The Uncut pages
Media
Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal
- Title
- The Uncut pages
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1937
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- Fulltext
- 12 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL January, 1937 The Uncut Pages Fresh from the bookshelves are the gifts of discerning friends who bestowed printed treas ures, books new-published or reprinted after successfully passing the test of time. Such as these are: Cradle of Life, by Louis Adamic Science of Living, by Alfred Adler San Felice, by Vincent Sheehan Notebook, by Mark Twain With title so gentle, the Adamic book is a torrent of first-person subjective writing, reach ing far back into childhood remembrance. These memories tottered between life and death, for the protagonist was a love-child farmed out to rude Slavic peasants who in their own bitter battle for mere existence felt no compunction over the death of such a foundling, when its subsistence money failed to arrive. Even among them, though, fondness for this little lad grew. More than once the gnarled hands of Mammadora shielded him from danger and death. Yearly he was dressed in good clothes and taken to a photographer in the nearest town. The significance of this treatment grew, too, in the lad’s mind. Then, one day, a splendid carriage drove up to the farm gate, and from it stepped a fine gentleman. But, alas for fairy stories, this was not his father. The visit led to the slow unfolding of the mystery, however. Fathered by the Crown Prince of AustriaHungary, renounced by the noblewoman who gave him birth, the illegitimate princeling was yet to have his castle and estate though the intervention of a progressive nobleman who hoped that this sensitive and thoughtful boy might supplant the legal heir, unfit for Emperor ship. Such a tale is old, but Adamic’s telling is new. Realist the author is, and his hero never climbs to tangible power. He does conquer—himself. After an accident which cripples him for years, he recuperates under the care of his beloved Mammadora. Grown now, student of culture and the humanities, he can yet find harmony in the peasant family which took him to its shelter for gold, only to find him suddenly a touchstone of emotional life. His step-brethren, with a little schooling and Heads dr Tails YOU WIN! 1. If you live to old age, Life Insurance will guarantee freedom from care. 2. If you should not live, it will guarantee the con tinuance of the good things of life to your family. E. E. ELSER AGENCY KNEEOLER BLOG. ■ MANILA E. L. HALL. MANAGER TEL. 2-15-04 much earthly courage, are watching the dawn of a fairer light for their kind. Turning away from all wish to grandeur and power, the nobleborn casts his lot with them. Written for the layman, published in inex pensive editions, the Adler Science of Living furnishes a fascinating sketch of the famed psychoanalyst’s theories. Departing from the Freudian path, Adler long ago embarked on his study of the individual as a unit of society. The three domains of occupation, gregarious activity, and domestic circle—to summarize rudely what Adler so carefully and clearly sets forth—interweave the mental fabric. They are strongly influenced by the pattern set in childhood, an apperceptive plan which, deeply grounded in the subconscious, bears on the grown-up’s action. To illustrate: if the subject is anti-social, perhaps the case history develops that he was an oldest child in a family where subsequent children received the preponderance of parental attention. Rebuffed, he withdrew from the others and thus was formed the habit of self isolation. In all situations involving other human beings, he then reacts with timidity. Latent are the possibilities of a richer personal ity; confidence slowly-gained through directed effort will remake the individual. Childhood remembrances and dreams are part of the Adler data in studying a subject, for they indicate the apperceptive plan. Valuable for parents, teachers, and whoever deals professionally with other humans, this or another of the Adler volumes is a worthy invest ment. The Lady Sanfelice of an old Italian family didn’t know Voltaire from Virgil, but she fell in love. And the fate of Italy swerved from royalism to republicanism. Sheehan attempts to reconstruct the ducal scene from the political and international viewpoint and to show the cosmic accident by which national direction can be established due to entanglements of minor personages. Solidly written, and no doubt historically sound, Sheehan’s first novel (Per sonal History, though narrative in movement, is autobiography) will interest those having a flair for European history of the nineteenth century. Lest we forget, that great American gentle man—Mark Twain—wrote many another piece than Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. For instance, his American Claimant is a complete chuckle, Innocents Abroad a convulsion of risi bilities, Connecticut Yankee riotous, and Joan of Arc staunchly eloquent. Given to a range of laughter from mere punning to barbed irony, Twain kept a full notebook of impressions and plot-ideas, as well as of family happenings. Edited by Paine, the Notebook contains such items as the famous cable from England, after American papers reported the writer’s death. "Rumor of my death is greatly exaggerated.’’ Numerous instances of mental telepathy between Twain and his helpful wife are jotted down. Clown or scholar by turns, but always fittingly, Twain was a gallant friend, enemy to no man but to many of “man’s inhumanities to man”. His carefully-guarded set of leather-bound scratchbooks were his closests confidantes, nor does his sterling worth suffer in the reading. ASHAMED op yoilt! FLOORS? 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