Page 14 — PA. Features, January 6

Continued from Page 12

Robeson

He is glad he doesn’t have to
make train trips because in all
his many travels in many coun-
tries he has never been able to
find a berth large enough for
him, with the result that he
rarely evér has gotten sleep on
his tours. He is an avid chess
player but admits to constant
defeats at the hands of his son
Pauli. His one real weakness
is ice cream which he devours
by the quart.

When taking | Othello on tour
he said: “We must <o to Detroit
and St. Louis and Chicago with
our message. And we'll play
Washington and Baltimore in
the public parks, if necessary.”
Robeson owns the only theater
contract in stage history which
allows him to walk out on a
performance if there has been
“any discrimination against, or
segregation of, Negroes in the
audience.” ... He wants badly
to dispel any fears people may
have about his voice being in-

jured by the strain of playing

Othello. “I intend to renew my
concert tours after we finish
with Othello and my voice is
better than it has been in the
past ten years.” He is an hon-
orary member of three great
trade unions, the National
Maritime Union. the State,
County and Municipal Workers
and Harry Bridges’ Interna-
tional Longshoreman and
Warehouseman’s Union. ...
Also a full-fledged member of
the Veterans of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade.

Of his family only his
brother, Reverend Ben Robe-
son, and a sister. Marian, a
Philadelphia schoolteacher, are
alive.

To Robeson Teheran is the
turning point of world history.
“It shows the way to a new
period of human happiness, but
we must still fight in order to
guarantee it.”

[EES in small part, is the man
Robeson. There can be no
beter way to bring this short

biography to a close than to

quote the end of the fiery, im-
passioned speech he made three
weeks ago at the dinner of the
Federation of Constitutional
Liberties.

“I hate fascism with all

my being and would murder
it as it would murder me.”

Zé

os 235 CS = VATION! BAH!"

Continued from Page 13

Paul Bunyan

‘Twas another crew—and the great chips flew from the
trunk of that very same tree

From whence we had tried, on the opposite side, to unravel
its mys-ter-y; :

But it wasn’t no use. . . they’d run out of snoose, and the
tree was too God-awful big:

So they joined our force as their only course, and the bunch
of us started to dig.

“Now we didn’t say ,quit ‘til we burrowed a pit at its
base, in search of a clue—

In hopes we'd discover and maybe uncover the proof that
my hunch had been true. :

Then, an oxen’s yoke, all splintered and broke, was un-
earthed from the depths down there,

And “Babe” was inscribed on its petrified side‘—and I
noticed a monstrous blue hair! :

There were harness rings—big, ponderous things, and a
diary carved in the rocks

That told us the story, the power and the glory of Paul and
his Big Blue Ox. d

So we buried them there with reverent care to preserve
them from civilization,

And to finish my yarn—twas the site of Babe’s barn, and
the acme of fertilisation!”

There are tall tales told of a legend old, from the West
Coast to Maine,
Of the Blue Ox Babe, Paul Bunyan’s aid, that would tan-
talize your brain;
There are yarns galore of logging lore that are strange and
far-fetched, too,
But for pastime’s fun Bill took the bun when he proved
those tales are true.
2s Z .
Editor's Note. This example of the ballad of the pio-
neering days, with its rhyming and self-confident exaggera-
tion, was written by a veteran logger of British Columbia
who is now an inspector for the Department of Railways.
It is reprinted through the courtesy of the ““Green-Gold”’
IWA radio program, where it was first read over the air
a week ago.

New Pamphlets and Books

°

Teheran, Earl Browder

The Heritage of the Communist Politi-
cal Association, Bob Minor _______ 20c

Races of Mankind, Benedict and

Weltfish _ 15¢

Yugoslay Peoples Fight to Live, Tito __ 20c
=

Sabotage, Michael Sayers and
Albert E. Kahn

PEOPLE’S BOOKSTORE

420 WEST PENDER STREET
Phone MArine 5836

Book Review |

(From a Review in the New York Worker)
By SAMUEL SILLEN i
Ces book erities have no doubt shuddered through the s

nightmare, just around Christmas time A band of evil.
ing creatures, monstrously armed, surrounds the ‘victim. |
knell of doom sounds. “Critic, you have three seconds. WN
the best three books of the year.” One, two— |

“Three books! And everybody takes a shot. : :

To begin with the novels - - . L have chosen eight.

Two novels—John Hersey’s A Bell for Adano and H:|
Brown’s A Walk in the Sun—deal with American soldiers ci
seas. This new theme will very likely represent the most
portant single category of fiction in the next three years.
Hersey and Brown books add up to a fine start. - : i

Dealing with limited sit®ations in the Italy invasion st
of the war, both books are deftly written miniatures. ‘The Ss
of fictional treatment is deliberately reduced, the characterizat|
brief and somewhat external. But the essential spirit of a
war fiction is in these novels. 2 :

As correspondents at the front—Harry Brown in army ;
form—both authors had a strategic advantage. The combat 7
are too busy shooting to write novels; the writers back home
not close enough to the fighting to do it justice.

Both books are pitched in a mood that differs significai|
from the chauvinist and badly idealized Arthur Guy Empey’s @
the Top of the last war. The mood differs just as sharply fi
the cynical temper of Dos Passos? Three Soldiers and Cummir
The Enormous Room following the last war.

Because of the just and democratic character of this war, Her
and Brown can be affirmative without being shrill. They di
glorify or prettify war, but they don’t separate themselves fi:
the fighting men. They suggest the rich promise of this w.
literature. :

*
E
q

Historical Fiction

Two other novels—Howard Fast’s Freedom Road and He
etta Buckmaster’s Deep River—made exciting contributions to
new kind of historical fiction that is developing in this country.
revealing long-hidden truths about the Reconstruction period, E
showed that, were it not for political betrayal in the North ;
the Ku Klux Klan in the South, Negroes and whites after the C
War could have created a genuinely free and healthy soci
Miss Buckmaster dramatized the fact that Southern poor wh
opposed Secession and frequently joined hands with the Neer
recognizing that both groups were exploited by the slave own
oligarchy.

With these two novels, and there were others of the same 2
eral character, the mood had clearly shifted from the Oliver ¥
wells and Gone With the Winds of the past. These books dr
atically registered the awareness of progressive writers that
informed understanding of American history is a weighty wea:
against the obscurantists of the present.

I grant their limitations. Freedom Road does not probe dee
enough into its characters; Deep River is overweighted with
tails that slow up the narrative. But here were significant la
marks, as powerfully relevant and meaningful for us today, +
their brilliant attacks on anti-Negro prejudice, as any novel d |
ing with the war itself.

Maltz’s Novel :

Albert Maltz’s The Gross and The Arrow was superior to
novel of the year in subtlety of human insight and depth
thought. Dealing with a German worker who became a pas)
accomplice of Hitlerism and finally revolted against the indece |
in himself and his country, the novel showed a grasp of the mi |
and political issues which Nazism has posed. Maltz courageot |
undertook a difficult theme, avoided pat solutions, emerged v
a major drama of our epoch. Technically, the novel is prilliz®
building up its harrowing Suspense under the sure. control o#
master craftsman. I

The Cross and The Arrow marked the maturity of a sensi
and thoughtful novelist who insists on facing the many-si}}
realities of people’s lives. With this novel, Maltz earned a pif
tion among the leading figures in American fiction today. #

The sixth—and last—American novel of the year that I be
chosen is Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit. I think the book
distinct limitations, and I am far from Satisfied with the treatm #}
of Nonnie as the central woman character. But I weleome if
novel as a most important expression of 4 new attitude in South#
literature, |

Miss Smith’s treatment of a small town in Georgia, divider
two by the color line, emphasizes the frustrations and tragec#
that Jimerow brings not only to Negroes but whites. The nc#
is rich in human insight. It is the work of a writer who ih
brooded deeply over the horrible human erime and social w:#
of a segregation that violates the decent impulses of mank #
Deeply sincere, communicating a sense of human dignity, Stra ¥
Fruit stirred hundreds of thousands of readers as few rec
novels have been able to do.

I would add two foreign novels: Wanda Wassiliewska’s |#
Rainbow and Leonid Leonov’s prewar novel The Ocean.