end bol- , used much more extensively than the others. SINGLE WING Fromthe stands the single .wing formation as it is employed at Michigan looks very much out of balance with only two men located on the weak side of the center. The backfield is lined up in, rela- tion to the unbalanced line in the manner described in Fig. 1. The greatest advantage of the single wing formation, when combined with the unbalanced line, is the tremendous numerical superiority that can be brought to bear at any point in the strong side of the line. Speed and quickness in the exe- cution of each play are not so much at a premium as they are, in the T-formation, though of course once the play has been exe- cuted the greatest amount of speed possible is desired. A care- ful observer will notice that the ultimate ball carrier may take a seemingly long period of time to reach the line of scrimmage. This may be due to a set of compli- cated maneuvers inrthe backfield or simply to an effort on the part of the backfield man to allow the play to form in front of him. Because of this lapse of time, it is possible to pull several linemen from their original position and direct them along the line of scrimmage in order to bring more blockers to the focal point of the play. Also, if the play is executed properly, the extra time lapse will allow stronger and more effective blocks to be placed wherever need- ed. It should be noted that the suc- cess of the single wing depends to a large extent upon a consistent running threat on the part of both halfbacks and the fullback. With- out the abilities of a strong attack to the weak side of the right half and the fullback the defensive team may shift their personnel toward the offensive strength. n,. ________________ Therefore the success of the single wing will depend to a'large extent upon a defensive alignment which has been forced to spread itself thin across a longer line, finding itself at least numerically weaker at some point. SINGLE WING VARIATION The single wing variation with the wing back or right half deep (Fig. 2) retains much of the single wing power inside the tackle though weakening to some extent the blocking efficiency of plays outside the tackle and end. The purpose of this variation is to allow a stronger and quicker at- tack to the weak side of the line. T-FORMATION The T-formation employed by FIG. 3 - T-FORMA Michig ed as rely uj in rec more alignn format It"* systemi shifted the we the A forces even I weak If s made strong advan -Daily-Esther Goudsmit' Harriette Arnow A Woman Writing About the Life She Knows BACK IN THE HILLS of Ann Ar- bor, where the roads are or- ange clay in the rainy season, Har- riette Arnow keeps ,house for her family, takes care of her children, and writes her novels. Coming from five generations of Kentucky ancestors, Mrs. Arnow grew up with the traditions of the mountain people that she has written about in her three novels. With her husband, her 13 year- old daughter and eight year old son, she still maintains a life not far removed from the hill people. Mrs. Arnow's life has been straightforward: s h e attended Berea College and the University of Louisiana, received a bachelor of science degree and went on to graduate work in mathematics. Writing was something she had always been interested in (she will admit that she had a poem pub- lished at 18 in the county news- paper), but teaching was her first profession. WRITING, however, proved the more important. "I went up to Cincinnati," she says in her quiet Southern voice. "I didn't know anybody-I rented rooms near the Public Library and I got odd jobs-typing, cashiering, wait- ressing-to pay the rent and eat and write." This was in 1934. With the en- couragement of editors like Har- old Strauss, now editor-in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., she pub- lished her first novel, "Mountain Path" in 1936. She learned a great deal about writing from this first book. She knew she didn't want to be a literary woman-"If you spend all your time being literary, you 'don't have any time to write"-but she also found out that it was hard "to write about life and forget about art." Since that early period, Hen- riette Arnow has, become a novel- ist of accepted literary ability. In 1949 she published "Hunter's Horn," which was a best-seller and a Fiction Book Club selection. It is a book that is now somewhat difficult to obtain, partially be- cause it has been overshadowed by her most recent novel, "The Doll- maker." liHE is like a AUTHOR'S full portraiture further refreshing, for un- few of her southern vcm- RTIE and the children arrive at Merry Hill, the housing pro- ect, on a cold and snowy morning. ;he Is as repelled by the cheerless ubicle of living quarters as Clovis s enthralled by it. But it is here hat she becomes a part of the eighborhood known as "the al- ey," and it is here also that Mrs. Lrnow's book touches greatness. Gertie, for the first time in her ife, has entered a world that is levoid of privacy and freedom. She las been caught in the things that, o Clovis, stand as the symbols ' success. A used car, and used ors to come, on which he will we payments for the rest of his ife; inflated war-time wages foi be privilege of buying wilted lgt- uce, and a fancy washing machine [ro the purPose of swishing clothes through the chlorine odor of city iwater-these are the things that Ciovis lays at the feet of a moun- lain wife. "THE Dollmaker" has been ac- claimed by critics as "one of the outstanding novels of 1954." More impressive than this official word is the reaction of readers, even more unusual in light of the book's size and cost. "Dollmaker" is a five dollar book-a gamble for any publisher no matter what the stature of the author, and a thick book that requires more than casual attention. But despite its somewhat im- posing appeaf-ance, "The Dollmak- er" has evoked extraordinary read- er response. Readers have found the characters of Hunter's Horn" and "The Dollmaker" so real that they write to their author about them. The women, particularly, are strong, complete figures. Their lives are simple-but beneath the hard-working surface is something that sets them apart-a deep sen- sitivity to life which they are compelled to express. Gertie Nevels of "The Dollmak- er" is one of these women - maintaining her family while put- ting the poet part of herself into the block of cherrywood that she carves. It is impossible not to draw the conclusion that Mrs. Ar- now herself is another version of. Gertle-living on % farm and rais- ing her children, while she ex- presses in writing the integrity that is particularly hers. a- -r ikbb patriots of literary stature, Har- riette Arnow does not view her people microscopically with the emphasis upon the diseased cells, tissues, emotions and mentalities. The people of "Hunter's Horn" are not types; they are individuals. They do not stand for anything symbolically, except in the com- plexities of those things that are universal to all of us. She does not insult her characters into be- ing separate enities for a minute dissection of a vague past, a pur- poseless present, and no future. They live. They breathe. They are. What they are is many things. "Hunter's Horn" brings them into focus with a breadth and warmth and scope that is a pleasure, and in an ever broadening under- standing, a gratitude. Ignoring subthemes, the plot of "Hunter's Horn" can be simply stated. We follow Nunn Ballew and his pursuit of an uncanny red fox, King Devil. Nunn sacrifices every- thing to this pursuit, for although the whole community is affected, it is Nunn's challenge, and his personal victory or defeat. He sac- rifices his family, his land, the honor of his name and his own self-respect to this pursuit. He is a man of weakness and of strength and he contains this desperate self-knowledge. He knows, too, that the price may be greater than the conquest-that an ele" ment grown out of proportion to actual size may prove' a final dis- actuality. Knowing it is one thing. Believing it is another. "f MNTU'S. HORN" contains a qulity of subtle and roll- icking humor that is not in evi- dence in "The Dolimaker." There are many instances of it as a part of the characterization and inter- spersed with the action. Perhaps the best is the chapter containing the efforts of the children to put old Andrew, the teacher, in a good light with the visiting school sup- erintendents who have come to judge his competency according to their standards -standards neither of the bill country nor of old Andrew. This, is humor at its best, for there is a tinge of pathos and satire behind it. The complete clapter, even as well in ted as it is with the book, could stand alone as an excellent short story.' This is the ,wonderful ability of Harriette Arnow. There Is a full ness and completeness to eah chapter. TeTre is no rushjo ens. that a chapter was presented be- cause of the need to be on to the FIG. I1- SINGLE-WING FORMATION defensive framework. This article has been written in an attempt to bring forth some of the subtler aspects of the game which are often obscured by the dazzling individual performances and emotional overtones of the sport, and with particular refer- ence to the system utilized at the University. We have made no attempt to gear our remarks to those persons who are completely unfamiliar with the game, and throughout we will assume that the reader is aware of the fundamentals of a football game. Thus there will be no attempt to explain in detail the meaning of such things as "the' line of scrimmage," "formations," "end," "halfback." Our attempt will be to expand the knowledge and understanding ster the "strong" side of the line. The great advantage of the un- balanced line is the power it can generate in terms of numbers. Any single wing team with an effective threat to the weak side of the line will force the defense to spread their numbers over a greater area allowing the offense to employ two men to block one at crucial points along the line. THE FORMATIONS Upon this unbalanced line is superimposed the various backfield formations used by the Michigan team. The term "formations" may imply several things, but for our purposes it is sufficiently defined as the positional arrangement of the offensive team before the ball is put into play, during which time both the line and 4the backfield remain motionless. inil HARRIS TWJ FIG. 4-- WING-T FO] r BUT, most of all this is a book of, for, and about people. And in her handling of people, fabri- cated characters though they may be, Mrs. Arnow has brought a freshness to current American writing. Beside the work of Micky Spillane, Kathleen Winsor -- and many other sensationalist writers of our day- "The Doilmaker" can and does stand as a sun-rinsed gren, on a rather littered, and sometimes filthy, shelf. The relating of moral values to valid, ethical standards is the role of philosophy and not of literas ture. Still, it is refreshing to find an author with both the talent and the gumption to replace the fictional patrons of the bordello and semi-commercial boudior with other characters. who have the besic, human strength to seek a somewhat higher meaning fr her friends are portrayed in frus- tration, but the imagery is focused on all opposing forces of human endeavor, and notrJust the ele- mental plane of pure and simple sex. The one obvious weakness in this book is in the handling of the male animal. 'The male characters, as such, are handled well but as people they emerge pretty much. as weaklings. However, Arnow, at her worst, is never quite as bad in her treatment of men as is Faulk- ner at his best, with women. Mrs. Arnow Is a lady possessed of myriad facets. In creating "The Dollimaker," she has become the greatest dolmaker of them all. Love and hate, charity and greed, understanding and prejudice: these are some of the labels at- tached to the gradations of human emotion. And after living with Gertie among the inhabitants of "the aley" for a few hours, the reader smiles and says to him- self, "Yes, these things do apply but that is the one redeeming feature about ;our race, our time our world- each person has them L?::r.::::v :::,}..., ,:::.::.v-:::v:::...::: c.:$. .. x.:. ;?.:....: }. .... kv .. ...........: v ................ :.:'y:tt~tt ' ?::.. ti i ";: t%: :;: " "; }}y:::^ :" . . .. ,: r:+; : :Y:,::"}}i-: .C .777 TOPCOfU $4950 :: F""X vf:' :": 'I.": fem.{ .. 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And the Kcentricities of Dock, the mule, The published novels of War- riette (SipsoN) Anww: "Menil Path," $74 waest Covlel-Ftlede, New York, 19M. "Muster's Horn," 5SW nae, ] semllas, New York, 19".t "The Dnater:' 509 w gee.. Naaltaaa, 11ev York, 3954. FIG. 2-- SINGLE WING WITH WING BACK DEEP of the average football fan through The University employs several a more intimate examination of different formations; however, four offensive and defensive structure basic= formations, are used more Which constitutes the "Michigan than 90 per cent of the-time: t he Sytet." T-formation, single wing, a varia- 7Te present article wil concern tion of the single wig with the itself entirely with the offensive wing back deep and wing-T, a system leaving for the future a variation of the T-formation, are '1 TECE & WREN Cfot4ei 107 South University -- Across from Ann Arbor STORE HOURS: 9 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. 11 liwing. )rsrA Uttled the w has, somehow, be-] rotesqueness of man's Aitin. with *rnAthea mmmmom"W"