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Chanticleer, v. 1, issue 3, December 1945

Page 18

wake and flood the air with the first raptures of their hymns to the sun and to life."
From the reading angle, the book suggests rather than is complete in itself. Its allegorical nature is known, I think, to most people who were subjected to Shirley Temple propaganda, even though they may not have seen the film itself. The entire thing is a most wonderful blend of humor, fantasy, pathos, and subtle significance, not to mention a Barnaby-like logic, as in: The Fairy: (Pointing successively to the ceiling, the chimney and the window) Will you go out this way, or that way, or that way? Tyltyl (pointing timidly to the door) I would rather go out that way. The Fairy (suddenly angry again) That's quite impossible, and it's a shocking habit!
--Harry Warner, Jr.

THE CROCK OF GOLD--James Stephens

Some strange coincidence deemed that I should be reading this when Cpl. Gus Willmorth published reference to the fact that he was doing likewise. As far as I know, it was the first fanzine reference to the volume, which is a terrible shame.
This writing is a sort of hybrid between L. Sprague De Camp and James B. Cabell, lacking the slapstick of the former, fortunately, and the deeper implications of the latter, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I found this rather brief tale to be one of the most thoorougly amusing, yet beautiful, things I've come across in a long time.
It seems that somewhere in Ireland there lived two Philosophers, one of whom decides to die near the beginning of this book and by his unorthodox method of doing so and the casual way in which his friends dispose of the remains brings about trouble for the second Philosopher which provides what might by some stretch of the imagination be called a plot. There are also a number of leprecauns, and a mortal who steals their crock of gold, leading to further complications, and the virgin daughter of a native who falls in love with the Great God Pan.
The whole book is infused with a something that for lack of a better word I must call beauty; it's the sort of thing that makes it seem sacriligious when you snicker at the Philosopher's trip to jail with the Policemen even though that trip is a remarkably amusing thing, and here again shades of Barnaby rise up, in the hopeless incompetence of ordinary people when confronted with things that don't exist, and logical actions which no one expects. Besides which there are stretches of page after page that I'd like to see quoted somewhere, of beautifully lyric prose.
The volume is short enough to read in three or four hours' time, even if you aren't a particularly fast reader, and you're a sucker if you don't investigate it.
--Harry Warner, Jr.

PENELOPE'S MAN: THE HOMING INSTINCT--John Erskine. Bobbs-Merrill--1927

John Erskine has written a whole group of books on ancient fables, poetry, etc., translated into the modern and cynical terms prevalent in the nineteen-twenties, all well worth reading. This, although inferior to some of his other works, is well worth reading, and undoubtedly one of the better satires of our generation.
With a very liberal viewpoint, and a healthy disregard for the accepted triteness of Homer, who first chronicled the tales of Odysseus, Erskine begins the saga of the Odyssey in Troy--the wooden horse incident. Odysseus is represented as a vain, self-contented man, who has been forced into the Trojan War by his own desire to escape his wife--much different, as you can see, from the accepted motives now being taught in innumerable ancient history classes.

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wake and flood the air with the first raptures of their hymns to the sun and to life." From the reading angle, the book suggests rather than is complete in itself. Its allegorical nature is known, I think, to most people who were subjected to Shirley Temple propaganda, even though they may not have seen the film itself. The entire thing is a most wonderful blend of humor, fantasy, pathos, and subtle significance, not to mention a Barnaby-like logic, as in: The Fairy: (Pointing successively to the ceiling, the chimney and the window) Will you go out this way, or that way, or that way? Tyltyl (pointing timidly to the door) I would rather go out that way. The Fairy (suddenly angry again) That's quite impossible, and it's a shocking habit! --Harry Warner, Jr. THE CROCK OF GOLD--James Stephens Some strange coincidence deemed that I should be reading this when Cpl. Gus Willmorth published reference to the fact that he was doing likewise. As far as I know, it was the first fanzine reference to the volume, which is a terrible shame. This writing is a sort of hybrid between L. Sprague De Camp and James B. Cabell, lacking the slapstick of the former, fortunately, and the deeper implications of the latter, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I found this rather brief tale to be one of the most thoorougly amusing, yet beautiful, things I've come across in a long time. It seems that somewhere in Ireland there lived two Philosophers, one of whom decides to die near the beginning of this book and by his unorthodox method of doing so and the casual way in which his friends dispose of the remains brings about trouble for the second Philosopher which provides what might by some stretch of the imagination be called a plot. There are also a number of leprecauns, and a mortal who steals their crock of gold, leading to further complications, and the virgin daughter of a native who falls in love with the Great God Pan. The whole book is infused with a something that for lack of a better word I must call beauty; it's the sort of thing that makes it seem sacriligious when you snicker at the Philosopher's trip to jail with the Policemen even though that trip is a remarkably amusing thing, and here again shades of Barnaby rise up, in the hopeless incompetence of ordinary people when confronted with things that don't exist, and logical actions which no one expects. Besides which there are stretches of page after page that I'd like to see quoted somewhere, of beautifully lyric prose. The volume is short enough to read in three or four hours' time, even if you aren't a particularly fast reader, and you're a sucker if you don't investigate it. --Harry Warner, Jr. PENELOPE'S MAN: THE HOMING INSTINCT--John Erskine. Bobbs-Merrill--1927 John Erskine has written a whole group of books on ancient fables, poetry, etc., translated into the modern and cynical terms prevalent in the nineteen-twenties, all well worth reading. This, although inferior to some of his other works, is well worth reading, and undoubtedly one of the better satires of our generation. With a very liberal viewpoint, and a healthy disregard for the accepted triteness of Homer, who first chronicled the tales of Odysseus, Erskine begins the saga of the Odyssey in Troy--the wooden horse incident. Odysseus is represented as a vain, self-contented man, who has been forced into the Trojan War by his own desire to escape his wife--much different, as you can see, from the accepted motives now being taught in innumerable ancient history classes.