Books in Brief

The German Phoenix, by William Chamberlin (Duell, $5.05). This is a book about West Germany that doesn’t bristle with accusations of Nazis in positions of influence or shudder about “German militarism.” Mr. Chamberlin shrewdly ascribes the current “Hate Germany” campaign to two motives: Liberal zeal to root out every ex-Nazi (a more soul-satisfying leftist delight than exposing practicing Communists), and socialist fury that free-enterprising Germany should have come soaring up from the ashes while socialized England labored behind. Not that Mr. Chamberlin completely dismisses the idea of Nazi influence in Germany: “Unfortunately there is one part of Germany where Nazi spirit and methods still survive,” he writes. “This is the ‘German Democratic Republic.’ The brutal Vopos (People’s Police), who have stained the Berlin Wall deep with blood, carry on the traditions of Hitler’s SA and SS.” The author’s enthusiasm for the exciting German comeback, however, leads him to unfair criticism of American policy towards Germany—stressing acts of vengefulness during the early Truman years, and underrating the contribution of United States aid to the economic resurgence. He does not seem to consider remarkable the American willingness to spend billions on resurrecting the vanquished, so soon after the most hideous war in history. The book is an informative and engrossing look at the new Germany—-a reassuring analysis of the economic and political stability of the nation that has become our most reliable Continental ally. D.G.M. COXE Come On Out, Daddy, by Bernard Wolfe (Scribner, $5.95). “. . . rosy-tinted lips spread in the come-all-ye smile, shuckly girl, fulfilled girl, G.E.-wired-for-joy girl-moms, transistorized-for-upbeats, All-American missy holding plump and gluggy nonschedfed baby . . .” “. . . with an almost audible snap in the synapses and a splat of novocaine in the prefrontal lobes, came a slacking . . . and suddenly the impos of sluggar-dry and the incubi of mopus, augmented by shock troops recruited from the deevs of dawdle . . .” “. . . white as maggots, as lies, bulked white elbows making wriggled work tracks across the black sands of a black bed of loveless. Trailing, across sands, from nostrils of inexpectance, white fumes of Bordeaux mixture and arsenate of lead and other white foulness, to kill the white lies and other plaster insects. White lying worm wiggles in the total blackness of cannot be, foul to try . . .” “. . . MOVED BY YOU MISSIONLESS PIRHOUETTING [sic] POSY LUMBERJACKS OF THE DREAM-WAX AND BIRDIE-DUST AND POTIGUYA TALL TIMBERS, YOU THIN-HIP FLAKERS FROM THE LAYDOWN JOINTS . . .” “. . . single-substance monoousian, monoplasmatic and one-hued monochroic, and able to generate only one thing, monotonous uniparous, and so, in short, one-valued monodromic . . .” Had enough?

The four hundred and forty-two pages compounded largely of sentences like the above which writer Wolfe devotes to the wits, wags, women and weirdies of Hollywood brought forth, in this reader at any rate, only the incubi of mopus.

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The German Phoenix, by William Chamberlin (Duell, $5.05). This is a book about West Germany that doesn’t bristle with accusations of Nazis in positions of influence or shudder about “German militarism.” Mr. Chamberlin shrewdly ascribes the current “Hate Germany” campaign to two motives: Liberal zeal to root out every ex-Nazi (a more soul-satisfying leftist delight than exposing practicing Communists), and socialist fury that free-enterprising Germany should have come soaring up from the ashes while socialized England labored behind. Not that Mr. Chamberlin completely dismisses the idea of Nazi influence in Germany: “Unfortunately there is one part of Germany where Nazi spirit and methods still survive,” he writes. “This is the ‘German Democratic Republic.’ The brutal Vopos (People’s Police), who have stained the Berlin Wall deep with blood, carry on the traditions of Hitler’s SA and SS.” The author’s enthusiasm for the exciting German comeback, however, leads him to unfair criticism of American policy towards Germany—stressing acts of vengefulness during the early Truman years, and underrating the contribution of United States aid to the economic resurgence. He does not seem to consider remarkable the American willingness to spend billions on resurrecting the vanquished, so soon after the most hideous war in history. The book is an informative and engrossing look at the new Germany—-a reassuring analysis of the economic and political stability of the nation that has become our most reliable Continental ally. D.G.M. COXE Come On Out, Daddy, by Bernard Wolfe (Scribner, $5.95). “. . . rosy-tinted lips spread in the come-all-ye smile, shuckly girl, fulfilled girl, G.E.-wired-for-joy girl-moms, transistorized-for-upbeats, All-American missy holding plump and gluggy nonschedfed baby . . .” “. . . with an almost audible snap in the synapses and a splat of novocaine in the prefrontal lobes, came a slacking . . . and suddenly the impos of sluggar-dry and the incubi of mopus, augmented by shock troops recruited from the deevs of dawdle . . .” “. . . white as maggots, as lies, bulked white elbows making wriggled work tracks across the black sands of a black bed of loveless. Trailing, across sands, from nostrils of inexpectance, white fumes of Bordeaux mixture and arsenate of lead and other white foulness, to kill the white lies and other plaster insects. White lying worm wiggles in the total blackness of cannot be, foul to try . . .” “. . . MOVED BY YOU MISSIONLESS PIRHOUETTING [sic] POSY LUMBERJACKS OF THE DREAM-WAX AND BIRDIE-DUST AND POTIGUYA TALL TIMBERS, YOU THIN-HIP FLAKERS FROM THE LAYDOWN JOINTS . . .” “. . . single-substance monoousian, monoplasmatic and one-hued monochroic, and able to generate only one thing, monotonous uniparous, and so, in short, one-valued monodromic . . .” Had enough?

The four hundred and forty-two pages compounded largely of sentences like the above which writer Wolfe devotes to the wits, wags, women and weirdies of Hollywood brought forth, in this reader at any rate, only the incubi of mopus.