Sunday, September 8, 1963
BOOKS Bn
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Jacket Drawing For ‘Rascal*
Rascally Raccoon:
Boy’s Best Friend
RASCAL. A Memoir of a Bet
• Era. By' Sterling North.
Illustrated by John Schoen
her. Winner of the 1963 Dut
ton Animal Book Award. 189
Pages, $3.95 .
The relationship between a boy
and an animal is always interest
ing. Perhaps that is why the
boy and the dog are part of the
traditional boy - dog - Abraham
Lincoln-doctor sure-fire cast of
characters. Rascal is no dog,
however. Rascal is a raccoon.
After Mr. North’s memoir, a
rash of pet raccoons may break
out across the nation, and
neighborhood veterinarians may
from time to time find them
selves facing masked patients.
There are in “Rascal” over
tones of Kipling’s mongoose
“Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” and Saki’s
ferret "Sredni Vashtar,” but
without Rikki-Tikki’s atmosphere
of incipient violence, or Sredni’s
sinister note of malice afore
thought. In fact, one reason the
country stands an even chance of
being overrun with pet raccoons
is that Rascal is as gentle and
innocent as a kitten—baby rac
coons are called kits—and gentle
ness and innocence in an omni
vorous wild animal is strangely
appealing.
Mr. North, whose memoir is
true, found Rascal, not yet old
enough to fend for himself, in
May during World War I in the
Wisconsin woods. Mr. North was
twelve then, and from the mom
ent of Rascal’s discovery and
adoption into the North family,
Mr. North’s trick of writing total
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AT FIVE POINTS DURHAM, N. C.
ly without stylistic gimmicks im
merses you in nature, which is
also totally without gimmicks.
Mr. North’s writing is not un
like hominy: unpretentious but
highly satisfying.
In an odd sort of way, “Ras
cal” both has and has not a
story line. On one level it is
no more than a series of mem
ories of a peculiarly delightful
pet. On another level, “Rascal”
is a touching essay on how much
an animal can mean to a lonely
child.
Sterling North’s mother is
dead, his sisters have grown up
arid left home, his brother is in
the trenches in France, and he
lives alone in Brailsville with his
kind, indulgent, wise, but slight
ly distant father. There are
other animals in the family,
among them a crow; there is a
half-finished canoe in the living
room, and Sterling’s father is
usually engrossed in endless re
search for a novel about Indians,
which for some reason was nev
er published. Sterling has
friends, both adult and contem
porary, but he is a solitary type.
After you get the whole picture
of his personal situation, you be
gin to feel that his life was never
really complete until he found
Rascal.
The setting of this little stage
provides the book’s only sustain
ed note of tension. Rascal raids
neighbors’ gardens, but that is
solved; Rascal steals a lady’s
engagement ring, but it is found.
All of Rascal’s other habits are
hijjily endearing. The boy and
the raccoon become one, inter
dependent and inseparable. The
raccoon deserves (and gets) as
much respect as an individual
for his adaptation to life in a
human context as Sterling North
does for his love for and under
standing of nature (Mr. North
writes about wild places, birds,
animals, fish, and even weather
with the same trenchant lucidity
with which Hemingway wrote
about war).
But despite all the pleasure
and delight of that year, you
know the situation cannot last
A boy and a raccoon cannot re
main together indefinitely. What
will happen?
Toward the end of the book you
discover that throughout the
story of Rascal’s discovery and
absorption into the North family,
there has been an underlying
note of sadness, and that this
note is gradually becoming more
and more important. The war
ends. Sterling’s brother is un
harmed, everything seems fine;
but something isn’t At the very
end Sterling's solution to the in
evitable drawback of developing
a love for a raccoon is wise but
heartbreaking. You find your
self weeping inside at the end
, of page 189—but not entirely in
\ sympathetic grief. You are also
weeping because there was a
time when a boy could have this
kind of experience, and you
know what the experience meant
You have just been through it
yourself.
—JACP
The Tract Is Showing
Racial Ferment In Africa
A TIME TO SPEAK. By June
Drummond. The World Pub
lishing Company. Si 9 Pages.
fi.SO.
By MARTHA ADAMS
Highly controversial and emo
tional contemporary situations
are often rather risky subjects
for novels. There is the danger
of an overwrought harangue
countered by the opposite hazard
of a chilly objectivity which,
while avoiding excesses, also
avoids any feeling on the part
of the reader, and turns a novel
into a social tract.
Such a subject at present is
South Africa and its policy of
racial separation or Apartheid.
June Drummond has tackled
just this slippery subject in her
third novel “A Time to Speak.”
She is herself a native of South
Africa, and a graduate of the
University of Capetown, although
much of her life has been passed
abroad.
Her novel attempts to explore
the reactions of a small, sleepy
South African town symbolically
known as Peace Drift to the in
creasing tensions of a country
wide crisis with international re
percussions. The vehicle of her
observations is a young doctor,
bom and raised in the town but
resident in England for many
years who returns for one month
to help in a vaccination cam
paign—and to resolve his un
certainties about his much-pub
licized native land.
The reader is presented with
Peace Drift as a typical South
African small town or “dorp”,
complete with its social and
political hierarchy in both races:
the patriarchal and powerful
Segregation Troubles In Kansas
THE LEARNING TREE. By
Gordon Parks. Harper and
Row. 303 Pages. $1.05.
By BETTY SMITH
This is a deceptively under
written book about how a grow
ing boy feels when *he realizes
that he is a Negro and will al
ways be a Negro. The author
makes use of a fresh locale
not the patronizing North nor
the uneasy South— but Kansas;
a state that has never been seg
regated where the Negro has
all the rights his white neighbor
has, technically speaking.
Also there is a freshness about
the theme being carried by a
child rather than an adult.
Newt Winger is thirteen years
old. He lives on a farm with his
parents and numerous sisters
and brothers. It is a happy home.
The father is a decent, hard
working man, Sarah Winger is
a gentle and understanding moth
er, Prissy is an affectionate bro
ther-teaser and the brothers are
like the father honest and
hardworking. There is always
plenty of good food, adequate
clothing and warmth in winter.
The Wingers are not at all what
social workers call underprivileg
ed. Why, they are just like white
people except that they are
black.
Another refreshing thing about
this book: It is not "stacked”.
The white people are not all
fiends and the Negroes are not
all noble. As Sarah Winger said:
“Some of them are good and
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Brinkley (Left) AndHuntleyAtWork
THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY
landowners, the salt of the earth,
steeped in tradition; a red-neck
storekeeper; the philosophical
local factory owner; the preach
er; the resident doctor, a cynical
German bound only to medicine;
the proud, but “reasonable” pa
triarch of the surrounding Ban
tus; and the local, hot-blooded
representative of nascent African
nationalism.
Miss Drummond's novel be
gins as two figures arrive in
Peace Drift the same day, the
young doctor who marvels at the
detachment of the citizens in die
midst of a national crisis and
a sinister “agitator” who settles
himself in on the cliffs overlook
ing the town and leers down on
unsuspecting humanity below.
The “agitator’s” first action is
to job the red-neck’s store, kill
ing in the process the owner's
much beloved dog and setting
off a chain reaction of racial sus
picion and violence which nearly
wrecks the town. The obvious
moral is that things were not so
peaceful in Peace Drift as they
seemed on the surface, particu
larly since the “agitator” turns
out to be a simple criminal with
the mind of a twelve-year-old.
Against this background, auth
or Drummond seeks to present
all points of view on the African
crisis while not hiding her own
stand, personified in the young
doctor who holds out for a mod
erate multiracial culture and at
times borders on the lyric in its
exposition.
The other positions range from
the militant but honestly based
Apartheid doctrine of Peace
Drift’s main political figure and
the Vulgar hysterical racism of
the shopkeeper through the mod
erate, traditionalist position of
some of them are bad.” There
are wretchedly bad white people
and quite a few wretchedly bad
Negroes.
Newt is a typical American
boy —a little more perceptive
perhaps than the ordinary boy.
He loves his family, he enjoys
his aged blind uncle Rob whom
he leads around, confiding his
hopes and dreams. Should he be
a composer or a scientist when
he grows up? He even loves
Clint, his wild brother-in-law
who when he gets a jag on,
chases his wife and children
back to her parents’ at gunpoint,
then shoots up at the sky trying
to kill God because He is white.
Newt likes school too, even
though one of his teachers never
lets him forget that he is a
Negro.
He has his boy friends, Beansy,
Jappy, Skunk McDowell. They
swim together, hunt, or just walk
around or lie on the grass talk
ing boy-talk. They are much
bothered by an older boy who
sometimes joins them uninvited.
Marcus Savage is a foul-talking,
murderous Negro. Eventually
Marcus is put in jail for a year
for attempted murder and the
boys have him off their hands.
All of this sounds sunny and
serene, doesn’t it. But there
are times of sheer horror.
One day, the boys were down
at the swimming hole. Some Ne
groes were shooting craps up on
the hill. Kirby, the town law,
crept up on the gamblers and all
but one, a man known as Doc,
the preacher and the town’s ma
jor landowner to the bitter re
belliousness of a young unedu
cated Negro leader.
Although no one not well ac
quainted with present-day South
Africa can judge the true accur
acy of Miss Drummond's presen
tation, her account of the posi
tions of “white” South Africa is
clear and generally convincing.
Although liberals may gag at the
Apartheid philosophizing of some
of the characters, no one can ac
cuse the author of impartiality
on this score, even while she
counters with her own argu
ments. The touch is sympathtic
and delves deeply into motives
and historical explanations.
Less might be said for her
treatment of the Negroes who
admittedly she deals with in less
depth. Here the cards seem
definitely stacked against what
might be called the “activists”.
Where the prodigals from the
goal of harmony in the direction
of Apartheid are let off with a
stern, but understanding lecture
on humanitarianism and a devout
wish that they wake up to mod
ern times, the novel's Negro na
tionalist is blasted and held up
to scorn as a demagogue whose
only constructive act is burning
half the town out of spite for
being fired unjustly. The Ne
gro heroes seem to be the old
chief who proudly, but philoso
phically, waits to be thrown into
a reservation, and a self-educat
ed mechanic who solaces his
lack of opportunity for advance
ment by locking himself in his
shack and reading while he waits
for the white moderates to pro
duce multi-racial harmony.
This is not to say that author
Drummond should have written
a book damning the right-wing
got away. Doc jumped into the
river. The law ordered him to
halt and fired a shot over Doc’s
head. Doc ducked under the
water. The law fired thre shots
and waited for Doc to surface.
Dob bobbed up to the surface
for a second or two. “He wasn’t
swimming just floating.” He
went down and remained down.
Newt saw it all and began to
learn what it was to be a Negro.
The firemen came and drag
ged the river from a rowboat.
No luck.
“You fella’s want’a make two
bits apiece,” grunted Kirby.
“Do’in what?” Newt asked,
“Divin’ for Doc.”
“Not for no lousy two bits,”
Newt said coolly.
“You gittin’ real smart, ain’t
you, Winger? Could run you in
for swimmin’ naked out here,
you know.”
The boys dived several times
before they located the body.
Hooks were lowered and the boys
fastened them to Doc’s overall
suspenders.
“Newt got a good look at Doc
as the pole drew him up through
the murkiness ... his eyelids
pushed back, left the dead white
balls staring blankly . . . The
arms and legs, limp as a rag
doll’s, swayed grotesquely . . .
the corpse began a twisting mo
tion although it were coming to
life ,
Newt had bad dreams all that
night. Yes, he was learning very
fast how it was to be a Negro.
The book has two more harsh
whites and weighed in favor of
the black revolution, but the
reader has a right to demand
equal time for the extremes
when the dust-cover announces
impartiality, or so it would seem.
One might also criticize her
failure to deal with some of the
economic and class issues which
underlie much of the current
South African situation.
If “A Time to Speak” stands
at least half way on the level
of a tract on the social and ide
ological divisions of contempor
ary small town South Africa, it
limps decidedly as a novel. The
trouble certainly does not lie in
the writing of the individual sen
tence, for Miss Drummond’s
turn of the phrase is often ex
cellent. Rather it seems to be
in the author's overbearing pre
occupation with making the vari
ous opinions of her countrymen
crystal clear which reduces the
bearers of these opinions to little
more than cardboard figures who
argue, hate, and understand
among themselves according to
the needs of the author’s exposi
tion.
The same can be said of the
plot and Peace Drift's impend
ing tragedy which after the first
few chapters interests the read
er only as a device for provok
ing new opinions and evolving
new ones. The work is too did
actic to produce more than a
purely intellectual involvement
in the fate of small, typical
Peace Drift and its representa
tive inhabitants.
In short, those who wish to
read “A Time to Speak” will
find illuminating, pleasant read
ing on a part of the South African
crisis, but not another “Cry the
Beloved Country.”
episodes which complete Newt’s
education of how it is to be a
Negro. They are more forceful
than the others and like a good
craftsman, the author has saved
them for the ending.
This book is written with so
much simplicity and so much,
i for want of a better word) heart,
that it has the ring of bitter
truth. Unlike other books based
on this grievous theme, it bangs
out no message. The message is
inherent in the writing. There is
no loud off-beat sex used to prove
absolutely nothing. But this sim-'
pie story of a Negro boy grow
ing up in the white man’s world
has more impact than those an
gry books. I can only compare
it to the March on
The speeches were wonderful
and all that. But it wasn't until
Mahalia Jackson sang a simple
song in her glorious voice that
the tremendous impact of the
March on Washington got to me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gordon Parks, a Negro, grew
up on a Kansas farm. He was
the youngest of fifteen children.
His mother died when he was
sixteen and he left home to make
his way in a world of white peo
ple. He made it. He is now a
famous photographer, a member
of LIFE’S staff, a composer
whose concertos have been per
formed in Venice. His first nov
el, THE LEARNING TREE, in
dicates he also has the makings
of a fine novelist.
Duke’s Fred Chappell
.. . Author Os ‘lt Is Time, Lord’
An Unquiet View
In The Piedmont
IT IS TIME, LORD. By Fred
Chappell. Athcneum. 183 Pag
es. $3.95.
By W. H. SCARBOROUGH
“You don’t plow with a tiger,”
James Christopher mused all to
himself. There are other things
you do, also at great personal
hazard.
Among them he might well
number lying, indolence, adul
tery, and the demon rum. But
these hold less terror than the
blbtting of memory or attempt
ing to re-arrange the past to
create a present that holds more
than a husk of existence. Chris
topher’s present is a thing to
be fled either forward or back
ward. Toward the past in a fan
tasy of what should have hap
pened in a sequence that would
have led him to be a comfortable,
undisturbed Methodist minister.
He would, too, but for that Me
dieval monster of the soul we
call the Unconscious; it is not
a tiger broken to the harness of
reality, and its furrows are to
be found on man rather than on
the fields he tills. But for it one
might whip the past into shape.
Not that Christopher doesn’t try.
Late at night in his study, sur
rounded by boyhood debris and
science fiction he types spora
dically on a manuscript recount
ing The Way It Really Was. He
is not succeeding, however, “for
the rich money of dreams is
generally debased by the coun
terfeiting of memory.” To es
cape he throws himself into a
passionless dalliance, gets
drunk in the company of evil
companions and attempts unsuc
cessfully to pretend his stub
bornly undemanding wife is not
there. Another man would have
gone barrelling to an analyst.
Christopher goes home. Whether
salvation awaits him there he
hasn't the remotest suspicion.
This is not to give a resume of
a novel, but rather to attempt
a tentative understanding of what
is the most bemusing piece of
WUNC-TV To Carry
Huntley-Brinkley
The Huntley-Blrinkley Report
will be broadcast over WUNC
TV. Channel 4. the educational
television station of the Univer
sity, it was announced here to
day. It will be a non-sponsored
program, without commercials.
The National Broadcasting
Company offered the 30-minutes
NBC newscast as a public serv
ice. The first half hour Huntley-
Brinkley program of the season
will be heard on Channel 4 to
morrow at 7 p.m. Prior to the
regular season's program, there
will be a special “Huntley-Brink
ley Advance” tonight at 6:30.
NBC offered the program to
WUNC-TV as a public service
to the population of central North
Carolina. No other TV station
in the Research Triangle area
now carries the program.
Approval for the right of Chan
nel 4 to present the news re
view by David Brinkley and
Chet Huntley was secured from
WSJS-TV in Winston-Salem, the
nearest primary NBC affiliate
in North Carolina.
Educational television stations
are not permitted to carry com
mercials. Therefore, the Hunt
ley-Brinkley Report's regular
commercials will not be seen and
heard on Channel 4.
The American Telephone and
Telegraph Company had tech
nicians in Chapel Hill today in
stalling new receiving equipment
necessary to take the NBC beam
for the program.
David Brinkley is a native
North Carolinian, a former Wil
mington newspaperman, and
studied briefly at the University
here.
WUNC-TV, Channel 4. operat
ed with 100,000 watts by the Uni
versity since 1935, otters educa
tional, cultural and public pro
writing to come from any North
Carolina novelist, ever. One’s
first temptation is to call it the
last gasp of Surrealism and let
it bother the mind no further,
but this will satisfy none of the
disturbing perceptions that have
insinuated their way past one's
mental pickets.
It is almost as meaningless to
call it a graphic representation
of Freudian theory. Freudian
theory is present, applicable but
insufficient. Symbols don’t
abound in every line, but they
are strung across the narrative
like rabbit snares—signs of the
Zodiac, shapes of leaves traced
in the patterns of pieces on a
chess board; tongues of flame,
childish monsters intermingle
with moments of shame or of
fear.
This, Mr. Chappell appears to
be saying, is the price a man of
thirty pays for abnegating where
he came from. If one comes
from nothing, one has nowhere to
go; man takes his wages in mad
ness, fear and desolation.
In effect one must follow Mar
cel Proust, one must root out the
past and string a bosun’s chair
between it and the present.
The message itself, if message
it may be called, would not and
could not stand independent of
a great imaginative force. Fred
Chappell more than adequately
supplies that, but he demands
a comparable act of imagination
from his reader.
As a literary virtuoso there
is no one in North Carolina who
can claim to be his peer, nor for
that matter are there appreci
able numbers outside. Some will
quarrel with the manner in which
he uses his resources and com
plain that he is giving them too
little sustenance for too much
work. But no one would be wise
to say that his book, if worked at,
will not yield a disquieting view
of that terrible, largely unknown
landscape in the nether regions of
the soul.
grams in central and Piedmont
North Carolina, to about 1,6,00,000
people in the area.
During the school year,
WUNC-TV, which has studios in
Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Greens
boro, presents programs about
60 hours a week, generally from
9 to 1 on weekdays, reaching
public schools classrooms, and
from 5 to 10 in the evenings. On
Sundays, telecasts ere from 3 to
10 p.m.
Baptist Sermon
Topic Announced
“Heaven on Earth” is the topic
of the sermon to be preached at
University Baptist Church at the
11 am. service today. The
Chancel Choir will sing a Choral
Introit from “The Chenibic
Hymn” by Bortniansky, "To God
on High Be Thanks and Praise”
by Decius and a Hymn-Anthem
“Thy Word is Like a Garden,
Lord.”
Dr. Henry E. Turlington is
pastor and Mrs. William C. Bur
ris, minister of music. While
the organist is on vacation, guest
organist will be Mrs. James O.
Cansler.
The Sunday evening worship
services will resume tonight at
7:45. Dr. Turlington has chosen
as his topic, “Grieve N6t the
Spirit!” The choral call to wor
ship and the anthem will be sung
by the Chapel Choir.
You will always be pleased
with the results that come from
using the Weekly’s classified
.
Page 3-B