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BLIC “those f mor- out be- > is not red in ladul- t snow 7, Rus- Whole ad re- intains scribed ns to - . their regard which I some, ‘Ocdi- At iasca's oad to wished aghton on of chorer ; years. ig the tectly, author ‘ixiety. che be- dd its s book selvd . loneli- ky dis- id un- ‘ers in rs for : while vel of preva- moral emory slation slight | t and deftly -3Capes (> at the range of a young woman perfectly normal except for a scrupulous con- science and a vivid imagination. Fran- Goise is left, after her husband’s death at sea, to the almost exclusive company of his fanatically devoted mother and to APRIL 14, 1947 __ the enforced occupation of morbid remi-. niscence. The old lady becomes obsessed with the idea that her son is still alive and tries to impose this faith on hee daughter-in-law. In rejecting it, Fran- goise is forced to admit that she doesn't want her husband to be alive and upon the guilt of her unfaithfulness depends the motivation of the story. Ts IS THE YEAR (Doubleday, $3) contains detailed maps, a prose- poetic prelude and postlude and a glossary. The author, Feike Feikema, has remained faithful to all available data on the weather every day from 1918 to 1936 in the western Iowa prai- tie land which is the setting of his novel, He has studied the dialects, habits, amusements and traditions of the people he writes about, and even attests to an exact veracity on rocks, weeds and trees. All this supports, even intensifies, the simplicity of the theme: man against nature, a particular farmer's boastful and hazardous life in subduing the soil and the elements for his use and his Slory. As is usual in these agricultural epics, the soil and the elements win at least an esthetic victory, fcr the tradi- tion of the garrulously taciturn yokel- hero has become formalized by now, and the reader's attitude to him de- pends on a sympathetic response to that tradition, Whatéver his response, he will admit that This Is the Year is a large, expansive, pretentious and sincere novel. ERMANN Kesten’s Happy Man H (Wyn, $3), now published for ’ the first time in America, has been trans- lated into fourteen languages and en- joys a substantial reputation in German literature between the world wars. It is the story of Max Blattner and his fiancée, Else, who- represent Ber! a's bankrupt middle class—physically and emotionally exhausted, “holding life to be 2 misfortune.” Max has no money and no job and in the panic of despera- tion continually muffs his chances to se- <a mange meee etna i OT a cure one, Else has been pledged by her father to a prosperous marriage, as a last resort to save the family from accu- mulated debt and threatened disgrace. These circumstances propel them through the bizarre after-dark plot which decides their fates, ' ‘The crux of the story is in the open- ing lines: " ‘But we could still kill our- selves,” she said. He was becoming im- patient. He couldn't stand muchas TY ALF the stori¢s in Selvia Towr? of this sort of talk.” Else is young and logical and sentimental. Since her life - is so devoid of everything but Max's affection that she has exchanged all life for his love, there‘is nothing left to do with her lover but to die with him. Max, however, is another case. In the poverty of his life, he was sheltered under Else's love, but when her affection threatens to overwhelm him, he refuses to follow her into tragedy and shrewdly abandons her. For Max’s ambition is not to give himself to the wheels of an express train, but to become the Happy Man, the anonymous bourgeois hero of a conventional success. By his ennui, his : poverty, his envy of money, he is forced * temporarily into an apparently opposin= role; as the sclf-announced and sc'f- pitied victim of society, he supports the shabby dignity of the anarchist hero. But as soon as he can escape this anomalous position he entrenches him- Miastration by George Gross from Happy Man ‘= self in the wisdom of his own dis that “unhappiness is a flaw in a reo character.” George Grosz; the text and the pic: - are so complementary that one feels” if the writer and the artist had. changed mediums they would have : { duced the same volume. Warner's The Museum of C. (Viking, $2.50) appeared in the © Yorker ducing the last four years, : all are superior examples of that g£° Some of them are about English city life during the war; some are exe, in fantasy. Miss Warner writes | §tace (which sometimes becomes c? with a vitality (occasionally boistere4 an irony (just curdling into sarca; but her very real skill usually mar 4 to balance these qualities and st} never boring. JOHN FARR:.- Crime and Punishment: _ Deadlinz, by Alexander ve (Dodd, Mead, $2.50), is a fairly item dealing with the murder @ young and beautiful advertising co writer in Westchester County's & conservative department store. Per alities are cleverly played off ag. one another and over all broods : sophisticated figure of police lieute; Ben Sinclair, who, in the words of - of his minions, “don't like for nol. to try to make a fool of him.” No! does. Murder Miscellany. ~ Three ce te better-than-average jobs have at” fornia setting. Mary Collins’ EC Warmed Over (Scribner's, $2.50) : cerns murder in a genteel “guest ho =’ and provides some good dialogue ~ suspense, while Lencre Glen Off My True Love Lies (Duell, Sloan Pearce, $2.50) gets right down to problem of who put the corpse— husband’s, as it turns out—inside @ wrappings of an unfinished sculp Ri} by the belle of a San Francisco ant ‘i = colony. M. S. Marble’s Die by N $B: (Rinehart, $2) is a lively and lic 3. ~: account of the [ethal goings-on of” members of a Phony Greek cult in - Angeles. 2 “