Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 204

Cdicaso Jsunbai) tJobime oJVtagOlZme qfJBootlS PART 4 PAGE 6 OCTOBER 25, 1953 LIFE OF COLORFUL WAGNER "MAGIC FIRE," by Bertita Harding. IBobbs-Merrill, 451 pages, $5.1 Reviewed by Edmund Fuller Anyone who has been under the spell of Richard Wagner's vivid and impassioned music will realize the turbulence that must have stirred within its composer. Wagner's life had only a little less color than his tonal palette. This life had its occasional ugly chords, too, like the dissonances that made his music shocking to certain of his contemporaries. Bertita Harding has brought her technique, which is not strictly biografy but not quite fiction, to this promising subject.

I'm a little puzzled that she has given her book the subtitle, "Scenes Around Richard Wagner." This implies a collection of scattered highlights, whereas the book is a substantial, thorogoing life story from infancy to death. Three of the four parts into which the text is divided bear the names of women: Minna, Mathilde, Cosima. The other is called The King," being dominated by the sensitive, road Ludwig of Bavaria whose infatuation with Wagner's music became the means of freeing the composer of desperate financial troubles. Mrs. Harding is hard on Minna, showing her as a schemer and complainer.

In the case of Mathilde Wesen-donck she pictures an idyllic love curtailed and restrained by Mathilde's marriage vows and Wagner's sense of guilt. No such consideration served to deter him, however, in the final relationship with Cosima the major association of his life. Neither his bonds with her father, Franz Liszt, nor With her husband, Hans von Bulow, could serve as check-rein. But Mrs. Harding takes the view that Cosima was the relentless aggressor and that, once he was in her hands, Wagner was never wholly his own man again.

Mrs. Harding is not trying for exhaustive factual detail. Those wishing such will find it in the massive, multi-volumed biografy by Ernest Newman. Her intent is to paint for us a colorful life story and in this she succeeds. I think, occasionally, that her Wagner lacks the weight his creations show him to have had, and that some of her manufactured dialog is not quite adequate.

These are minor points. The hosts of Wagnerites should enjoy this well told life of their hero. Bertita Harding Colettes Wise 'Where Are the "MY MOTHER'S HOUSE" and SIDO," by Colette. IFarrar, Straus Young, 219 pages, 3.50.1 Reviewed by Paul Engle Rather than the story of passion, the narrative of men and women shattering themselves like waves on the rocks of each other, this vdlume deals with the calmer, but still intense, affection between child and parents. It is surprising, in view of the customary image of Colette as the novelist of adult love, to find her writing of the tiny details of a little child hiding in the barn, or of a girl of 15 looking with sofisticated astonishment at the manner in which her mother and father never showed obvious emotion between them, and yet conveyed a sense of deep devotion.

But this is not strange, for this book proves how profoundly the Colette of Cheri was anticipated by the perceptive adolescent. The quality that gave Colette her insight, at the age of 14, into the love between her one legged, old soldier father and her warm, shy mother, was the same quality that let her feel the whole range of human sensi bility when she wrote the novels that made her a member of the Academy Goncourt. The chapters of this volume are descriptive of moments in the childhood of Colette. They are written in that wonderful, direct, concrete, sensuous style which is her great glory. The first chapter is based on her mother's cry, as she ran around the yard, Where are the children?" Colette builds this into an ancient cry of anguish and love, for where, if one faces reality, are the children They may be hidden in trees, in windows, behind corners, but where are they in the immense and1 dreadful world? That cry haunts the book.

At one point she writes, Altho she may be ashamed of it later, a girl of 14 has no difficulty, and no credit, in deceiving two trustful parents." Colette Vivid Prophecy of Book Burning FARENHEIT 451," by Ray Bradbury. IBaltentine, S08 pages; hard cover, paper, 35 cents.1 Reviewed by August Derleth The most widely known contemporary writer of science fiction offers here, in his longest sustained work, a savage and shockingly prophetic view of one possible future way of life. It is a world in which the firemen are all important, for they are no longer util ized to put out hres, but to start Skipper and crew of the Seven Seas. Illustration from "No One Fell Overboard." them, for theirs is a world in which books and independent thinking are forbidden and the possession of books is punished by the burning of books, house, and owner. It is a world which, like that of Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here," is far more likely to come into being than the various worlds of many other imaginative writers.

Fahrenheit 451 was conceived out of Hitler's burning of the books, and is all the rhore timely now because of the fortunately ill fated American venture on a similar path. The short novel which gives the title to this book is, thus, perilously close to being propaganda, but it is a gripping and, in implication, a terrible reading experience, since it points so clearly the direction in which many Americans, who seek to suppress freedom of thought and of the press, are traveling. Here again in evidence are Bradbury's brilliant imagination, his clipped, swiftly paced prose style, his mastery of suspense, the acme of fantasy rooted firmly in reality, so that one is persuaded to believe quite readily that today's fantasy may be tomorrow's reality. Fahrenheit 451" is a compelling book, informed with a vein of philosofy which made previous appearances in shorter tales. It is the work, clearly, of a young man who may well become one of our wit6118! wh0, is al-reiadi' an ainaaiftg'siiccess in Its' prophecy.

Here is a different, off -trail book, filled with intimations of a time to come, of regimented men and women, of a complex atomic age which looms ahead. It is an ideal book for that reader whose appetite is in danger, of becoming jaded, as well as for him who yearns for something new, some strange adventure in print A Grandiose Extension of Our Ignorance "TO THE END OF TIME," by Olaf Staplelon. IFunk Wag-nails, 775 pages, $5.1 Perhaps if Spengler or Toyn-bce had applied his talents to the future instead of the past, something like the present volume might have resulted. It is a form of philosofical pseudo-prophecy, possible to disagree with but not to disprove. It is not good science fiction and it is not good entertainment.

Works like "Decline of the West" and "A Study of History may not be strictly factual, but they are attempts to organize our fragmentary knowledge of the past. The present work is merely a grandiose extension of our ignorance. With the possible exception of "Odd John," the individual works of Stapleton were, in this reviewer's opinion, tedious and absurd. Mask Reinsbebs Boston to Pittsburgh Family's 6,000 Mile Voyage "NO ONE FELL OVERBOARD," by Josephine Hunter Potter. IWilfred Funk, SIS pages, $4.1 Reviewed by Al Chase Ever sail from Boston to Pittsburgh? No? Mehbe you didn't even know it could be done.

Of course, it's a 6,000 mile voyage; so it's not exactly as the crow flies, but when you read this jolly, well written, and informative account of an unusual journey, you'll realize it's worth the mileage. The Potter family father skipper mother author Nancy, 10; Jan, Frank 6, and Foss, 1 made this roundabout voyage in 1949. It took 11 months. They made many stops, spending the winter in Florida living in their 40 foot schooner, Seven Seas. Little open sea sailing was done between Boston and New Orleans.

Most of the voyage was thru the intracoastal waterway. Up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers Seven Seas depended on its motor, with just a few short stretches of sail. First Mate Josephine has turned out a delightful log of gay, carefree Drawing by Joe Mugnaini Fahrenheit 451." few short years since publication of his first book in 1947. Together with the long title story, there are two others, The Playground," and And the Rock Cried Out," each with similar impact; each with a similar note of.