Character in Search of an Author

In Search of the American Tradition (University Publishers, $5.00), the first of three volumes to be compiled from the notes and letters of Elinor Castle Nef, should not have been released for general publication. Had Mrs. Nef been a famous woman as well as the highly respected wife of Professor John U. Nef, historian and chairman of the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, the book might have been worth reading for the insights it gives into her character. As it stands, it records in execrable English the random observations of a woman who thought earnestly, but never originally.

I suspect that Mrs. Nef, who labored over her book the fifteen years before her death but could never bring herself to have it published, would be appalled at its condition. Certainly, the editors should be ashamed. They unblushingly passed the most hackneyed of phrases. (“I am an ignorant woman and not a philosopher but…”), failed to make obvious corrections (“I am afraid the Common Reader finds history more difficult and interesting than easy and amusing”), to blue-pencil the sloppiness which creeps so easily into private correspondence, (“There are many writers… who seldom make astute judgments worth making…”). But the editors were unperturbed either by such awkwardness or by the repetitiousness of the material and the rambling confusion with which it is presented.

MO

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Maureen B. O'Reilly

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In Search of the American Tradition (University Publishers, $5.00), the first of three volumes to be compiled from the notes and letters of Elinor Castle Nef, should not have been released for general publication. Had Mrs. Nef been a famous woman as well as the highly respected wife of Professor John U. Nef, historian and chairman of the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, the book might have been worth reading for the insights it gives into her character. As it stands, it records in execrable English the random observations of a woman who thought earnestly, but never originally.

I suspect that Mrs. Nef, who labored over her book the fifteen years before her death but could never bring herself to have it published, would be appalled at its condition. Certainly, the editors should be ashamed. They unblushingly passed the most hackneyed of phrases. (“I am an ignorant woman and not a philosopher but…”), failed to make obvious corrections (“I am afraid the Common Reader finds history more difficult and interesting than easy and amusing”), to blue-pencil the sloppiness which creeps so easily into private correspondence, (“There are many writers… who seldom make astute judgments worth making…”). But the editors were unperturbed either by such awkwardness or by the repetitiousness of the material and the rambling confusion with which it is presented.