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Show 2E The Salt Lake Tribune1, Sunday, October SI, 1971 Herman Wouks most ambitious project: World War By Herman if the report of my death is exaggerated, where have I been? Wouk Well, Special to the Los Angeles Times - Not long ago I went to charge some books and phonograph records in a shop here. A new clerk was tending the counter, a hairy mustached young man wearing a red sweater and an Indian headband. When I gave him my name his jaw dropped, his eyes widened, and he turned a shade pale. Youre not the author? I seldom encounter such a violent reaction. Yes, Im the author. VI hat's the matte-- ? Oh, nothing, nothing. I thought you were dead. On reflection, walking home with my package in the twilight, I decided that the incident was not though a jolt unflattering. He knew who I was. No doubt he had read The Caine Mutiny in his teens, and perhaps other books of mine too. WASHINGTON or In silence, exile, and cunning at least trying to follow that austere rule I have for a decade been absorbed in one Lrge task. From 1962 to 65, I read hundreds of thick books. The purpose was to get the grounding for a historical novel which would, in Conrads phrase, throw a rope around the Second World War. While serving at sea in the South Pacific in wartime, I had conceived the ambition to write such a novel. W.nds of War" is the result. This means that I have given a large chunk of my working life to an unfashionable fiction form. out its tongue at human existence. What then can the historical novel si.il offer? I am not sure, but this I do knew. Never Died The global convulsion which we term World War II was a cauldron of many wars at once, each of which in former das would have been called a great war Yet at bottom it was the first world cattle. This universal clash of arms had a reason, a shape, and a meaning; and it created the trap that we are in. Tiie historical novel as ephemeral amusement has, of course, never died. But the serious historical novel, equally intended to absorb and to entertain, tells of important days gone by so that he w'ho reads may relive and perhaps understand. Most of our present woe, with the Inevitably, it is an orphan of current clash of races throbbing at the center of it, traces to that great and still library criticism. It is in its nature catastrophe. experimental nor highly styled, for it has too much to tell. It does not let a Picture Too Vast nei-tn- Absorbed in Task At the time the full story of the Nazi death camps had not yet sunk in; but these horrors, when I grasped them, s'rengthened my resolve to comprehend, and one day to portray in fiction, this most stupendous and ghastly of all wars. The A quarter of a century later, bucket down into the artists psyche and bring it up brimming with the muck or the gold of Its mood is not alinated, but engaged. It does not elaborate a visible symbolic structuie. it does not play tricks with time, nor sd. k Single At different times three living historians have told me that a single picture of the Second Wld War was too vast for scholarly presentation; ihat a novelist would one day have to try it, with his Pen spills bile in Nixon hatchet job The King Makers, by Leonard Lurie; Coward, McCann & Geoghengan, 271 pp., $7.95. Theodore H. White quadren-- . nially gees back and tells us about the making of the president. Our author of the The d o es King Makers structurally much the same thing, allthough that appears about as far as the parallel should go. U. professor into dies o Nasser era Rural Politics in Nasser's Egypt, A Quest for Legitimacy, by Janies B. Mayfield; University of Texas Press, 259 pp., $8.50. Dr. James B. Mayfield, a faculty member with the University of Utahs political science department, has undertaken one of those dechores that need manding doing if complex problems with international implications are to be fully understood. He has probed beneath the headlines for the essential strength and weaknesses of .Egypts emergent rationalism. The work is well organized and the scholarship impres-.sivDr. Mayfield conducted much of his research through a Fulbright - Hayes grant that financed a field trip to Egypt in 1966-6- 7 as well as a grant from the Universitys Middle East Center, which facilitated revisions during concluding 11969 and 1970, It was money well spent. e. In a foreward, George i, from the University of California at Berkeley, wrote: In concentrating his study on in rural the modernization areas, Dr. Mayfield has undertaken an ambitious and pioneering task in a field that thus far has received rather scant attention from Western scholars. Lenc-Izowsk- It should be a source pride foi the American political science community to see one of their members succeed so eminently in this difficult task. Indeed, it should. Harry E. Fuller. Also; of " one historical novel war, there is always an aim. For the Unitea States, the cataclysm and dramatizing. that fixed our somber world destiny was Those critics win insist on preferring Pearl Harbor. There we entered the i novels in which time explodes and ordeal that ended with our martial artistically or nihilistically rearranged triumph, our temporary nuclear supre-mactend to overlook a fact of existence, and the global leadership that has which is that they themselves live linear since become our unwanted glory and lives. our leaden burden. In The Winds of War I have tried to evoke the whole They meet deadlines in linear time, drift to that conduct illicit love affairs with a sharp historic that is, linear watch, get tax shattering moment. eye on the linear-tickin- g notices with linear inevitability , grow old And now, having perhaps said too i at a linar rate, and write strictly linear much about the book a novel should i criticisms declaring that linear commuf speak for itself I return to silence and nication is dead. new of J in task a engaged exile, being similar scope. For my sins, I seem con- Rigidly Ruled demned to work on large canvases that War itself is rigidly ruled by linear consume years. time. Classics like The Good Soldier Meanwhile, this brief word is for have captured Schweik and Catch-2let them the aimless nightmare of militarism, as anyone who remembers me, 'd and and well, alive living am I that know in soldier it strikes the common tumbling the storm. But in the higher rtiadness of in Tasmania. freedoms of elision, telescoping, evoking, 2 The Poems of Dylan Thomas The Kin" Makers -- II in fcurrently chairman social studies for the New York City Board of Education, cached his notes while covering the 1952 Republican national convention as a political reporter for the New York Post. Fads Assembles Now, 20 years later, with every evidence to capitalize on the coming presidential interest, assembles his facts, spills his bile, and does a hatchet job on President Nixon. The reader, perhaps, can be thankful that Lurie is on a schedule of perspective and not competing quadrennially. Lurie recreates the GOP convention that year right down to ihe honor guard opening the convention sessions tc depict the struggle between Robert A. Taft and Dwight D. Eisei. bower for the presidential nomination. The convention is critical in the authors eyes as shaping the partys destiny and future figures. election Lurie Poems of The edited with Thomas, troduction and notes by Jones; New Directions 291 pp., $6. years before he died, I met Dylan Thomas in Greenwich Village. We were both on our way to the Cherry Lane Theater, where he was to- - give a reading of his poems. He was with Oscar Williams, who introduced us, and timidly, because I was awed by Thomas, I asked him why he never read any of his earlier works. I named my stylist stout on the coffee table. But in recent weeks tlibre have been some paperback fascimiles of true general interest, and here are three of them: Gardners Fox, by Doubleday, but his Today, perhaps, we have as not only Raleigh intense a sense of uncertainty family, the Queen, and the as the Elizabethans had, but various people who played we are without their equally their part in his er.d. intense sense of possibility. The evocations of place are They were as aware as we in particularly successful; are of the likelihood of the fall fact, it is Garretts feel for from fortune, but there is a place that finally drives the tension in their art between period in. The tone of the that likelihood and the possbil-it- y whole is so tightly sustained of the earthly paradise, and the tension makes for that some of the minor figures blur, but this is a small greatness. quibble. Raleigh is beautifully A nice instinct led Garrett to Releigh; he is ihe ideal done, and the length and comprotagonist for a novel about plexity of the portrait pay off mutability. He died nobly, but in the final sequences, when he didn't become noble too the vagaries of fortune bring early, or too easily. He was a him to the fine moment which more more Garrett makes convincingly commanding, compelling figure than Esse, solemn and also convincingly or than many of the brilliant human. J. Larry McMarty, The Washington Post. young men of that brilliant age, partly because he didnt stay young. It is most encouraging to see a man who has written 12 books suddenly abandon these companionable waterways for the always unpredictable, fatal curents of a major literary undertaking as George Garrett has done in Death of the Fox. Sense of Incertainity The book is a fine and unusual historical novel. Its theme of mutability ; its subject the life and death of Sir Walter Raleigh. Mutability, of course, was a theme which obsessed the Elizabethans Raleighs career perfectly illustrtes why. At no time have people had a keener sense of the brevity of beauty, happiness, and health and at no time has tnis particular sense of the sweetness and the uncertainty of life been expressed in poetry with such brilliance and variety. causes, preventative atempts. relevant events, and critical analysis of each riot from 1917 to 3970. It is not about riots, says its editor, but about official interpretations and investigations of riots. During the reading, even he seemed unusually moved, and you might almost say there wasnt a dry eye in the house. To each of us in the audience it seemed as if Thomas had arrived in the nick of. time, bringing us a message we badly needed. He wras like a downpour after a we were long drought; parched with the poetry of our its a e work by a master photograMathew pher who was Brady's chief assistant during the early years of the war and took many of the pictures that used to be attributed to lie bloated bn thd battlein contorted, agoground nized poses, while the Northerners all seem to have died with smiles on their lips. The 1929 World Almanac and Book of Facts (American Heritage- - Workman, S3.95). Another chapter from history, told in facts and figures. and particularly entertaining when compared with a 1971 edition. Hundreds of ads of the time dot the endpapers, and there is a special photo section of celebrities. side-by-si- The Pullman Strike, by the Rev. William H. Carwar-din- e (Charles H. Kerr Co., Chicago, $2.50). A reissuance of the 1894 classic of socialist liteiature by a sympathetic Die clergyman, detailing grievances of the ground-dow- n workers of Pullman (then a company town, now a excluded from the collected volume in a separate edition, as subjects for specialists. Especially Disappointing Especially disappointing are the poems written before the poets 16th birthday. For some reason, I had always supposed that Thomas had had the same voice all his life, Dut, alas, he was every bit as conventional as the next boy, full of the sourceless sadness of adolescence, pimply with phrases such as vague dread wilderimmensity, ness, pale, ethereal beauty, cradle-petaof the night, (Copyright) Travel on Your Own Avoid your travel agent like he was the cops, and go find out about the world by yourself, declares a fascinating ls Melancholy Thoughts But these are melancholy thoughts after reading this new collection, which is augmented by 102 poems, most of them previously published only in England, some of them not at all. Instead of the s of 15 years ago, I felt mainly an impatience to turn the page. True, the best poems are still magical, but there are so many others! Such a fatigue of adjectives, a drone of alliterations, a huffing of hyphenated words hurdling the meter like tired horses. Such a faded upholgoose-pimple- of tears, stars, bells, A bones, flood and blood thud of consonants in tongue, stery dowTi. It would have been better to put out the poems he and boughs forgotten songs. How much better if they had been forgotstar-scale- d . Europe lar destination train, even feet. . ALUMINUM EASEL light, dark, dust, seed, wound and wind. with Chalk Board Suitable hr MfUn, drmn( or paint- mp lor children U man eld Can alsa be used by adults seatad on chair , h SINGLE FACED DOUBLE FACED $21.95 $24.95 (20x24 Ckalk Board) VJxfjaXtOjitMir 123 lent 2nd So., 335-17- 326S Coat 4100 So., afc LESS 20 0 - Salt 254 So. Main Lake City 328-253- 6 YOUR CHILDS SELF ESTEEM The Key To His Life By Dorothy Corkille Bnggs tt most adiwtdbdd o rhof one of Kav NOW THRU NOV. 7TH ti tfog bd n rowing O hopOV. nok ng o ch d fee1 cbe' h. hem Ad nat i 0pd worthwn nst Ooov ef h we ond hetatwi gu-th ttotad probkime, bv w tl O opp'OOCh 0 totitfac and moon vg profound cb a 'eoring rnot but o ot I rn no ony to It cHdd po'e'-- i e tente at nH prtv t'ggi doi. urdd b'gt Do'c.rtv Cock'll !,bneocbef,eunto'. ho o 0"d 8rgg h kw procc( pnvov 0 o fom teacboi pornt ducoon cow'tev it "tool oytbologit tonio ond $6 VOLCANOES & VOLCANISM Colorful Traveling Exhibit earn the nature, history and future of Volcanoes From the SMITHSONIAN fTT'" K233 PHASE SEND Mf PIUS 2 5C Open Panel Bed Night Stand PObAGf tEreSR, ''tD.'ilUTO j l. - 3 ns USEfllUL . - INSTITUTION (EU' QiW I'9 S'A'l Z. ""ponton CKorgo AH- - 4 My tOtt Axrounl LO 0 D tmno Odd '? litex-E- ELDREDGE FURNITURE ' CD Entloed " !lS VO AM WEUERAF ZION BOOK STORE: nwiwiM I - ry-- i Open Until ' - - Q P.M. Fridays ' cr,) blkUr .qq,.q'.,.V..V.V.V6V6VAW.VV.V7AV.VAVJ.S''.yiV'V,VVVWX,?7 a zion book -store .and 'few' motorcycle, against the Pullman Palace Car Co. A maslerpeice of the early labor wars against the robber barons. iliW -- if any reservations for-- acouple of months during off season (like now, and. go by thumb, bus,' ne ighborhood) Chicago Vagabond- and North ing in Africa, by Ed Buryn (Book-- .' words Random House, $3.95). How? Take a vagrants" course - unguided, unpredictable and without any partSuiC, Mr. Jones has arranged the poems in chronological order in ue hope that this Will throw' some light On the poets development. It doesnt: on one page Thomas soars like his omnipresent birds, and on the next, his wings heavy with bombast, he resembles one of those poor creatures who have been caught in an oil Anatole Breyard, slick. New York Times . V 1 v-- ... The Nightingale Sings said Jean Cocteau, Badly, and indeed it does in too many of the poems that Thomas himself had the good taste to withhold. The pieties of scholarship are no substitute for poetry and Thomas has been badly served in having his worst printed alongside his besi, pulling them new paperback, ten! Long Reflections The book is a sequence of modulated long, beautifully reflectons, in which past and present are mixed ar.d we see Riot commissions The Politics of Riot Comedited by Anthony missions, M. Platt; Collier Books, 527 pp. plus index, $3.95 This new paperback is identified as a definitive account ; of major U.S. riots in the 20th Century; yewitness stories, process), Photographic' Brady. Literally pages from the history,1 photos are partisan and emotional the Confederate dead Sketch Book of the Civil War, by Alexander Gardner (Dover, $4). First published in. 1866 (or real prints pasted to the leaves; this was before the invention of the halftone dog-eare- d three favorites: If My Head Hurt a Hairs Foot, Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines and After the Funeral. He pondered this for a moment, then said: 'You know, I think I will. time. Sir Walter Raleigh: a portrait of nobility George Garrett; 739 pp., $10. Press, , Ever since Chelsea House brought out its famous reprint of the 1897 Sears, Roebuck catalog in 1968, publishers have followed with a flood of cheap facsimile editions to capitalize on the nostalgia bag. Often of real interest only to scholars, most have passed a short life as the ruthlessness, stealth and unscrupulous characteristics to Mr. Nixon, depicted only as a the Daniel A lew By Henry Kisor Chicago Daily News Writer course, he focuses on Richard Nixon, and imputes of in- Recent reprints arouse nostalgic interest Of Death Dylan an Three paperbacks stand out Focuses on Nixon Thu analysis Is based on reports obtained from more than 125 bookstores In 64 communities of the United States. Editor judgment hurts poets image rasping politician reaching for the brass ring. President Eisenhower come3 off little better, viewed as a dumb, bland puppet. It all seems like sort of warmed over political nonsense. Take that back; it might be nostalgia. But, whatever, it appears shallow and uneven. The events closest to Lurie are descriptive. What he didnt see becomes recitation. Diatribe too often replaces depth to mar the historical perspective. Douglas L. Parker Lurie, of &st Sell 273-493- 1 |