Show Three Surprises Join With Ranks of Best Sell Sellers rs Fournier Stradley Write Outstanding Works By NEA BOOK SURVEY Here Hero is a book bool season with a a surprise ending It seems that a number of publishers publishers pub pub- lishers ushers had hail aces In thug tho the hole as they say in less Intellectual com corn pany And th these se have haye been produced produced pro pro- just as the official year was coming to a close Such is their merit that they have almost completely completely com coin blinded the book bool world to anything t that 11 at might have happened happened happened hap hap- at an earlier earlier ear ear- lier her date First and per per- Arnold Arnod haps most important im- im Is a discovery dis dis- covery Arnold ery Arnold a young German Ills His book The Strange Case of ot Sergeant Sili Viking will wm fall faU Into the hands of tens of thousands of American readers thanks to its Book of ot the Month selection Then came an another 0 ther imported surprise The Wanderer Hough- Hough ton Mifflin bearing the 0 O K of or orthe the American Booksellers' Booksellers tion The author Alain Main Fournier a ayoung ayoung ayoung young Frenchman Is dead He was one of those fine artists to the late war But The Wanderer Wan VVan derer deler had appeared in Paris prior to the war It was after atter Founders Founder's death that the critics began to value his importance to literature and this particular work attracted wide attention UNCOMMON BOOK This has been due largely to its charming and naive imaginative quality It escaped the sophisticated sophisticated rated realism of ot the day allowing ing an idealist an opportunity for creating creating creating cre cre- a world in which the miraculous miraculous lous bus was to be found in everyday life and events Its It's an uncommon book Finally came Elizabeth and Essex Essex Essex Es Es- sex Harcourt Brace from Lytton Stra hey the very popular and excellent excellent ex ex- ellent biographer and biographer and this Joined the best seller ranks overnight Of the three the book boo will willbe wille be e most likely to survive contemporary contemporary favor It Is a work worl marked by 3 greatness greatness and and to endow any creation with greatness Is to shoulder shoulder der ier the grave graye responsibility of prophecy Its It's very ery simple to calla callo call a. a a o book a great book boole but its it's in infinitely infinitely in- in finitely more difficult to have time bear ear out the opinion I Sergeant Grischa is is' essentially a L book coming under the heading of ofa ofa ofa a human document This is to tobe tobe toe be e sure sure a broad generality But Buthis I this his is a human document in the sense that Jean Christophe or Of Human luman Bondage are hum human n docu docu- ments And surely those novels are outliving their generation ADVENTURE STORY On the surface Sergeant Grischa Grischa Gri Gri- I clia is a psychological study an adventure story and an amazing chronicle le of a a. young German soldier sol- sol her aier who is captured by the Russians Russians Rus Rus- ians who escapes the prison camps amps and is on his way to his family amily when saved from the woods woodsy woodsby woodsby by y a Russian gir girt with whom he lives ives who assumes the name and Identity of ot another In order to aid Ills his escape and Is arrested and sentenced sentenced sen sea to death because he lie is thought hought to be a spy though he is not a a. spy Such is the perversity I af of Pt military law and Justice in so far faris faras is as he is concerned that he must die anyway lie He Is killed as an example example ex cx ample to others All about rise cries ries of injustice A whole population population tion ion rises in horror and the obscure soldier becomes a symbol of stirring revolt evolt Recalling the tens of thousands thousands thou thou- sands ands who protested the Sae Sacco- Sacco o- o execution In America the situation becomes slightly familiar UNHAPPY ENDING The plot lot Itself then comes under uner un- un der er the adventure story category with rith an unhappy ending But the richness of tho the book lies in the building building- of background the meticulous meticulous ulous bus tracing of individual scene the he amazing number of people and incidents encountered and finally the he tremendous pity and sympathy the he writer has had for his character char char- I acter It Is certain that must havo have had a a. broad experience In n a the late war for he has recap- recap whole regiments of humble Blundering lundering human men Ills his style is slightly Meredith Meredith- and background back back- can an an In that the scene round ground often octen Interrupt the epic of a. a a style which as wo see It t adds to the reality of ot the whole pIcture leture I Its It's a n book bool that nIll Ill not be dead lay day ay after tomorrow |