SHALLOW NARRATIVE OF THE PACIFIC
Williams, John
Shallow Narrative Of The Pacific WITH MY HEART IN MY MOUTH, by Duncan Norton-Taylor. Coward-McCann, Inc. $2.50. Reviewed by John Williams THE author normally is a reporter for Time, but they...
...Whereas in reality the war is far from won as the million casualties ahead will grimly testify...
...Reviewed by John Williams THE author normally is a reporter for Time, but they have him a brand-new war correspondent's uniform and overcoat (which he lost and spends pages crying about) and assigned him to the Pacific war which, as he says, forced his heart into his mouth...
...At the outset he's upset because civilians at home don't comprehend the gravity of the war but at the book's end (167 pages) the civilian reader is none the wiser...
...The book is too shallow and cosy, too much like the "patriotic" colored advertisements in Time which have the war in the Pacific almost won with the heroes home again and slipping rings on the fingers of the girl friends...
...A naval critic has said that "this book is ample evidence that an untrained observer on a casual visit cannot under any pretext be considered as a war correspondent...
...Douglass Shepler's fine painting on the dust jacket showing Tulagi harbor, equatorial paradise where in late 1942 the U. S. Navy shed its diapers...
...Best part of the book is Lt...
...Written with typical Time carelessness (for example, on page 49 he says the Melanesian Fijians are Polynesians which is like calling Canadians Mexicans), the book would have been better if the author had done less drinking and more observing, inquiring, and thinking...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 28
