Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 114

11 -CHICAGO SUNDAY TKIUUNIt: JANUARY 23, 1911- TRBMAINB McDOWELL REVIEWS "WINTER WHEAT1 BY MILDRED WALKER WALTER HAVIGHURST REVIEWS THE BY ALICE BEAL PARSONS SIGRID SCHULTZ TELLS PLANS FOR NEW WAR Soldier's Diary Shoivs That France Lacked Unity to Win Hon; Germans Plot Future Aggression "JEAN MALAQUAIS' WAR DIARY," by Jean Malaquais. Doubleday, Doran, $2.75. Reviewed by Paul Engle. From Sept 2, 1939, until July 13, 1940, Jean Malaquais, a young French writer, was in the army of his country. This book is a day-to-day account of what happened to him, of what engaged his mind, what he ate, drank, suffered from, and rejoiced in, from the day he entered the army at Versailles' until he entered Paris, a refugee soldier disguised as a civilian, 10 months later.

It is a remarkable revelation of a country spiritually beaten, by the constant attritional attacks of domestic conflict, long be- fore she ever ventured on the reckless act of foreign conflict. The civil tensions and corruptions of France defeated her before the German army crossed the frontier. This book is by no means a description 1 of that Inner struggle. It is merely a record of one man's observations of some of the end results of that struggle. The Frenchmen he describes are tojtally out of the war, even tho they are in uniform.

It is a massive block of ice into which they are frozen. But they are it It involuntarily, and only because the Immense chill of European dis aster crept around them befort they were aware. China's Leaders, Frankly Viewed in Gossipy Book "SHARK'S FINS AND MILLET," by Ilona Ralf Sues. Little, Brown, fJ.J 4 vVt 'Mvn- 17 1. "GERMANY WILL TRY IT AGAIN," by Sigrid Schultz.

Reynal and Hitchcock, i2.50.i Reviewed by Fanny Butcher. In 1920 Sir Philip Gibbs published Now It Can Be Told," a book ot sensational facts concerning the first world war facts which shocked, startled and stirred readers on two continents and even gave to our language a colorful phrase. Sigrid Schultz has written the Now It Can Be Told of Germany, and she has given her revelations the title. Germany Will Try It Again," which may well become one of today's memorable sentences. It, too, will shock and startle and it should stir its readers, for it is a detailed revelation of the work of the German "secret general staff" and the war-in-peace which was cleverly carried on for a quarter of a century.

Two months before Germany's surrender in 1918, when it was obviously inevitable, Gen. Lu-dendorff began making his first plans to carry on that war. And it will not cease with Hitler's surrender Sigrid Schultz makes that startlingly convincing. "Germany Will Try It Again" is a penetrating analysis of those plans, with names named, facts documented, an analysis of German psychology, a blueprint of the almost incredible manner in which Germany waxed in a quarter century from defeat to almost world dominion. It is also a searching analysis of the Hitler technique.

The "secret general staff," Sigrid Schultz shows, was, as organized by Ludendorff, composed of the best minds in Germany to formulate and work for the economic and military rejuvenation of Germany. Pan-Ger-manism, the belief in Germany's right to rule the world, was so deep a conviction in the minds of Germans of 1914-'1S that it was easy to convince them that German arms had not actually been defeated I no conquering armies brought the war to Germany and that when Germany had "regained her strength" she would be invincible. Miss Schultz declares that the failure of the German republic, the disastrous inflation, were both engineered by this secret general staff," with Ludendorff as its master mind until Hitler, his stooge, became his master. Ludendorff wrote, she says, "voluminous notes for a book called 'Total a masterly, detailed outline for the war loosed by his pupil, Adolf ler. Everything is there the theory of mobilizing and regimenting every aspect of life for war, the preliminary work for the blitzkriegs-nothing was overlooked." Some of the subtleties in the machinations of this secret general staff" were psychological warfarethe sowing of distrust between the allies, the cries of "chaos" unless help was given the tottering nation, pictures of the terrors of imminent communism if Germany weren't given aid, pleas of complete financial impoverishment which brought loans from American and British capital (which promptly were put into the manufacture ot war materials.

Meanwhile, by slyly using the harshness of the Versailles treaty as camouflage, blaming it for an economic tragedy which was engineered by the militarists (Miss Schultz points out, complete militarization was accomplished and the subtler phases cf Gorman world on page 18.J There Is a certain amount at comment on literary matters la this diary, but important as that is to the writer, it does not matter as much for the American reader. What does matter is the writer's singularly precise reporting of the' long succession of men he met In the army. Here is an example: "Malandin, a boy with a pleasing appearance, massive and thick set, altho not at all fat, but with something flabby about him, under the chin and in the skin of his neck, as you. see In certain old men." And this brief account of the children at a Lorraine house where he was quartered: "They climb over the cupboards, make the plaster fall from the ceiling, and try to blow their noses in your shirttails." After spending the winter behind the Maginot line in work companies and at a motor supply depot, Malaquais suddenly, in May of 1940, finds the war all around him. The book Immediately speeds up in Interest, partly because the actual events are more exciting, but also because the writer at last has something to write about more intense than his own private speculations.

He says somewhere that, "I have a talent for useless suffering," and In the first part of the book he exercises that talent to an uncomfortable degree. In particular, he protest 1 against the ignorance and obscenity of the peasant soldiers with whom he is quartered. But with the German air force bombing the village he is in, and with the possibility of exploding metal throwing him into surroundings more disagreeable than a barn full of his snoring, stinking countrymen, he finds a more courageous, a more intelligent a more decent type of man than in the early days of the "phony war." The narrative of his gradual change from an indifferent and unwilling soldier to an angry and zealous fighting man doing his duty, and from there to a prisoner of the Germans and finally to a refugee disguised as a civilian, is very fine. Reading it, one has the feeling that nothing could have saved France. That she had to submit to the terrible flame of defeat, for there was not enough unity of strength in her.

Jean Malaquais, who tells of his personal reactions to the war in "War Diary," just published by Doubleday, Doran. The book is reviewed today by Paul Engle, professor of English at the University of Iowa. The sketch is by Ben Cohen of The Tribune staff. Here Is a-Pleasing Blend of the Beautiful and Ugly WINTER WHEAT," by Mildred Walker. (Harcourt, Brace, $2.50.) Reviewed by Tremaine McDowell.

I should like to believe that the general reader and the literary critic are moving toward an agreement on one point: the equal validity of the ugly and the beautiful. Too many good women have rejected the hovels of James Farrell and Richard Wright because "There are no nice people in the books and I know lots of nice people." And top many critics, as you nave all observed, have questioned the authenticity of any novel not con-cerned exclusively with slum dwellers or corrupt politicians, share croppers, or Okies. Both attitudes may be attributed to the same cause, namely, a fundamentally naive passion for over-simplification. Where the popular novelists of the last century peopled their Reviewed, by Edward Barry. "Mme.

Chiang knew as much of democracy as she could see by looking out of the windows of Welles-ley college." This is an example of the frank assessments of persons, movements, and causes which make this gossipy, informative book as interesting as it Is; The author is an eccentric Polish woman who took her cat, camera, and typewriter to China when she became fed up with Geneva and the league, and who saw the early part of the Chinese-Japanese war from several vantage points which, for a westerner, were decidedly unusual She worked in the central government's publicity bureau tinder Mme. Chiang Kai-shek herself, she toured the northwest provinces to find out what the legendary 8th route army was up to, and she did English and French broadcasting for the political department of the central government's military affairs commission. The book's title is a reference to the two radically differing Chinas Miss Sues saw. Shark's fins are a food of the rich, millet of the poor. The author met government officials and coolies, generals and privates, missionaries and racketeers, patriots and traitors, democrats and communists and reactionaries.

She did not seem to be afraid to talk to anybody. She writes about her experiences quietly and matter-of-factly, and indulges in purple prose only once or twice in the book. Her conclusions might be summarized somewhat as follows: The Chiang Kai-sheks are, in general, a force for good, altho they have failed to collaborate properly with Mme. Sun Yatsen arid with the masses of the Chinese people. Their united front policy is, or was, in constant danger from the reactionary, fascist elements in high positions in the government.

Their apparent belief that the misery and poverty and illiteracy of China are problems insoluble on a democratic basis 'at least during the war is contradicted by the fact that in the northwect provinces, under conditions even worse than in central China, an encouraging first assault on these ogres has been made by the people themselves. Anniversary Book. "Russian Cavalcade," Albert Parry's story of fighting Russians from 17C0 down to the present will be published by Ives Washburn on Feb. 2, the anniversary of the defeat the Germans at Stalingrad. pages with utterly heroic heroes and utterly villainous villains, our century has demanded books peopled solely by the strong and good or by the weak and evil.

Am I too optimistic when I suggest that of late readers and critics are more willing to recognize the existence of both the beautiful and the ugly, and not only their separate existence but even their co-existence? Mildred Walker, it is obvious, simplifies life in last novel, "Winter Wheat," but not to the exclusion of either of our two elements. She records enough of the ugliness of life in the dry farming section of Montana to repel hopelessly sentimental readers and enough of the beauty of love, both young love and married love (the distinction Is not intended to be invidious to ninoy the sardonic. As the final emphasis is placed on ma ture adjustment to unpalatable reality by adults on a semi-arid farm rather than on the love of undergraduates on the lush campus of the University of Minnesota, the novel can justly be characterized as essentially realistic rather than escapist The novelist uses winter wheat, from first page to last, to represent the human will to live. The seed is hard and it is dark. In the soil it suffers all the rigors of winter.

Once above ground, the plants are tortured as well as fed by spring and summer. What survives Is excellent "Winter Wheat" is simple, unpretentious, and honest. If sentimentalists find it dull and cynics find it sentimental, the explanation Is that Mildred Walker has considerable success In bringing ugll-tcss and beauty Into balance. American Language. II.

I Mencken Is devoting this year to work on a supplement to his monumental treatise the native tongue of the United fltates, "The American Lanae,".