Brief Mention

This is a first novel by a writer of extraordinary ability. The naval operations of the recent war have been the subject of many novels. Almost all of these give us satisfactory de-scriptions of physical realities (although I have seen nothing that equals Mr. MacLean’s vivid portrayal of naval service in the frozen silence of Arctic seas), but fail to present characters who are both credible and worthy of interest. Their authors seem to assume that the dehumanizing effects of modern impersonal warfare are best depicted by filling their pages with assorted specimens of the mass man, whose impersonal vulgarity is really the result of antecedent and radically different causes. Mr. MacLean has chosen to show us both the grim realities of war and men who are staunchly human. He has, furthermore, a mastery of English that his predecessors have either not possessed or thought it modern to conceal. His account of the light cruiser Ulysses and the men who commanded her is therefore more than a moving story; it is an experience that the reader will never forget. r. p. o.

Devotees of the ballet will read with intense interest, and other readers will mildly enjoy, this joint autobiography of two Hungarian dancers who escaped to the West although their preeminence in their art had won for them a high degree of comfort and far more security than even the most prominent political leaders can now attain in the countries which the late Mr. Roosevelt delivered to the late Mr. Stalin. It is significant that their decision was not in any way influenced by the expensive propa-ganda of which our State Department is so proud. Since a repeated error can scarcely be typographical, I feel it my duty to inform the publisher that a cast and a caste are two quite different things. R. p. o.

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This is a first novel by a writer of extraordinary ability. The naval operations of the recent war have been the subject of many novels. Almost all of these give us satisfactory de-scriptions of physical realities (although I have seen nothing that equals Mr. MacLean’s vivid portrayal of naval service in the frozen silence of Arctic seas), but fail to present characters who are both credible and worthy of interest. Their authors seem to assume that the dehumanizing effects of modern impersonal warfare are best depicted by filling their pages with assorted specimens of the mass man, whose impersonal vulgarity is really the result of antecedent and radically different causes. Mr. MacLean has chosen to show us both the grim realities of war and men who are staunchly human. He has, furthermore, a mastery of English that his predecessors have either not possessed or thought it modern to conceal. His account of the light cruiser Ulysses and the men who commanded her is therefore more than a moving story; it is an experience that the reader will never forget. r. p. o.

Devotees of the ballet will read with intense interest, and other readers will mildly enjoy, this joint autobiography of two Hungarian dancers who escaped to the West although their preeminence in their art had won for them a high degree of comfort and far more security than even the most prominent political leaders can now attain in the countries which the late Mr. Roosevelt delivered to the late Mr. Stalin. It is significant that their decision was not in any way influenced by the expensive propa-ganda of which our State Department is so proud. Since a repeated error can scarcely be typographical, I feel it my duty to inform the publisher that a cast and a caste are two quite different things. R. p. o.