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Sunday, August 11,1963 BOOKS m ‘ ■» v ■ 'V*" r ; - - .■ ■ Albert Camus r You Have To Plow For Camus 9 Sense NOTEBOOKS 1935-U2. By Albert Camus. Translated and with a preface and notes by Philip Thody. Alfred A. Knopf. 225 Pages. $5.00. By RALPH DENNIS Perhaps it is about time that someone questioned the value of, and the reason for, the pub lication of the scraps, bits and pieces category of works by cer tain literary writers. It may - be that this is a nation of rath er timid accepters: whatever is published must really hove some value, however dim and elusive it might seem at moments. Wit ness the John Gunther “Frag ent of an Autiobiography” which was published a year or so ago . . . nothing more than a string ing together of the financial statements from his publisher over the years about the num ber of copies sold and money earned. This is not to suggest that Gunther is a literary writ er, but this rather calculated at tack upon whet may be a gulli ble book-buying public must earn it a place in the general classi fication of "let’s milk the dead cow once more even if it s not grade A" books. Letters, diaries, journals, note books and memoirs all have a place in the publishing and the literary world. No one can argue against any of these as an ef fective method of gaining in sight into the men, the writer, his time, his age. Stendhal’s Jour nals, Pepy’s diaries, Boswell's journals, Flaubert's journals, Katherine Mansfield’s letters, Gide’s journals, Gauguin’s jour nals, Casanova's Memoirs, Byrd’s journals, the Goncourt journals . . . each has its reason for being which transcends, in part, the writer's original pur pose. Begun for one reason they^ Wills CURRENT BEST SELLERS Fiction 1. The Shoes of the Fish erman . . . West 2. Elizabeth Appleton , . . O'Hara 3. The Glass-Blowers Du Maurier Non-fiction 1. The Fire Next Time . . . Baldwin 2. The Whole Truth and Nothing But . . . Hopper /“ 3. I owe Russia $1,200 , . . Hope WILLS BOOK STORE Lakewood Shopping Center Durham Shop Monday, Thursday Friday nights til 9 exist for another. While their publication may nourish the scholar and the historian more than the layman audience, the general reading public finds its own level of interest. A general reader might find amusement in Pepy’s account of coming home to find his supper not prepared because his wife spent the after noon at a drawing-and-quarter ing execution: a historian might be more interested in who was * drawn-and-quartered. There is a possibility that the Camus notebooks will have no value to either the scholar or the general reader. It is a liter ary notebook rather than a per sonal journal. At the time Camus was working on a still unpub lished first novel, La Mort Heureuse. Many of the entries are the rather frustrating bits and pieces of the novel. The translator, having seen La Mort Heureuse, is kind enough to tell us, in footnotes, which frag ments were used in the novel. His kindness does not extend to telling us exactly why we should be interested. For example, on page 47: The gambler. Mme. X. otherwise a perfect old bag, was a very fine mu sician. For novel . Part I. traveling theatre. Mo vie, Story of a great love affair (College Sainte-Chantal). Or the intriguing little bit of dialogue on the same page: The gambler. "It's going to-be difficult, very difficult. But that’s no rea son for not trying.” “Os course not,” said Cath erine, raising her eyes to the sun. No attempt is made to explain what the difficulty is. Perhaps the translator doesn't know him self. But doesn’t it sound spicy? Os course, there are lucid, meaningful passages. The read er will have to plow for these, through w’ords and phrases that must have meant something to Camus but need a cipher now, through fragments that intrigue rather than satisfy and past physical descriptions that ap pear to have no effect at all. All right, so it’s a nice spon taneous description of a hillside or a beach. What now? It is, perhaps, sad that “so what?” and “what now?” are too often the final attitudes to whole blocks of pages of the note books. Camus, unless he loved a joke, might have disapproved of the notebooks in their present form. It is, at least, a charitable thought. Dwayne Lowder and Bob Shannon will have a show of their work today 1-6 P.M. and Monday 9-6 in their stu i dio, room 22 of the Carr ■ boro Town Hall. Paintings Drawings Sculpture Etchings Pitfalls Os Popularization Generalizations On Spain <» SPAIN: THE ROOT AND THE FLOWER. By John A. Crow. Harper f: Row, Pages. $G.(>5. By JANET WINECOFF The preface of this book states that it is "a history and an in terpretation of the civilization of Spain from its earliest begin nings," adding, however, that it is not a ‘‘detailed account of every war or political change which the country has under gone.” In terms of historical per spective, a seemingly dispro portionate attention has been given to the two ends of the continuum, tlie hazy prehistoric beginnings and the contemporary period which is still clouded by passions. The centuries in between are best known to historical research and perhaps there is no need to re-hash them. Since by the author’s own declaration this is "not straight history,” insofar as history emphasizes political events, it would be unfair to point out numerous historical omissions which may well be de letions aimed at making the book more palatable for the non specialized reader. Those with a particular predilection for his tory, however, may find the book disappointing. The author has attempted, with questionable success, to adapt for popular consumption the standard textbook materials for what is usually entitled a course in "Spanish civilization.” In addition, he incorporates per sonal viewpoint and' experiences when relevant and also when not. Much classic textbook struc ture has been retained in the loosely historical or chronolog ical approach; nevertheless, the treatment is often rambling and disjunctive so that the over-all appearance is amorphous. The better part of a lifetime spent as an evidently devoted Hispanist has enabled Mr. Crow to accumulate a very consider able amount of erudition, and the book is liberally interspersed with little-known facts, some of them so esoteric as to be un familiar even to others in the profession. These bits of erudi tion are at times adduced as sup port for some rather doubtful hypotheses, for example, "The name that a country bears will often give some insight into the attitudes and history of her peo ple.” Tracing the various name changes the country has under gone from Iberia (derived from Iberian Iber, "river”) through Hesperia (Greek, "land of the setting sun") to the Carthagin ian (from Sphan, "rabbit" or "land of the rabbits") changed via Latin to the present-day Espana, the author avers: "The rabbit, like the Spaniard, never moves in a straight line, nor at a steady speed.” Apparently he means to be taken seriously. Some of the writing is frankly bad, as witness these jumbled figures of speech; The railway that goes from Madrid into Galicia or the Can tabrian area gradually leaves the Castilian plateau and climbs steadily upward to en ter an area of transverse mountains through which it turns and winds like a serpent of steel boring into earth and rock. There are so many tun nels that the pupils of one’s eyes scarcely have time to get used to the light when sudden ly the train hurls itself again into a dark and cavernous labyrinth that pierces another mountain. The inaccessibility of the outlying areas of the peninsula is made clear by those coiled strings of tunnels and the many miles of precar ious ledges along which the railway must pass, as labor iously, sometimes at a snail’s pace, it gnaws up the distance. In general, there are two types of writing in the book, one more or less scholarly and academic, and the other more personal, most evident in material drawn from the author's own experi ence (travel, acquaintances in Spain, and so on). Most of the travel impressions should be ex cused on the basis of an evi dent love and enthusiasm for the subject, but they are as a whole regrettable writing. These, togeth er with other personal reminiscen ces and Twentieth Century refer ences are scattered throughout the book, in a fashion calculated to confuse the uninitiated. Com ing in the middle of the story of the Moors in Granada, for ex ample, these jumps to the pres ent are slightly disconcerting. There is such a quantity of tangential material that the chapter headings as a whole can be considered only mildly indica tive of content. Sallies from the main track so abound that the process of free association ap-, pears to have played a major, role in the book’s composition. When dealing with a subject THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY where greater creativity is pos sible, such impressionism can serve the ends of art, but its value in a book whose primary goal is to be informative is ques tionable. Judging from the proportionate number of pages devoted to the period, the author's main Inter est is the present. Almost forty per cent of the book deals with this century, being loosely or ganized around the years pro ceeding, during and after the Second Republic and subsequent civil war. It might therefore seem legit imate to assume that the author would be better qualified to deal properly with this era and its figures. However, there is the same proliferation of deplorable generalizations which abound in the rest of the book. A case in point is his treat ment of the writers of the “gen eration of 1898” of whom he first says: “Each one was a dis tinct personality with an esthet ic credo and philosophy of his own. They certainly did not con stitute a unified literary move ment but they certainly did pro duce the finest literature to come out of Spain since the great days of the Golden Age." 'ln the next paragraph, he says, "They ' exalted the use of the human will, and had none." This sort of generalization, un supported and unqualified, is— to judge on the basis of this one book —a Crow specialty. He then proceeds’* to give a totally misleading summary of the writers of this same group; "One thing they did achieve, as Spaniards have always achiev ed: They constructed a palace of beauty.” This was perhaps of all literary movements in the history of Spain the one least concerned with beauty, either as a goal or as a norm. Only a small number of in tellectual figures are treated in dividually, and the inclusion of Blasco Ibanez with the greats so distinguished would make the av erage Spaniard cringe. Perhaps he is discussed because he is relatively well known in this country (to a degree far be yond his merits), but Crow in cludes him in the same breath with Unamuno. His treatment of Blasco Ibauez’s work is not un Training For The Writer Ait address delivered on the University campus July JO to editors of high school jntpers attending the annual North Carolina Scholastic Press In stitute. Mr. Golden is editor of the Carolina Israelite and a nationally known writer. By lIARRV GOLDEN Over the past 10 years I made a quick tabulation of the ques tions sent in by young writers and particularly high school boys and girls. I would say the most frequent question is, "How did you decide to become a writer, how did you get a start?” Another question is; “My high school teacher says that newspaper work spoils a stu dent's style for creative writ ing." And still another question, “How do you go about writing and do you need an agent?” Newspaper work does not work against the creative artist. Hem ingway got his start as a report er. Damon Runyon never stop ped being a newspaperman. Ben Hecht writes in his autobiogra phy that he would never have gotten anywhere without his long experience as a reporter. Sand burg wrote all of his poetry and most of his monumental Lin coln biography while a reporter and columnist on the Chicago Daily News. It is very good for writers to work on newspapers. The deadline teaches the would be writer speed, facility, pre cision, and instructs him that everything written is not neces sarily for posterity. These tions, however, reveal a process by which would-be writers avoid the big test. They complain of illiterate publishers or insist on needing an agent, or say there is no market for short stories, or that they need time off. The greatest of all training for writers is newspaper work. The work removes the excuses for an attic or a Guggenheim or a trip to Italy. A newspaper men has a job to do from 9 till 5 or from 2 to 11, and he must do it, and that is just the way most successful writers write. It be comes a job he docs for four or five or six or eight hours a day, then he knocks off like any bank er off insurance salesman. He needs no agents or any artifices. An agent is good only after a /man is very successful and wants / someone to handle the sale of siiisidiary rights. \l The reputable publishers read Everything today. Write it on (one aide of the paper double realistic, but many better au thors have been passed over without even a mention. This again is certain to mislead the audience for which the book seems intended. The two literary giants of Spain in this century were Unamuno and Ortega, and they receive the most extensive cov erage. Tlie quotes from Unamuno are not representative of his most, significant ideas, but they do give some flavor of the man and his work. Ortega does not fare so well. Many critics would disagree with his inclusion in the "generation of 1898" since he was only fif teen years old when the move ment was in full swing and in fact wrote little of importance until 1914 and after. This is a minor point, however, compared to his gross misinterpretation of "The Revolt of the Masses,” Or tega's best-known work. Crow says, “This book was meant to be a general interpretation of movements in European history, with its stress on the rise and revolt of the masses (by which Ortega means the middle class es, not the workers).” Such a remark indicates an acquain tance with Ortega's book which does not extend much beyond the first page. The over-all import of the book is not social, in any way, as Ortega states explicitly in numerable times, but ethical and psychological. The mass-man is defined as one who places no special demands upon himself, who feels no need to excel, who is mediocre, conscious of it, and happy that way. In view of this, it is not surprising that he also misinterprets Ortega's idea of the select minorities, seeing it not as an ethical category but in the framework of Facism. The final chapters deal with the period following the Civil War, and give a not too distort ed picture of the present eco nomic scene, political conditions, and society. The author is in the difficult position of trying to be both anti-Franco and objective and does not do too badly. How ever, one must give the devil his due. Each of Spain’s dicta tors in modern times has had at least one accomplishment. Prkno de Rivera built roads spaced and send it in. And if you get a reection slip send it to someone else. Now to make money at writing we have to have some of the facts of life and prime among these facts is that fiction has declined. Where the national magazines used to be full of fic tion, today they may run a single short story and sometimes not even that. Gone also is the time when a young North Carolina writer, such as all you here to night, could send a story about Sambo with his gold tooth, roll ing .in laughter under the mag nolia tree. That’s out. Today it is not Sambo, but Dr. Ralph Bunche, Nobel Prize winner. However, you must be aware of the conditions and particularly the social upheaval that is going on all around you. I know it is nice to avoid it but here is the biggest domestic story of the 20th century and many have avoided it in the past ten years. It is a story which, so far as I know, is told only by newspaper reporters, the story almost all writers ignore. Just imagine what a poet like T. S. Eliot could do with the irony of everyday occurrences on this question of race. For the irony of this momentous racial turmoil is that while the Negro is fighting for a chance to start at the bottom of the ladder the white man will gain the most after the colored man starts up. For the past 75 years the South has exported its brains along with its tobacco, textiles, and furniture. It exported its brains and this was unwittingly. Because the South maintained a second class citizenship for the Negro it had also to maintain second class institutions for him. Hundreds of thousands of Ne groes did not want those second class institutions. They found first class institutions elsewhere. When you draw a line and say certain people shall not cross it you find yourself watching that line for the rest of your life. You become obsessed with that line. You begin to think it the most important thing in yours life, more important than the Cold War. or intellectual ad vancement, and you are even willing to work for 75 cents an hour less than the fellowr'in the North because you fear that full participation in the industrial complex will breach that line. The loss of human resources is most tragic when we consider the economic development of the (and the roads have not been essentially improved since). ’ Franco has built dams and res ervoirs, with such obvious de light in dedicating them that the Spaniards call him "Paco Rana” (Frankie the Frog). Much of this, of course, has been done with foreign capital, and much more remains to be done, but it is not quite fair to imply that there has been even less prog ress than is the case as these lines seem to do; "Irrigation could increase the productivity of vast areas of Spain's agri cultural land by at least six times, and in many instances, by thirty times. However, since the civil war little has been achieved in this direction. The big landlords, who strongly up hold General Franco, have no interest in such improvement, for this would mean a consider able outlay in order to carry out the necessary engineering proj ects.” Mr. Crow’s oft-mentioned association with supporters of the Republic perhaps excuses his bias here. It is evident that the bode is not conceived as scholarly re search, or there would be many other bones to pick with the au thor. Seen as an effort to reach a wider audience with the sub jects of the Hispanist’s life’s study, however, it is by no means entirely bad. The task of popular izing such material is in itself extremely difficult, and probably explains many of the excesses in expression. What may seem poor taste to the academic reader is most likely an effort to be more vivid and popular in style. ' Surprisingly little is known about Spain by the man in the street today, and this book can do a great deal to dispel that ig norance. Spain is not simply or primarily a land of gypsies and bullfighters, and there is much in SPAIN: THE ROOT AND THE FLOWER which will help to quell that myth. It is to be hoped that the myth, once shat tered, will not be replaced with the author's generalizations. Mrs. Winecoff is a member of the faculty of Duke University’s Department of Romance Lan guages. She recently spent a year in Spain on a post-doctor al Fulbright Research Grant. Negro of the South. Think what would have happened to any ethnic or racial groups if each year they lost two-thirds of their high school graduates and three fourths of their college grad uates. Southern Negroes went through the high schools and colleges pro vided them by the Southern states at a tremendous cost to the taxpayers and when they re ceived their diplomas they de parted for the cities in the North. We were thus educating engineers and other technicians for the benefit of Detroit, Michi gan, and Camden, New Jersey, and Washington, D. C. Let me give you two examples by no means extraordinary. Mr. lEdward R. Dudley is the Bo rough President of Manhattan. Prior to his election, Mr. Dudley served as a Domestic Relations Court Justice. A few years ago, the Democratic Party chose him to run for Attorney General of the State of New York, the high est office to which a Negro in the Empire State has been nom inated by a major political party. Mr. Dudley is a 51-year-old Ne gro graduated from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte. Another Johnson C. Smith graduate, a Tar Heel of many generations, is George E. Meares, Kings County (Brook lyn) probation officer whose work in human relations has brought him national fame and many awards. At a conference in Winston- Salem some months ago, Gov ernor Sanford told Mr. Meares that he was sorry North Caro lina lost him, but both Mr. Dudley and Mr. Meares did not want to come back to become poorly-paid school teachers or under-privileged clergymen. Nor did they want to become jani tors, the only other profession open to them in the South. Mr. Meares, in fact, politely told Governor Sanford he just had too much going for him in Brook lyn. You can multiply the Mr. Dud leys and the Meares by thous ands end you will begin to ar rive at some measure of this vast loss of human resources. Who but newspapermen are making this multiplication table? For everything I told you just now, facts, figures and per sonalities came from newspapers. What better training for writers than describing the curious log ic of Southerners who say, “Nev er”? In The Margin By W. H. SCARBOROUGH ** > mmmmmmsm „ 4 The Falling Leaves of a Publisher’s Autumn Summer doldrums have begun already to yield on the publishing front. August alone will see the publication of several novels on which the publishing world is counting heavily to make it a harvest in counting house and literary salon alike. Betty Smith’s latest novel will be released August 20. Hot in her wake will come a torrent of battered veterans and fresh young hopefuls. Edna Ferber, who has turned to autobiography, will publish the second volume of her reminiscences, “A Kind of Magic,” September 6. i Possibly the most curious offering of the fall will be made by the New York Graphic Society, which boasts that it will publish a novel by “the best-known unpub lished novelist in the Western Hemisphere.” The Novel, with the simple title, “Confusions,” is the work of Jack t Ludwig, one of the co-founders with Keith Botsford and Saul Bellow, of the superb magazine of experi mental fiction, “The Noble Savage.” The Society calls Mr. Ludwig’s book a “bitingly funny, unconventional novel about mid-century America and its tangled ways.” Its hero is a new kind of Candide or Gulliver, who be gins his catalogue of confusions in the first sentence of the novel, with himself: “I sing confusion, I Joseph i Gillis, myself confused, or, to put it another way, an American.” ***« 'Jkj The novel hangs around the ambiguity of position en joyed by Gillis, a jewish boy from Roxbury, Vermont who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard. By his own descrip tion, Gillis, or author Ludwig, is “only the blackest of pots” trying to “liberate kettles.” experimental novel that began with “Catch-22” and plunged somewhere with “Naked Lunch.” Atheneum in the meantime is continuing a remark able string of first-novel publications that caught fire with Reynolds Price’s “A Long and Happy Life,” and is still burning with a hard and gemlike flame. The work of another Duke University alumnus, Fred Chap pell, a novel called “It is Time, Lord,” makes its appear ance this month. It is being roundly prpised well be i fore publication. The historical novel, too, is attempting something of i a comeback. One notable volume to be published by Atheneum on September 26, is J. Klein-Haparash’s “He Who Flees the Lion,” which has some of the aspects of both “Gone With the Wind,” Rumanian style, and “Dr. Zhivago." Another offering which piques the curiosity, if for no other reason than wonder at how such source ma terials can be put to use, is Gloria Jahoda’s “Delilah's Mountain.” It is being published September 9 by Hough ton Mifflin. In brief it is a family history that manages to sweep into one small western Virginia valley the taming of the frontier, the winning of the West, and the break Daniel Boone made through the Cumberland gap. Mrs. Jahoda found her material in her own family manuscripts, eyewitness accounts, real experiences of Indian capture, spoken tradition, children’s games and songs. Other books, non-fiction in nature, promise much. One eye-catching item, “The Social History of Bourbon,” to be published in September by Dodd, Mead & Co. will possibly do for whiskey what “Death in the Afternoon” did for bullfighting. "Certainly the potential readership is. broader. If titles will do the trick alone, this one should make the publishing season: “The Be Kind To Everybody (Except Antarcticians) Movement.” Another Lilly Book Published By Duke The Duke University Press has published another in a series of books for its Lilly Endowment Research Program in Christian ity and Politics. Entitled “Power, Law, Right, and Love,” the volume was writ ten by Dr. Edgar H. Brookes, former member of the South Af rican Senate for 15 years, who was a visiting professor in po litical science at Duke for the 1963 spring semester. Professor of history and polit ical science at South Africa's University of Natal, Dr. Brookes, in his book, examines the funda mentals of human association as he sees them in the light of his faith. Insisting that there is a vital interrelationship between politi cal action and religious faith, Dr. Brookes emphasizes that he re gards love as a political virtue. whole majestic structure of the British Commonwealth has rocked as in an earthquake because justice was not always EVaYTHMa II tows TIE EMI EHEUEE "The Soath'a largest aad moat complete Beak State* AT FIVE POINTS DURHAM, N. C. accompanied by it (love),” he declared. "The unparalleled and most moving effort of the United States to help the war-weary and underdeveloped countries of the world might end in failure with out it.” Moreover, "Its (love's) pres ence would revolutionize the sit uation in my own country, the Republic of South Africa, in the bleak atmosphere of which nothing else seems able to avoid disaster.” The book consists of a series of Lilly Endowment lectures which Dr. Brookes presented at Duke during the past academic year. Dr. Brookes also has written a number of other books, in cluding “History of Native Poli cy in South Africa,” "South Af rica in a Changing World,” “The City of God and the Politics of Crisis,” and "The Native Re serves of Natal.” Page 3-B
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