BOOKS IN BRIEF J. C. LOBDELL

habitant). Steiger sports a wooden right arm (the result of gangrene from perforating his hand with a spindle in The Pawnbroker?), so that, when he’s told to raise his hands upon arrest, the left arm springs up in a pre-Hitler Heil. The general comes to sympathize with the couple’s at tempt to win both their thousand lire reward ($1.60?) and his respect, as the viewer comes to sympathize with the characters and respect the fine trio of actors and their director, who bears the formidably Italian name Pasquale Festa Campanile. The neighborhood audience laughed at his name and loved his picture.

Smith of Wootton Major, by J. R. R. Tolkien (Houghton, $1.95). I welcome the appearance of this book, of course, as I would welcome the appearance of any book from Professor Tolkien’s pen. And, indeed, it is a charming if all too brief story of Faery—even a little too charming, perhaps: it does not, to me, seem to bear rereading as as well as “Leaf by Niggle” or Farmer Giles of Ham, to say nothing of the great work. But if it is recently written, I fear I grudge the time spent away from the Silmarillion. Still in all, it is good to see the foremost living geographer and historian of the realms of Faery in the act of inventing that rare thing, a new story, and for this (and for a few great moments in that story), I at least am thankful.

MP

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M. Peterson

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habitant). Steiger sports a wooden right arm (the result of gangrene from perforating his hand with a spindle in The Pawnbroker?), so that, when he’s told to raise his hands upon arrest, the left arm springs up in a pre-Hitler Heil. The general comes to sympathize with the couple’s at tempt to win both their thousand lire reward ($1.60?) and his respect, as the viewer comes to sympathize with the characters and respect the fine trio of actors and their director, who bears the formidably Italian name Pasquale Festa Campanile. The neighborhood audience laughed at his name and loved his picture.

Smith of Wootton Major, by J. R. R. Tolkien (Houghton, $1.95). I welcome the appearance of this book, of course, as I would welcome the appearance of any book from Professor Tolkien’s pen. And, indeed, it is a charming if all too brief story of Faery—even a little too charming, perhaps: it does not, to me, seem to bear rereading as as well as “Leaf by Niggle” or Farmer Giles of Ham, to say nothing of the great work. But if it is recently written, I fear I grudge the time spent away from the Silmarillion. Still in all, it is good to see the foremost living geographer and historian of the realms of Faery in the act of inventing that rare thing, a new story, and for this (and for a few great moments in that story), I at least am thankful.