Books in Brief

In the Human Grain, by Walter Ong, S. J. (Macmillan, $5.95). You have heard of the -mark of Cain, -but have you ever beheld the mark of Teilhard? It is a mark of intellectual murder and it is a frightening sight. Its proper name is “evolutionism”, the view that takes off from Darwin’s relatively limited biological theory of evolution, and then eagerly extrapolates to whole cosmologies, philosophies of history, social philosophies, etc. That Teilhardian impress is evident in this book, which reproduces, at times

with wearisome repetitiveness, the author’s ideas on sundry topics as these were presented in various publications back over the years. The author is an English professor and he is not at all bad in the sections of literary criticism. It is when he comes to science and philosophy and starts talking of “the fact of evolution” and the discovery of “cosmic evolution” that one winces and wishes that English professors would stick to English. E. H. WALL Waiting for Winter, by John O’Hara (Random House, $5.95). As an author who writes both prolifically and well, O’Hara has become something of a bane to his critics. The worst that can be said of this latest collection of his short stories is that it is “uneven”: some of the stories are good; the rest, even better. The theme which emerges from the work is the increasing secularization of American society. The resulting moral aimlessness becomes apparent whether the scene is New York, Hollywood, or Lantenengo County, Pennsylvania. Amorality and disaster are helplessly entwined in a social setting which increases the magnitude of tragedy by destroying its essential nobility through the denial of re- | ligious solace. The only consolation with which the O’Hara characters face life~ arises from their memory of ideals long discarded: a virtue once intact, a faith dimly recalled, a duty honorably discharged. T. K. MEIER

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In the Human Grain, by Walter Ong, S. J. (Macmillan, $5.95). You have heard of the -mark of Cain, -but have you ever beheld the mark of Teilhard? It is a mark of intellectual murder and it is a frightening sight. Its proper name is “evolutionism”, the view that takes off from Darwin’s relatively limited biological theory of evolution, and then eagerly extrapolates to whole cosmologies, philosophies of history, social philosophies, etc. That Teilhardian impress is evident in this book, which reproduces, at times

with wearisome repetitiveness, the author’s ideas on sundry topics as these were presented in various publications back over the years. The author is an English professor and he is not at all bad in the sections of literary criticism. It is when he comes to science and philosophy and starts talking of “the fact of evolution” and the discovery of “cosmic evolution” that one winces and wishes that English professors would stick to English. E. H. WALL Waiting for Winter, by John O’Hara (Random House, $5.95). As an author who writes both prolifically and well, O’Hara has become something of a bane to his critics. The worst that can be said of this latest collection of his short stories is that it is “uneven”: some of the stories are good; the rest, even better. The theme which emerges from the work is the increasing secularization of American society. The resulting moral aimlessness becomes apparent whether the scene is New York, Hollywood, or Lantenengo County, Pennsylvania. Amorality and disaster are helplessly entwined in a social setting which increases the magnitude of tragedy by destroying its essential nobility through the denial of re- | ligious solace. The only consolation with which the O’Hara characters face life~ arises from their memory of ideals long discarded: a virtue once intact, a faith dimly recalled, a duty honorably discharged. T. K. MEIER