The Knoxville Journal from Knoxville, Tennessee • 38

1 TAKE 2-B THE KNOXVILLE JOURNAL Sunday February li 1551 Journal Book Column First Novel Wins Praise Of Reviewers Corny Barbara Cotnyns Turns Out Aftierica from rather crude and dealing with the mental processes Delay May Cost Many Excellent Snow Scenes Smart Photographer Hurries To Get Good Shots Before Sunlight Can Alter Landscape A if In i A 1 0 1-1 7 v- 7 A 4 I A 4 i'jX rr 4V i AY'ri -A stick a medium yellow over the lens and forget it What you are going to photograph is more important The black and white prints will look very much like the scene so pick your arrangement carefully and try to include something that can move a person or an animal Their presence will add much to the interest of the picture (Even though there is none in the shot above) BROWNIE MOVIE CAMERA In the past this column has refrained from running new items on cameras and other photographic products but now comes one that merits the word It is The Brownie Movie Camera a double-eight outfit that is just reaching your camera store this week and seems destined to have as much effect on the movie world as its brother the box Brownie had on the still field Beautifully balanced and designed for easy handling the Brownie has a 13mm Lumenized f27 lens whose diaphragm is equipped with click stops at halfstop intervals down to f16 On the camera front in addition to the simple diaphragm control is the film footage dial and a simple and convenient exposure lever that may be locked for continuous running By NORRIS HARKNESS A nice fat hatful of soft snow on each branch or the even rarer complete coat of white makea familiar landscapes tal on a new beauty but the smart photographer hurries like mad to get the pictures Even as I you have undoubtedly waited until the warmer tomorrow to make the shots and then found the snow was gone Granting that you have the fortitude to go where the best shots are there is nothing especially difficult about good snow scenes The first requisite 15 side lighting or rather shooting with the sun anywhere except behind the camera The strength of the picture depends gn the tiny shadows in the snow texture and these disappear in flat light so be sure of side lighting The exposure may be the normal camera or perhaps a full stop less using f16 instead of the usual f11 or doubling the regular shutter speed but a filter will help a lot The shadows are illuminated by light reflected from the blue sky so they react to a filter just as the sky does A medium yellow darkens them enough to get a natural effect and an orange or red filter makes them very dark If you are using a box camera $''' 7 7 a ri a -r' A -nfVAY'i Naive Modern Primitive 9 By STERLING NORTH OUB SPOONS CAME FROM WOOLWORTHS By Barbara Comyns Holt 217 pp $275 It has been said that creative writing be taught Perhaps the corrollary to that theorem is that a natural-born story-teller needs no teaching Here is a novel so ungrammatical that its author would find it difficult to pass an examination in-high school English And yet viewers in England have com-pared it to Moll Flanders Of Human Bondage and best of Katherine As usual the English critics went off the deep end But the fact remains that Barbara first novel for all its stylistic gaucheries is a fascinating modem primitive which in everything except its happy ending is utterly believable The author herself 'insists in her disarming disclaimr that of this book is true ex- cept Chapters Ten Eleven Twelve and the But nine-tenths of this novel has the verisimilitude of gospel APPEALING HEROINE Sophia the heroine of this naive sometimes gay sometimes heart-breaking novel of Bohemia is certainly as appealing and as good-hearted if not as as She bears her woes with almost equal fortitude and equally en- gages the sympathy Married to a worthless egocentric second-rate modern painter named Charles she supports him pampers his colossal conceit bears his child and only after years of poverty and neglect turns to a more sympathetic but equally weak-willed art critic who in a crisis also fails her The closing chapters are certainly an indulgence of the understandably wishful thinking But perhaps the sale and critical reception of this novel will give the author (if not her fictional alter-ego) the security ingenuously bestowed upon Sophia This narrative belongs to the school of fiction minus however the untutored polish of Bronte narration Its uncompromising realism will Invoke laughter and tears in all but the most cynical reader We hope the movie version will be made in London rather than Hollywood pression a year of great moral and biological decisions Poetry was never before and will never again be so poignant The five senses are working overtime like that -to be seventeen If you have children in their late teens you know this You know it even if you cannot completely remember your own tumult at' that age And you will be reinforced in your symgathy and understanding if you read a book like Seventeen OFFERS GOOD ADVICE This anthology of 35 articles 8 short stories and six poems culled from some 72 issues of Magazine by its fiction editor Bryna Ivens (Mrs Louis Untermeyer) contains more worthwhile entertainment and good advice for older girls than any other book of its kind I have ever read Young adults of this age are not the silly addle-pated innocents Good snow pictures are a combination of lucky weather and the willingness to leave a warm home to wander around in the cold to find them This shots was made on fast panchromatic film with a medium yellow filter after a big wet storm in the White Mountains The exposure was l100th second at f16 in most brilliant sunshine bs tt 7v of the fictitious George Burton and his friends explores the undeniable spiritual-mental-a d-emotional malaise in -which most intelligent individuals find themselves these days It then seeks in a series of enlightened and provocative conversations to gfope its way througn the various therapies which may mitigate the which has fastened itself on mankind i I presume that Wharton chose the name for his philosophical alter-ego for a very good reason Consciously or sub-con-sciously he was probably remembering Robert Burton whose of has stirred speculative minds for more than three centuries Perhaps he was also thinking of the Nineteenth Century Sir Richard Francis Burton who translated the Arabian Nights and published books about his explorations in Africa India and America SEEKS PATTERN OF LIFE The present George Burton is equally adventuresome seeking in the theories of Freud Alexander and Alfred North Whitehead (among others) some pattern to the seeming chaos of our lives Like millions of other successful Americans he finds himself rather suddenly without any real faith or motivation He finds it harder to make decisions His personal life and his business career seem to be in crisis All around him his friends are taking to alcohol andor psychoanalysis Instead of blaming it all on Communism 'or the Atom bomb Burton start seeking the answer to his unhappiness inside himself His greatest help comes from Dr Byrne a retired analyst who says: you are seeking someone to treat you not your man However I will be glad to tell you the story of your SUFFERS FROM DELUSIONS Burton learns that like everyone else in the world he already suffered from at least three delusions before he reached as many many months Like all babies he that he was unique that he was the center of the universe and that crying was the magic which brought food and comfort The author might have underlined the fact that most human beings retain all three of those delusons throughout life and that it is a rare person indeed who matures beyond these infantile misconceptions Neither the author nor any of his characters (including the old analyst) worships Freud without criticism But I take it that Wharton understands and accepts the convenient abstractions: Id Ego and Super-Ego He has also taken a few useful leaves from Adelbert Ames Piti-rim Sorokin Wilhelm Reich and bther social psychological and psychical thinkers KEY TO PHILOSOPHY The key to evolving philosophy is a little too much on the mystic side to satisfy this reviewer seems to be a coinage for Matter-andor-Energy which as Einstein has proved are one and the same thing Rut since man is made of Mattergy he is also one with the universe and with all other men This presumably will eventually bring him into balance with all mankind and with his universe not to mention his Creator But suppose another big chunk of Mattergy known as the atomic bomb wipes him out first! Why not call it Yogi and be done with it Qtm 039 ZB 030355 QCEB 3 TH7 riftrol Sunday 7i30 KT CBSl sentimental arce-C omtdy burlesque and pantomime into such stream-lined and sophisticated entertainment as and ip Some elements have remained more or less constant since Black Garden 1866) took Gotham by storm Most (but not all) of the light musical shows of tlie next eighty years depended upon legs costumes scenic devices gags lyrics andcatchy tunes HEFTY BOVINE CHORUS The quality in each of these departments has varied astonishingly Take the matter of the form of the hefty bovine chorus who thudded up and down the stage to blaring military marches back in the Contrasted to the trim well-trained slightly and sprightly dancers of a modern chorus line the fin de siecle beef trust had all the allure of hippopotami contesting in grace with gazelles And let Grandpa contradict you Costumes and scenery have also improved if one is to judge from the old photographs -So have the musical scores and the lyrics And if the book of the average musical comedy is still a rather slim and interrupted narrative principally used to introduce song and dance numbers it is also true that occasionally (as in in the the musical playwright has a worthwhile story to tell WIT SATIRE IMPROVED There can be little doubt however that in the gag-ski t-and-per-siflage department the quality of the wit and the satire has vastly improved Examples of alleged humor exhumed by the author from some of the early shows are little less than appalling Probably the German-d i al comedians hit an allt-ime low although the assual made upon Irish Jewish and Negro speech idiosyncrasies should have made any sensitive listener leave the theatre in disgust One can only conclude from reading this book that styles do more than merely As the level of culture and education rises in a nation taste improves True nobody has yet topped Gilbert and Sullivan in their own metier And perhaps there is nothing on the boards today as witty as -Andre imported London Revues or The Little Show of the On the other hand it is hard to imagine anyone sitting through such perennial favorites as Around the World in Eighty Days or Evangeline ADMIRES LILLIAN RUSSELL Cecil Smith who is certainly too young to have seen her in her hey-day seems to have fallen in love at long distance with Lillian RusselL Old-timers do insist that she had a very true pure and cool (but inconsequential) However a female in those days could go a Jong way with a pretty face an hour-glass figure and large package of theatrical knowhow And she does appear to have been a likable individual as well as a charmer With all due respect to Grandpa however a current show-goer may seriously wonder how well-stacked Russell would compare if stacked up against Ethel Merman or Mary Martin To some extent this is a memory book which will bring back fond recollections to older readers Maybe the Flor ador a 1 Sextette was made up of the six beautiful girls in the (despite the silly vehicle in which they appeared) Maybe no producer ever again will achieve such gorgeous effects as Ziegfield did in his Follies And many of- us are still alive who can attest that Marilyn Miller was a show-stopper of exquisite grace Certainly few living composers can touch George Gershwin Perhaps it all depends upon your era What most men are in love with is their own youth All criticism is in part relative and subjective But after reading this book most fair-minded people will admit that in general the intellectual and aesthetic level of musical comedy is rising But we join the author in hoping it will never be perverted into American Opera Heaven help show business if Musical Comedy ever takes that fatal turn Sun Gold Glass OZ TUMBLERS Chip-proof dgs In carrying cat fm Set of 6 for Transparent Plastic UTILITY BOX Kp iwlry small parts or fishing tack I In It I 7" long 9 handy (actions I With hinged lidl Colored Plastic Film CLOTHES BAG NOW ONLY Woterproof mildew! Hanger top Color choice SPRING-TYPE CLBTHES PINS Pkg of 36 for 27c Xp? Free! Medicinal TEASPOON with purchase of ex bottle ef Rexall CHERR0S0TE 87 Doth for Double-Action Cough Syrup Enameled Metal WASTEBASKET deep I Oval shapal Gay floral design In choice of colors for bath bedroom I pictured by Booth Tarkington in his sleazy novel published back in 1916 The current of their lives runs deeper than in Maureen somewhat better published a decade ago These are not the jazz- age flappers of gilded and gin-soaked era nor the amateur Marxists of the bitter They are in slightly sentimental phrase with reluctant feet where the brook and river But the two streams run deeper faster and more -treacherously thandur-ing-the Victorian era MAKE OWN DECISIONS I am convinced from personal observation and from the contents of this book that modern youngsters in their late teens are a more admirable group than America has previously known Virtually unprotected by parental and religious taboos well aware of the contents of the Kinsey Report faced with the probable disruption of a third world war they are making their decisions for themselves and are taking the consequences Many of them are more mature than their parents who grew up in the If you believe it read this book winnowed from a magazine which is regularly read by some 2000000 teen-age readers Read the articles entitled is a to Say for the the Life and is a Family I believe that most of us now in our early forties had as complete or wholesome an attitude toward many of these three major problems as our frank and fearless children WELL-WRITTEN FICTION And the fiction in this collection is as well written as the articles At least one of the stories With The by Betsy Emmons has the quality of enduring literature According to my daughter Arielle (a sophmore at Swarthmore) this is the of the for girls of her age She likes it because it does not to its readers and because it is written without prudery She feels that the articles furnish friendly guidence and the stories offer important to enriching the lives of young people in her age group She says that presents fairly and honestly a clear picture of teen-age Knowing standards in literature I trust her judgement on this book (which incidentally coincides with my own) Bryna Ivens is to be congratulated for selecting and editing a collection of stories and articles which are a real contribution to American culture Genuine Leather KEY CASE 2b Anniversary Specfaff Flier Posed As A Priest THE LEFT HAND OF GOD By William Barrett Doubleday 275 pp $3 Anything I suppose can happen in Ultima Thule Lost Atlantis or Shangri-La Make the scene remote enough and the of an increases directly with the distance Jim Carmody ex-American flier returns to China after the war crashes in the mountains and (more-or-less by force of nesessity) becomes the valued lieutenant of the war lord Mieh Yang Tired and disgusted with his anti-social role as aide to the bandit chief he seizes a chance to escape in the garb of a dead Catholic priest In a village still further removed from civilization he plays out his somewhat sacrilegious role still posing as an ordained man of God But beneath the disguise a strange and interesting change begins in character The tough two-fisted exairmen begins to learn tolerance and compassion for his And the Chinese learn to love the once-tough Carmody LOVED BY NURSE Others beside the Chinese are drawn to this increasingly gentle imposter Dr Sigman and his wife Beryl feel the attraction But so does the beautiful yojing nurse Anne Scott who of course feels she hSs no right to think romantically about a man she can never marry The climax to the story comes when Mieh bandits come to the village on a looting expedition And Jim Carmody shows his metal and his morals in facing this threat to his beloved congregation The Catholic reaction to this story seems to be predominantly favorable Certainly the intention of the author is ethical This is not a great novel But It is an interesting story with an important lession for our iftcreas ingly savage world Perhaps virtue would become habitual if we practiced it continuously (just as evil has become habitual to those who continuously practice aggression) In any case it is a rare novel these days which depicts evolution of character the only real excuse for serious fiction long-wearing top-grain cowhide folder case holds six keys) mriE You get two select Comet Goldfish up to 2 in length in 40-oz Gothic globe Complete with marine plants rainbow chips Get yours today I limited supply availablel Stock Dp! Embossed PAPER JAPKinS Pkg of 80 2 27 tii embossed napkins of soft absorbent quality Stock up at this Anniversary Sal pricel rpjmrFrm OVER 1a OFF I Helen Cornell (With purchase ef 3 StrawberryScented 1 00 or more CLIANSIKG CREAM Rexall Anniversary Sale merchandise!) HANDKERCHIEFS QQ- AA A A Boys Cotton 6f0rQjC 'A A onriftr rnMss a nr i uvrirr i POCKET COMBS REG $200 (8 oxl Reg $1 COLD CREAM 7Qe Rexall Theatrical Cream pound tin Reg $1 BUBBLE BATH Helen Cornell Boxed 20 packets 50c Size HAND CREAM quality cream 6Vt ounces Reg 59c HAND LOTION fragrant lotion IS ounces 3 Wamn Discovered An Optimist! THE EXPLORATIONS OF GEORGE BURTON By John Wharton Simon and Schuster 295 pp $300 John Wharton the New York lawyer economist and inspired dabbler in matters psychic and psychiatric is not an optimist in the vulgar sense of Pangloss who insisted against much evidence that is for the best in this best of all possible Rather he is hopeful (in a very tentative way) that men and his society are evolving toward a better balanced less despairing era This psychological DICALCIUM PHOSPHATE $135 VALUE IIY ABDG CAPSULES Multivitamins PERCOCODfABLETS A Vitamins wa $100 VALUE New Fiction On Current List New books and magazines ready for the public tomorrow at Law-son McGhee Library include the following Miss Helen Harris librarian announced Allah the God of Islam by Florence Mary Fitch Church and state in the United States by Anson Phelps Stokes Disturber of the Pece by William Manchester Documents of American History by Henry Steele Commager Eyes of Discovery by John Edwin Bakeless FDR His Personal Letters 1928-1945 by Roose-vent Fathers of-Classical Music by Charles Angoff Foot of Pride by Malcolmn Vivian Hay Gram-mer of present-day English by Raymond Woodbury Pence Henry Gross and his Dowsing Rod by Kenneth Lewis Roberts Loyalty of Free Men by Alan Barth New You and Hearedity by Amram Scheinfield Pennsylvania Dutch by Fredric Klees Primer for Hostesses by Dorothy Sara Seven Plays by Elmer Rice Soviet Image of the United States by Frederick Charles Barghoorn FICTION: Abandoned By Paul William Gallico Cat and Mouse by Mary Christianna Lewis Faith of Mrs Kelleen by Katherine Mary Flan-nigan Foxfire by Anya Seton only Temporary by Charles Henry Mergendahl Children by Lenard Kaufman Loved And Envied by Enid Bagnold Portable Faulkner by William Faulkner River of the Sun by James Ramsey Ullman Scarlet Sword by Herbert Ernest Bates Witch Diggers by Jessamyn West MAGAZINES Current issues of the following magazines may be borrowed: Atlantic Consumers Report Holiday House and Garden Living for Young Homemakers National Geographic Popular Photography Popular Mechanics Scientific American United Nations World During the Middle Ages beer was the chief drink at breakfast lunch and dinner with Metal Clips each TOOTH BRUSHES BOBBY PINS Black or Bronze Pkg of 30 19c NAIL FILES Professional 19c TWEEZERS 3 assorted styles each SOAP BOXES Colored Plastic special BUTTER DISH Sturdy Plastic special FACIAL TISSUES Rexall Box of 300 TALCUM POWDER Popular quality brand pound tin Reg $159 SILQUE Cream Shampoo 8 ounce or 70 Reg 49c HAIR TONIC Rexall Cream Tonic 5 ounce bottle 75c SHAVE LOTION IZOc Popular lotion 4 ounces JT STAG DEODORANT pm cream deodorant 2 ounce jor 3 39c The Year After Sweet Sixteen THE SEVENTEEN READER Edited by Bryna Ivens Lippin-cott 310 pp $275 the year when everything is or the year when a prom date is more important than the war in Korea except that the war in Korea will soon put the boy in uniform the year when what you are learning in is seriously applied in a slightly frantic attempt to understand your own personality and the personality of your friends it is a year of alternating ecstasy and black de Black Crook To South Pacific MUSICAL COMEDY IN AMERICA By Cecil Smith Theatre Arts Books 374 pp $5 This is a seriQus study of a fairly light subject It is a critical history of the evolution of Musical Comedy in AVElONlMEDICINE 10 WHISK BROOM Ring Handle for Hanging POT HOLDER Min Quilted Percale Mitten Ist i A BORIC ACID OINTMENT ounce 12c ASPIRIN TABLETS 5-grain 12 4c CASTOR OIL 1 ounce bottle for 11c CORN SOLVENT Rexall 1 Vi ounces 23c TINCTURE of IODINE bounce 7c SPIRIT of CAMPHOR ounce 31c LIP AID Lip Salve Reg 35c Va ounce 27c ANTACID 6AS TABLETS 27c MILK of MAGNESIA Rexall pint 39c MINERAL OIL lubricant pint 23c eaft PHOTO SUPPLIES fa ra jr 7 tf A 615 CAY JOHN WHARTON I.