Page Fourteen
THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGA'LINE
Wednesday, January 15, 1958
Pae outen HEMIHIANDALYMAAZNEWeneda, anar 1, 95
Sailor's Life r
(Cs,,ised fros Page 5) 1 sailor. Becoming an officer entails
Slater's
Pay.
ing. Or the paradox of the Finnish
fireman who found it necessary to
trade in a new 70 dollar watch for
one with numbers instead of dots
because, "I get confused when I
want to tell the time." Yet his
paintings are hanging in bars and
shipping halls in many great lakes
ports. To other sailors, these things
are commonplace - a subject for
laughing discussion but seldom a
basis for personal evaluation.
T IS A strange and fascinating
world, and isolated, because the
sailor doesn't fit into any other
climate. Many books have been
written about ships and sailors, but
seldom, if ever, is there one written
about sailors off their ships. The
ordinary seaman couldn't live a
normal life on land because he
would not be able to understand
what makes its society tick. He
wouldn't fit into the scheme of its
living pattern. Any job he took
would not satisfy him because he
is used to holding a job on his own
merits and Coast Guard specifica-
tions. He wouldn't understand a
seniority system based on time
spent on a job, nor could he accept
the idea of being tied to a job by
the need for good references and
a clean record.
T HE SEAMAN wouldn't under-
stand our institutions; for
example, the church. Essentially,
lie has no religion as society ac-
cepts the word. A man who has
no place to go can almost have no
faith because his life is static.
Hope and faith are meaningless
words to him. And he would find
it a waste of time to meet once a
week on Sunday, because he is not
interested in social gatherings
where people can talk about the
past week's events and search the
congregation for new hats. He can
find the same thing on his level
at the shipping hall.
Ship's officers are practically a
breed apart from the ordinary
knowledge comparable to that
which a doctor must have for his
profession. In both cases men are
dealing with instruments of a
fragile nature. A ship is a delicate
mechanism and being able to
guide it safely from harbor to
harbor requires the utmost skill
and judgment. Officers, along with
their occupational qualifications
usually have the self-discipline
seldom seen in the ordinary sea-
man.
Someday, all sailors think, they
will "get off these damn scows"
and settle down on land. But that
day will not arrive. By the time
many of them have quit sailing,
they are too old or too perman-
ently drunk' to find anything but
cheap flops and hard curbstones
on land. And if they could come
off with money in their pockets
and something constructive to do
with it, they wouldn't find their
dream complete, for they would
have to blend into a society which
is alien to them.
JOSEPH
(Continued from Page 12)
read Nostromo" strikes one as curi-
ous, particularly when one recalls
that Conrad himself-and he was
a better critic than he supposed-
rated the book highly. Nostromo is
a very difficult book, not quite like
any other Conrad novel, but it
seems to me to be one of the two
or three best things he wrote.
Professor Haugh's critical ap-
proach does not allow him to wan-
der far from the twelve books
themselves. Joseph Conrad: Dis-
covery in Design will have accomp-
lished a very useful and salutory
function if it brings the attention
of readers to specific titles in the
Conrad canon. Conrad himself
wrote, "The reader will go on read-
ing if the book pleases him and
critic will go on criticizing 'with
that faculty of detachment born
Jazz Handbook
(Continued from Pa e 13) ed the position of Detroit as a ma-
more competent today than in jor jazz center of the country. Not
1926 (if indeed the quotations had only has Detroit produced a num-
any meaning at the time it was ber of fine musicians, but it has
made) and overlooks the fact that long been known for the fact that
jazz and classical compositions new trends in popular music and
are entirely different types of in jazz first appear here.
music with very different require- Probably the most important
ments. contributions to the field of jazz
made in this book are Ulanov's
LIKE MUST people who write on contributions to the field of jazz
jazz, Ulanov divides all jazz and the place of jazz as a form
into a number of very definite
schools. This is unfortunate, be-INTEFLDocrtise
cause it eliminates many excellent N THE FIELD of criticism, he
musicians who do not fit in care- attempts to describe the import-
fully outlined categories. Jazz, by ance of having sufficient back-
its very nature, is not capable of ground to be able to compare new-
being precisely defined and as with old. He also emphasizes the
result, any classification of this role of emotions in judging jazz.
sort is ambiguous. It would be far . ' the borderline between
bettr fr amguoIt oepldean emotions and intellect barely
bettr fr an author texplain exists, at least as far as the
trends in jazz as a function knowing response to an art ts
time rather than to say, "Thisis concerned, even to an art.
jazz." that, like jazz seems so much
Even so, Ulanov has done a far of the time to be largely di-
better classification than~ most. rected at the emotions.
For one thing, he has acknowledg- Jazz is an emotional form of
music, and purely intellectual
criticism of it is not fair or com-
plete.
Ulanov feels that jazz should
not be classified as minor art
perhaps from a sense of infinite along with "the arts of Faience,
littleness and which is yet the petit point, etched glass or bag-
only faculty that seems to assimi- pipe music." It is music that has
late man to the immortal gods." some significance besides salat-
APPROACHED with that sense ing the musical desires of the men-
of detachment, Conrad's work tally feeble. Jazz can be compared
has rewarded Professor Haugh to some degree as a form of po-
with a book that will assist read- etry or chamber music which is
ers in charting their own reading most suitable for saying certain
voyages of discovery. The fact that things and should be recognized as
new readers will discover or old such.
readers find confirmed Mencken The most significant point about
summed up; and Mencken had a jazz is this: At its best what it
way of giving praise just as he communicates cannot be commu-
damned - without reservation: nicated in any other way; to those
"There was something (about Con- who know it well there is such
rad) almost suggesting the vast- a thing as the jazz experience, one
ness of a natural phenomenon. He which is entirely different from
transcended all the rules. There any other form of music.
have been, perhaps, greater novel- This is the important quality of
ists, but I believe that he was in- jazz and the quality by which it
comparably the greatest artist who should be judged and placed in
ever wrote a novel." the world of the arts.
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