age Twelve
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
September 17, 1956
.
tie Twele.TEMIHIG N.DALY.e . jmbe .17 .195
REVIEWER'S CONFESSIONS
Harvey Wants to Know Where're All the Nice, Sweet
Books, &- Where's the All American Boy
By ROY AKERS with a barefooted wife. Writers replaces leaded windows at Har- Stock Thy Barn . down the broomstraw, was now r
ARVEY, a friend of ours who didn't hate him, Harvey admitted, yard find-" thoughtfully scratching his back
'rveY, books a they just thought he stunk. The "N THE early morning hours of with his rear left foot.
reviews books for a living, editor even gave him a cigar afterDO YOU remember the Good a day many years ago we drove
imbled over the garbage cans cutting the more choice sentences Old Days?" We interrupted. a country doctor out over the mud-
tide our window the other VigiiahllHTlranceO
,ht. F ling into the basement, of his reviews. And, after all, his "What Good Old Days?" Harvey dy roads of the West Virginia hills "HROUGHOUT our high school
wife did admire him for working w nted to know. on an emergency call. The autumn 1
d edging himself cautiously in the aden " e o air was cold; the roads were years we knew a girl whom we
ound our landlady's pet wood- egaenThtsusthpinwr- rahr'sndhedkesws shall call Louise. Louise attended
sek, he finIly ma de a grand, "That's about as much as a plied, "maybe nice, sweet books treacherous, and the darkness swas rdall c ois Louie ath-te
und oure f i dy'saet wood-, boarding schools in the North-the
crestfallen entrance ito tie stevadore gets for handling gold and the All American Boy are just interspersed onl becfmeng public schools of the South were
bulioneigt hursa dy,"wethat-like the Good Old Days- ras of our headlight becoming
vel, bullion eight hours a day," we thtaghatdch ain not open to people like her-but,
After catching his breath, and remarked. "What more could you something that everyone has heard ostnaioug t rencsnce her brother was a friend of
refully dusting off an apple ask?"'about, but no one seems to remem- Finally, after twenty mileof such ours, we came to know her rather
teHavystdw angrb 'Frgo wrtcg"sapdher." ,diiving, we aried at the scene orw aet nwhrrte
ate, Harvey sat down and grab- "For good writing." snappedb.of the emergency. well during the summer months.
: eagerly at a sack of bread Harvey, his eyes giving us a cold, "Could be," Harvey conceded, "The house-a small, clapboard' Her family owned the finest, pi-
umbs ;e had stacked in the critical appraisal. "You should see "but that still doesn't mean writ- affair-was not painted. A flick- vate swimming hole in the county,
rner against the forthcoming de- my fan letters," he wailed. "The ers couldn't produce nice, sweet ering, gas mantle hung on the and the biggest watermelon patch.
ession. Then, between inhaling freshman co-ed from Michigan books." wall; there were no rugs on the 'Louise's maternal grandmother
e crumbas and brushin 'away the State keeps asking why I don't "Writers can write about only f r, and the effects of soap and had been a Negro servant to one
ider webs, he told us his troubles, review nice, sweet books. The what they see and hear and feel. waer were conspicuously absent. of the wealthiest men in the state.
Nobody, Harvey thin's, should Wolverine gridiron star wanted to Any writer knows . . ." There were not even sheets on the Some years after the death of the
a book reviewer! All writers ,know what happened to the All "Now you're trying to tell me beds. But the house was almost man's wife this servant had borne
says, hate his guta' the editor American Boy, and the guy who the old story," scoffed Harvey, surrounded by producing gas wells, him a child. The child, a girl,
is his best sentences, and his replaces leaded windows at Har- "that there's no such thing as fic- and completely dwarfed by a huge, grew up and eventually married a
fe keeps wonderinatwhen he's vard wondered why-" tion." smartly-painted barn. white man from the North. Louise
ing to work for a living, "You got three fan letters?" We "We didn't say that." "After examining the lady of was a product of this marriage,
They're not starvins, you under- interrupted. "Then what are you trying to the house the doctor determined "Louise's mother had inherited
md; at least, not vet. For he "Four," shrugged Harvey proud- say?" that she was seriously ill, and a fortune-large, even as fortunes
d the wife tend a ga rden be- ly, "since the first of the year. "Merely that fiction is an exten- would require immediate hospital go. With a beautiful estate and a-
nd the city dump, and raise a That is, if you count the one from sion of reality, an apperception of attention. 'Where,' he asked one houseful of servants there had
in the basement It's just that the politician in Flint," he hasten- all the interlocking complexes of of the ill-clad children, 'was her come coal mines and oil wells to-
e neighbors invert their collec- ed to add. a writer's real experiences. He can father?' The child replied that her gether with many extensive hold-
'e, lower-class noses at the pig, "Man, you're famous, With that illuminate the fabrication with father was at the barn with the ings of valuable properties. Louise
ie pig-who grunts to the name much fan mail-" fantasy; interpret it with illusion, veterinary. had most of the things that people
Cornucopia-is a friendly crea- "Famous like horsefeathers!" if need be, but in the ultimate end "The doctor sent the child for want-or think they want.
re but, like Harvey says, people Harvey glared. "Look, you're a the principal character is a hun- her father, and prepared the "But we are not discussing Louise
e born snobs. writer still wet behind the ears dred people he has known; the mother for the journey to the hos- here because of her wealth, We
who hopes to bat in the Mickey dialogue is the roar of many pital. These roads were not built remember her because she was a
roules & G oo . . Spillane league someday. Just tell crowds he has heard, and the for low-slung ambulances, and she good and a kind person. Louise
CRAPING the last few bread me what's the matter with writ- theme is the countless, intangible would have to be taken in our car' had learned her painful lessons
crumbs from the bottom of the ing. realities he has almost-but not Having prepared the lady, who through trying to cope with her
ck with the blade of a pocket "There's nothing the matter quite touched." was in obvious pain, for the jour- own particular kind of world, and
.ife he had won at a spelling bee with writing," we answered. "But, certainly," Harvey observ- ney over the rough roads there had ended up with the grandest
the eighth grade, and wrapping "Then what happened to the ed, "the writer has met nice was nothing for the doctor to do degree of all-an educated heart.
em carefully with a bandanna to nice, gooey books? Why did the people." except sit and wait for the hus- "On this particular Sunday eve-
ke home to the pig, Harvey All American boy disappear? For "The writer," we corrected him, band, ning, though, an aunt of ours had
'Iled deeply at a jug of chianti, what reason can't the guy who "has t m nice persons." "The little girl, at long last, re- forcibly dragged us to church. Our
"And what do you mesn by turned. But she was alone. "Is your foribl drauggetu th urchnd Ourl
faxed, and then came up with tha"aher n hd aunt thought then, and still
sreal troubles. Mr. Akers has contributed that?" father coming?' the doctor asked. thinks, that we are going straight
Being a book reviewerher.- both arties and boek reviews 'Would you take some real ex- "'Daddy said he is busy with a to-well-you know the kind of
cted wasn't really quite as bad to the Magazine SectionAs periences for an answer?" pedigreed calf and can't be both- illusions old maid aunts sometimes
it looked. There were worse ex'mple of the latter is also in- "Guess I'll have to," Harvey ced,+ ,ema, have. We didn't see any of our
in he allowed, than wearing eluded on tispage.grumbled, as he picked his teeth "That was one of the examples," friends in the church-we never
Itched pants and walking around with a broomstraw. we said to Har vey, who having put do-and were sitting there feeling
sort of uncomfortable and lonely
- ------ - --..---.when Louise walked in.
"The good preacher, as we re-
HIE F EN IImember, was talking about toler-
ance and the brotherhood of man,
i 0%'I"L P stim , Bu N o o IIt's. good subject; something that
National Pastim e, ut even siners like us need to learn
a little sore about. But he didn't
these two young ladies are sim- fHE triangle loses its shape by nly then - will Helene Noris be bat an eye water iuie hadat up
The Red Room," by Frontoise umering over with facts -- figures the entrance of a new charac- a woman, down in her pew. He just kept
olletJoris (translated by' don't he, pridles notwithstanding. ter into the plot. Jean Delfau, a AST summer Harvey, a friend preaching about tolerance and the
erma Briffoult; Farrar, Straus sifted main of the theatre, arrives of ours who booksa' brotherhood of man.
Cudahy 247 pp.; $3 50). THE RED ROOM" is the sec- at the little Flemish town from a living, scuatbed his overalls, ' s ars a we at Loue.
and noelze-enycopdi We walkdsp a hill tat hovers
ad snohzed-rncyelopPedia na und bumps sight smack dub washed both ears, and caught a over a beautiful river and helped
AST YEAR it as "Bonjour from the pen of Mine. Mallet- into the many charms of Helene. tramp steamer for Europe. Leap- her piek flowers giowing wild is
T ae'' lay ssasse sa usan- Joris. Moat of se sasme rhacaeters sAnd it is here that Mme. Mallet_ sag seer the sle of slu steam'r' the woods. A few minutes later
sit tsia s'r'as'rest rferencer ahughasetiesadiffrnt el -sind swimmiig ashore on French! the two of us sat, down, placed the
s i oris exhibits mmazing hont soil, e came across a young ladybrothr's grave and
sme to the French nationul pas- roms. follow through both books. and skill, tther with remarfo pskhg grasi's hrsgi talked,
mu of boudoir gaea rmsc is And fur tiat easi it mi ht ble observational perception, as 'But, Mademoiselle," asked Bar- "'Br had volunteered,' she said,
s Cud Coon '' as Of best for those who missed the first a novelist. Only a woman could jey, as he rubbed his eyes and 'and maybe that was right.' And
se Fancoe ?,lallet-Joris s af'yllsnt of tiis sex opera - ps iby taue written this book, 1r "asse out of a tasumtic shock, she had often wondered if, when
" sfor us to s oback a little ways. who else but a woman knows what "why aren't you in bed?" tic komber felt, lu hade't fonnd
'Tk uoa as ists Isat si-c a ar'ie 'ses sare fiely dran a woman really means ashen she Harvey arrived bark is America what he was looking for-some
ok upon vss's i tto sfast one's id the characters skillfully fab- haysrs or no. The por man in th late full ia a eatileksat. He w'y to help. Louise smiled as th
-es. Its coui r:edi n tas P arisan lady's first only uass. Mae. Mallet-Joris not was wearing aa beret with his horn- flowers. 'e -he always thought
re enoush, has be n discretly novel. "The Illusionist," published only knows - she also knows why. rimmed glasses -- acted real cu- that things would get better. You
sie in red blush. Amercan pub- in the American edition) in 1952. In "'.he Red Room" the author tured s-and was an admitted ex- know what t mean?' She half-
lhers are aving a hard time of I'Ihe Illusionist was the begin- depicts the ains of rowing ip pert on women, poetry, sex an-d asked.
fuinae1 ss e' ruma s go in' of thu alronuelee s'a of lis- as being gradually raised by an other lesser forms of art, In book- "We nodded our head. We
hlone Noris, a red-headed and er-nreasing comprehension of ag backward - Harvey has ex- knew."
And wuh Mle. 'Saan's second eually red-blooded 15-year-old love. A d it is that most iroical , cllent hindsight - he now re-
ak duet l ppea r in the near fu- girl of novels; a' bo ok with arin- alies that the question he asked Yuletidejoy
se this 'ld sil be '5uinta'- Helene, the da htrr of a Bel- cipaul character whose hihestt the young lady was probably the
fuss" smo'. Mase. Mallet-J ins a edustrialist, had lost hIsa awareness o love has never been faux pas of the year For, lik foot, was now paring his right,
ad au')enh 've already out- sother in infancy. This, perhapsa elevated beyond the level of a mat- Harvey says, the French do fimd frout
ine , av etea a n fteraosfrhrfottonais with the sal blad
m the ise' geutlumass aas sans of thur cuasosus faur lue tress. Sulene Noris gave her body, time to pick grapes, make and of his pocketknife.
oui lndiua. All of which leaves, Findmg her firstnsmattering of a jut kept her heart intact. Still, drink wine, and come up with a "And just last winter," we cone
rite suo,>ly, only one flesh;hat -Ilove of sorts aft the hands of Tai t his does not detract from the n a t i o n a I election every few tinued, "there was another inc-
ri:, 5555 . Can ara, her father's mistress. But competence or the scope of a months. dent."
"ey out-s ans'i each Tamara, at the end of "The Illu- highly talented young writer. For When Mme. Mallet-Joris learns "We were walking down Wood-
T heases' is Moniaslt "y s5nst breaks the illusion by there are more frigid hearts than what sarvey did about France she ward Avenue in Detroit. It was at
ila 'se " t e lass c sato marrsaing Ielene's father. lts asw ald dreams of. will be a better and more accurate a late esening hour of a day about
lth tee l's' eark "'ihe Red Room" continues the Th'e il no doubts be another novelist. Meanwhile, she has kep a week before Christmas.
'mi.s talle is" na isa"sa sequence by using the same human aesiusl in the life of Helene Noris faith with the legend of the sons "Snow was falling and the
a aet "asstee sariularly- triangle as the same Flemish set- beyond "The Red Room." In it and daughters of the French Re- streets, turned newly white, coun-
u l a as a sass tiat she is now tu' Helene is a girl of eighteen she may learn, as others have, that public. "The Red Room," together ter-reflected the ornaments of the
amis usaii lady of some now, and the torch of love she love is not attained by egotism, with the red plush binding, de- gaily dressed windows. Rays of
yes aad once burned for her former ruelty and selfishness. One hopes serves to be in the Christmas multi-colored lights, blending with
MIl'_. n st a tend' a blos- Lesbian enchantress has charred ;hat in her next book this gifted stocking of every American girl, at the puffs of falling snow, made the
m in his s. and sal' it into embe, of contempt and authoress will endow her princi- least by Thanksgiv ing whole avenue appear like a faisy-
>ies 1 acts l the books by i Jealousy pal body with a soul. Then - and