THE REALIST DREAMS
Perrow, Charles
The Realist Dreams Reviewed by CHARLES PERROW SPIT AND THE STARS. By Robert Mende. Rinehart & Co., 1949. 384 pp. $3.50. "And the loins of women will bring forth from their folds the living...
...It is a fact beyond dispute thjt the leaders of British Labor today, with notable exceptions, do not at all be-, lieve that the United States is moving toward the end they envisage for their country...
...The author is attempting to five a poignant, humorous, excitintr...
...I think the fault of which I am complaining is attributable to the necessity the authors feel to use history as a device to reconcile the peoples—a non-historical, political motive—rather than simply to illuminate a complex story in its own terms...
...It is not easy to miss the moral of these episodes, perhaps this is what the jacket blurb meant by "uncommonly readable...
...New York: Knopf...
...Robert Mende is a realist...
...But is it the best way...
...Mclnnis ami Reid portray the differences of the past, they still do not convey to the reader anyvery vivid sense of the fact that ultimately as well as historically, the...
...insightful, and above all realistic account ol one boy's life...
...He gives you the physical setting, and the conversation...
...The wonderful sentiment that we must love people is tacked on to the end of a day-dreaming, childish fantasy, in which the crude distinctions of good and evil, and the Horatio Alger achievement of manhood can only be wish-fulfillment for the author...
...He falls in love at first sight with a sweet and beautiful worker and unionist called "Dynamite," who can also "stand up and spit...
...As I gather it, Messrs...
...But, if there is "something in" this, there is also "something in" the differences...
...And Anally there is a punch line at the end to finish off each of the forty-one episodes...
...TO CRAM THE HISTORY of the English-speaking peoples into a single volume forces an author (or authors) to select the material that shall be included even more carefully than would be the case with a history of one of the people...
...And the loins of women will bring forth from their folds the living acorns of the democratic union of different colors...
...There is a case for leading students into a complex field along roads already fairly familiar to them...
...and the colonial empire of the United Kingdom only on the extreme periphery of the narrative...
...You stand in one and reach for the other...
...Mclnnis and Reid have chosen to place emphasis on the histories of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, with incidental passageVon Australia, New Zealand and South Africa...
...But, like the dittys he quotes at length from the wall of a high school latrine, the cute and clever gags and sayings be abounds with ("relieved her kidneys of their baggage"), and the homey outlook ("And people, well . . . is people"), we have heard all this before...
...of the three nations, and I strongly feel that the differences are more important to mutual understanding than the very broad similarities...
...C. Hartley Grattan is a noted economist and literary critic...
...5.00...
...I suppose that for pedagogical reasons a text book published in North America and primarily designed for use in North American schools, had better be oriented toward North America...
...IF YOU WOULD RATHER NOT WAIT for the mixed metaphor department of the New Yorker to do justice to this novel, you might read for yourself Mr...
...Mende himself has a difficult time reaching above the spit...
...Since the two Pacific Dominions have been strongly influenced by events in the United Kingdom, what is said about them is perhaps on a plane of equality for all hands...
...When he writes of sex, what comes through to us is mainly vulgarity...
...Charles Perrow is working on hit first novel...
...FOR THE AUTHOR the spit is a symbol for the harsh tough realities of life, and the stars for happiness, justice, and so forth...
...WHEN IT COMES to evaluating what we do have, a rather different line must be taken...
...Messrs...
...When the book ends, and Gregg is 161/2 years old, he has learned that you must love people, and see the beauty and poetry that is in them...
...He makes the point at length that sex is not "doity," it's even natural...
...U is impossible to return a dogmatic answer...
...Mclnnis and Reid aim to drive home to the reader the point that however different the roads the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have traveled,' and indeed currently travel, they are all moving toward a common goal...
...the shifts and changes in the relations of the United Kingdom and the Dominions chiefly in terms of Canadian aspirations...
...Spit and the Stars, page 209...
...That is one way to do the job even if, oddly enough, it is done with no reference to Professor Brebner's book, "North Atlantic Triangle...
...When he is writing of other key themes of life, he can only use vulgar distinctions of black and white to convince us that there is justice and love in the world...
...The labor leaders are heroic symbols of justice, and the bosses are symbols of infamy...
...By Edgar W. Mclnnis and J. H. S. Reid...
...Each short chapter deals with one of the several important aspects of living...
...But the only evidence he really gives us of this is a long quote from the Encyclopedia of Sexual Knowledge...
...They perceive the differences, much more clearly than the underlying trends that allegedly will reconcile the differences...
...But it certainly results in playing down events which to an Australian or a New Zealander have equal significance and importance to those transacted in Canada and perhaps in the United States...
...Although Messrs...
...If, however, the book is to be evaluated in terms of its North American (or North Atlantic) relevance, then the most we can ask is that the passages on the other portions of the English-speaking complex be illuminating and accurate...
...That goal is, if I am not mistaken, at least the Social Service State, at most the Socialist (Westernstyle) State...
...513 pages...
...Where one has lagged behind, another has bounded ahead...
...Justice triumphs, and Gregg marches in the front rank...
...Ninety percent of the book is conversation...
...Beyond this admirable sentiment at the end, there are only the admirable intentions of the author, and the dust jacket by Sydney Butchkes, to recommend in this book...
...But Mr...
...will remain fascinatingly different...
...The ideal history of the so-called English-speaking peoples is yet to come...
...Ireland comes in chiefly in its relations with the United Kingdom...
...Anglo-Saxon Differences Reviewed by C. HARTLEY GRATTAN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES...
...Mende's account of a boy's growing up in the Williamsburg slums during the depression, finding work in the wholesale dry goods center, fighting for the union, and falling in love...
...I, for one, feel, strongly that even if from a cosmic point of view the similarities are impressive, it is the differences which at the moment and also in the long run will make the English-speaking peoples rather a group of distinctive nations than an agglutinate mass of peoples...
...After all, even the expression "English-speaking peoples" conceals important differ-, cnecs, or H. L. Mencken and others have labored in vain...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 20
