Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
716
tr!gue and chicanery. He describes
Bemmarchaiss
unceasing
and finally
successful efforts to have France SUFp@rt
the Amerlcan colonies against England
and deserves credit forthe diplomacy
wlth whlch he tellshow the Amerlcan
Congress consistently refused to repay
Bea,umarchals the m ~ l l ~ o nof
s frmcs
owed to hlln
Beaumarchajjs
adventures as a 3py and secret agent are 2s exciting as a detectlve story, titbugh the
really curious reader may feel let down
whenthe
authormust
gloss over the
detalls of a sltuatlon for lack of precise
information or because guesswork
would result In too morbld a solution.
It IS easy to see why Mr. Lemaitre
keeps Beaumarchais movlng about like
a jumpmg-Jack The book rnentlons hls
unpredlctablllty andthe mysterious
rhythm of hls moods and explains
these throughwhat
are finally quasipsychologlcal superficiallties-the emotional earmarks of adolescence resulting from a quarrel between the youthful
Beaumarchals and his father,
I dont mean thatthe standard innocuousness of the academic biography,
jacked up by an expert, hearty, journalistrc style, should turn into a deep psychoanadytic study; yet since Beaumarchals, hardlya Dostowskl, nevertheless
shares wlthhimthe
almostmcompreUnderhenslble motlvatlons of the
ground Man, of what is known as the
neurotlc character-much
more serious than beingneurotlc or even psy-
In the Berkshires
An intercultural, e o - d Junior Hlgh and Hlgh
D R A W . SPREADS AND
SLIPCOVERS
ELABORATE CURTAINS - v e r w
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hand woshed andfinlrhed
to moosure Also
pleaflng, tlutlng,
dyelng,
reheodlng.
RUGS ANDFURNITURE
EXPERTLY CLEANED AT HOME
Comforters,
afghans,
lampshades cleaned.
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We serve the finest homer in I h e city,
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RENB
BLANC-ROOS
Fiction in Review
LTHOUGH G e o r g eOrwells
Nmeteen Elghty-Four (Harcourt,
Brace, $3) IS a brdhant and fascmating
novel, thenature of its fantasy is so
absolutely final and relentless that I can
recommend It only with a certam
ervatlon. This is Mr. Orwellspicture
of the way the world ends: actually it
does
not
end at all, physically-ne
would even welcome some well-placed
atom bombs--but contlnues in a perpetual nightmare of lrvlng death. Thlrtyfiveyears from now, accordlng toMr.
Orwells grlm calculatlon, there will be
threegrezt powers on thlsplanet, any
two of whlch will be constantly atwar
wlth the thlrd, not forascendancy but in
order to mamtarn the political and economic status quoWar
1s peace, as
the party slogan has It. For the rulers of
the future state It IS enough that people
areallowed to exlst; their welfare-In
any sense In whlch weunderstandthe
word-does not have to betaken into
account. The dehumanlzatlon of man
has reached its ultimatedevelopment.
Love, art,pleasure,comfort,
the sexual
emotlons, have all been recognized as
the consumer products of a soclety based
upon the freedom of the Individual, and
they have been liquldated. Life-If
it
can be called llfe-goes on only so that
power may goon.
Mr. Om-ells descriptlon of how thi.
dlctatorshlp operates is lngenlous in the
extreme The populatlon is divrded into
Inner Party, Outer Party, and proles.
The economy of the state 1s always a
war economy. The head of the government I S BlgBrother, he of the ublquitous fdce, whose all-seelng eye follows
one wherever there IS llght. The strong
arm of power IS theThought Police;
the greatest sln agarnst the state, Crimethink. To help the pollce detect subversion every public or private room is
equipped wlth a telescreen which records each move and utterance of the
..
717
Books in Brief
d
T H E GREENERGRASS.
By Berton
RouechC. Harper. $2.50. Visits to such
rural industriesas mink,herb, potato,
and duck farms, aclgar-maker, an ox
raiser, and others. Readablebuthighly
standardized New Yogker reporting.
AGNES R E P P L I E R : LADY OF
LETTERS. By George Stewart Stokes.
University of PennsylvanlaPress.
$3.
An intimate, authonted blography of a
thoughtfulandoriginalwoman.Unfortunately, Mr. Stolkes overdoes the Intimacy, and his book reads something
like a house organ for the Phlladelphla
social Ilterati.
. ..
John Wexleyr
TPIEY
tyrlcs
OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN 2 d d
Book by
. Air-Condztionsd.
Mots. Wed. h s