Fusilier*

Fusilier*

MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER-- Siegfried Sassoon -- Coward McCann ($2.50).

Two years ago appeared a quiet autobiographical narrative, Memoirs of A Fox-Hunting Man. This book is its sequel. Author Sassoon calls himself "George Sherston," changes the names of regiments and men, but those who read his onetime great & good friend Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That (TIME, Jan. 6), may remember the right ones. Another fine War book, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer is what the name implies. It tries to give no picture of the War as a whole. "Those who expect a universalization of the Great War must look for it elsewhere. Here they will only find an attempt to show its effect upon a somewhat solitary- minded young man ... I am no believer in wild denunciations of the War, I am merely describing my own experiences of it ... my pedestrian tale."

Sherston (Sassoon) served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Flintshires (Royal Welch Fusiliers), came through the Somme unhurt and with a Military Cross to his credit. He was shot through the chest by a sniper at the Battle of Arras. He won the M. C. by losing his temper. When a man alongside of him was shot, Sassoon charged the German trench singlehanded, bombing as he went. The Germans thought it was an attack, fled, and Sassoon occupied the abandoned trench. After a while, not knowing what else to do, he came back, found his commanding officer furious. A scheduled bombardment had been held up three hours because "patrols" were out. Another time Sassoon was ordered (foolishly, he thought) to send some exhausted, inexperienced men out on patrol. Angry, he gave no orders, patrolled no-man's-land by himself.

Sassoon apparently never lost his nerve, but never felt himself a very competent officer. "My main fear was that I should make a fool of myself. The idea of making a fool of oneself in that murderous mix-up now appears to me rather a ludicrous one; for I see myself merely as a blundering, flustered little beetle; and if someone happens to put his foot on a beetle, it is unjust to accuse the unlucky insect of having made a fool of itself."

At the time of the Battles of Messines (1917) Sassoon was in England recuperating from his wound. He had begun to be fed up with the War, finally decided he ought to do something about it. He wrote a formal statement of his refusal to return to the front (although he was not going to be sent back), "as an act of wilful defiance ot military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it." He sent this statement to his colonel, was immediately ordered to report. To the colonel's great embarrassment, he found Sassoon wanted to be court-martialled, to be a martyr-example. Finally Robert Graves (whom Sassoon calls David Cromlech) got Sassoon to give in by telling him he would never be court-martialled but would be shut up in a lunatic asylum for the duration. It was announced Sassoon had shell shock; he was ordered to a hospital. Graves, his appointed escort, missed the train.

Sassoon writes quietly, with an effect of naivete that often cloaks irony. The naivete is superficial, the irony fundamental. When he was brought back to London after being wounded, his stretcher was taken off the train at Charing Cross Station, where "a woman handed me a bunch of flowers and a leaflet by the Bishop of London who earnestly advised me to lead a clean life and attend Holy Communion."

The Author. The Sassoons, rich, prominent Anglo-Jewish family (they are supposed to have originated in Bagdad) are said to resemble early Assyrian wall sculptures. Siegfried, 44, is son of Sir Edward Sassoon, Anglo-Indian merchant whose father-in-law was Baron Gustave de Rothschild. Siegfried's cousin Philip was Under-Secretary for Air. Tall, bony, loosely built, he has a big jaw, nose, ears, hands; speaks usually in a slow, troubled voice. After his country gentleman's education at Marlborough and The House (Christ Church, Oxford), he spent his time mostly hunting, playing cricket, tennis, music, printed a few poems privately. During the War he emerged as one of England's most authentic War poets.

Other books: The Heart's Journey, The Old Huntsman, Counterattack, Satirical Poems.

Norse

THE SON AVENGER--Sigrid Undset-- Knopf ($3).

In Norway they write long novels. The Son Avenger, although complete in itself, is only the fourth and last section of The Master of Hestviken, life story of Olav Audunsson. In long words it might be called the definitive section of an historical tetralogy.

As every schoolboy who has read the first three novels knows, Authoress Undset's scene is medieval (14th Century) Norway, her people medieval Norse Christians violent in action, grim of conscience. In this instalment old Hero Olav has withered into the sere & yellow, but he is still master in his own house, who can save himself much speech by an occasional frown. Unconfessed sins have darkened Olav's mind. His dead wife's bastard son. Eirick, is a living reminder of the murder of his wife's betrayer. Eirick, son avenger of the title, never learns the secret of his birth, but he and his supposed father are continually running foul of each other. Eirick comes home from his wild-oats sowing, has a change of heart, wants to become a monk. Olav thinks that might be a good idea. But in a year Eirick is back again; he was not meant for monkhood. As Olav grows older and more dour, as his sister's marriage ripens into tragedy and the burdens of the family increase, Eirick shoulders them all, quits himself like a man. Once in a fit of rage he almost falls from grace, is about to murder Olav. But his sister intervenes. Eirick avenges his father's murder more subtly, more Christianly. When old Olav lies dying, his secret still unconfessed, Eirick stands by his deathbed and forgives him. Then he goes to the monastery. This time they will let him stay.

Authoress Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1928) with her tril- ogy, Kristin Lavransdatter. She was the third Norwegian to win it. (Others: Bjornstjerne Bjornson, 1903; Knut Hamsun, 1920.) A convert to Roman Catholicism, she was decorated "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" by Pope Pius XI. She has also written Jenny.

Real Western

SAINT JOHNSON--W. R. Burnett--Dial ($2).

Author Burnett, who usually writes on such timely topics as gangsters or prizefighters, this time has gone back to the days of the Western two-gun men. Partly historical, his graphic narrative smells more of gunpowder than of the lamp. Says he: "This story ... is based on the events leading up to and arising out of the Earp-Clanton feud. This famous old feud is still hotly discussed in the southeastern corner of Arizona."

Alkali was a boom town, law & order had not yet descended on it. The sheriff was in cahoots with the unruly cowmen, and the decent shopkeeping and professional element of the town looked to the Johnson gang to keep order. Wayt Johnson, head of the clan, had a reputation for action, but he was trying hard to be law-abiding, he wanted to be elected sheriff. With his brothers Luther and Jim, his henchmen Brant White and Deadwood, he overawed many a would-be bad man, kept the peace in spite of tantalizing taunts. Even when they called him "Saint John- son," Wayt kept his temper. But when he got a city ordinance passed forbidding firearms to be carried in Alkali, trouble gath- ered like thunderheads in summer. Finally, Wayt's patience tried too far, Alkali saw a gunfight it never forgot. Afterward, when he sheriff tried to serve a warrant on the Johnsons, they laughed at him and rode away.

Author William R. Burnett (TIME, July 1, 1929; Jan. 13) wrote five novels, 50 short stories before he published his first book, Novel No. 6. It was Little Caesar, chosen by the Literary Guild (June 1929). His next book, Iron Man, was Book-of-the-Month for January 1930. Successful, married, he lives in Los Angeles.

Garland of Memories

ROADSIDE MEETINGS--Hamlin Garland --Macmillan ($3.50).

In 1884, when Hamlin Garland was 24, he left his father's South Dakota farm and went to Boston, then U. S. literary capital, with $140 in his pocket. This book tells of his early struggles to become a literary man, his gradual progress, the famed friends, acquaintances, heroes, he met by the way.

That first winter was a hard one: no income and no job. But he haunted the public library, and stood in the gallery to hear Edwin Booth play Shakespeare. "Outwardly seedy, hungry, pale and lonely, I inhabited palaces and spoke with kings." When his money was just about gone he got a job lecturing at the Boston School of Oratory, met literary tycoons, got another job reviewing books for the august Transcript. But even after he had become an accepted shepherd on Boston's Mt. Parnassus Garland was a Western boy, had more than a tinge of the Western radical in him. He considered Atheist Robert Ingersoll "our greatest orator," and fell hard for Single-Taxer Henry George. Few U. S. writers have traveled the U. S. as Author Garland has. For the Boston Arena, "magazine of protest," he made many an inquiring journey through the West and South, incorporated what he found in article and story. Says he: "I had the wish to be a kind of social historian and in the end fell, inevitably, between two stools. I failed as a reporter, and only half succeeded as a novelist."

Garland met most of the big literary men of his day, liked most of them. William Dean Howells was his close friend. James A. Herne, actor-author of onetime famed play, Shore Acres, was another. Garland was one of the discoverers of Stephen Crane; he admired Crane's genius, deprecated his habits, gave him many an ill-received lecture. He venerated Walt Whitman and was indignant at the squalor of his Camden surroundings. Mark Twain, James Whitcomb Riley, Eugene Field, John Burroughs, Edward MacDowell, James M. Barrie, Rudyard Kipling, Bernard Shaw, Israel Zangwill, Henry James --he knew them all. On a visit to England, onetime Pitcher Garland met Cricketer Conan Doyle. Each upheld his favorite game: Doyle politely doubted the possibility of throwing a curve. Garland pitched a cricket ball at him, convinced him.

Garland's sense of humor, robust if not very uproarious, is strong enough to include himself. When he was a young man still trying to pierce the carapace of Boston, he overheard someone saying of him, " 'He's a diamond in the rough,' a fact which I myself dimly appreciated." Several times Garland met famed Humorist Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley), but "he was very serious in his talks with me, perhaps because he felt something depressing in me. We discussed weighty things most weightily."

Author Hamlin Garland, 70, has a white mustache, a mane of white hair, a good-natured expression. He married (1899) Zulime Taft, sister of Sculptor Lorado Taft. They have two daughters. The Garlands live in Manhattan. Other books: Trail Makers of the Middle Border, A Son of the Middle Border, A Daughter of the Middle Border, Back Trailers of the Middle Border.

*New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular retail price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.