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Quanta, v. 1, issue 3, August 1949
Page 16
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16. BOOK REVIEW ADDRESS UNKNOWN. By Eden Phillpotts. London: Hutchinson, no date. 219 pp. 9s 6d - Reviewed by Roy W. Loan, Jr. Eden Phillpotts, during some fifty-odd years of writing, has acquired an astonishing versatility. Some two hundred titles, running the gamut of fiction, essays, poetry, and drama, have appeared under his name. To say that he is a versatile writer is not, however, to say that he is a consistently great writer. Although some of his lesser known works are thoroughly enjoyable stories, his real claim to greatness lies in his novels about the Devon moors he knows and loves so well. Mr. Phillpotts is an objective realist. He develops his thesis in an entirely objective manner, carefully showing both the beautiful and the twisted, the good and the evil. Although Beauty in Nature has always been his main thesis, he has not failed to paint the picture of the ugly with equal honesty. He has consistently portrayed the very same Nature as being equally capable of inspiring us or of plunging us into the depths of despair. He studies his characters meticulously and, deliberately avoiding the heaping of praise upon their virtues or the taking of a contemptuous attitude toward them, limits himself to a systematic delineation of them. The delineation is a direct one; their actions and thoughts are usually reported directly. When they fail in their purpose or meet disaster, it is evident that their misfortune was as inevitable as their birth. This element of fate, in conjunction with catastrophe, plays an important part in ADDRESS UNKNOWN. The author has written a highly imaginative story of two scientists, Marcus Fragsen and Charles Mack, who, free to use their time as they wish, discover another inhabited planet in the course of their radio experimentation. The inhabitants of the planet, as represented throughout the novel by one of them, Zoom, are shown to be highly evolved in their mental and material accomploshments. So highly are they evolved, in fact, that they find it necessary to improve upon human nature. Marcus and Fragsen, unable to cope with the profundity of Zoom's radio lectures, call in one Bertran Hippersley, a club acquaintance. Mr. Hippersley sits in on Zoom's talks and, after listening to Zoom praise the beauty and perfection of his race and the hopelessness of the human race, calls him to account.
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16. BOOK REVIEW ADDRESS UNKNOWN. By Eden Phillpotts. London: Hutchinson, no date. 219 pp. 9s 6d - Reviewed by Roy W. Loan, Jr. Eden Phillpotts, during some fifty-odd years of writing, has acquired an astonishing versatility. Some two hundred titles, running the gamut of fiction, essays, poetry, and drama, have appeared under his name. To say that he is a versatile writer is not, however, to say that he is a consistently great writer. Although some of his lesser known works are thoroughly enjoyable stories, his real claim to greatness lies in his novels about the Devon moors he knows and loves so well. Mr. Phillpotts is an objective realist. He develops his thesis in an entirely objective manner, carefully showing both the beautiful and the twisted, the good and the evil. Although Beauty in Nature has always been his main thesis, he has not failed to paint the picture of the ugly with equal honesty. He has consistently portrayed the very same Nature as being equally capable of inspiring us or of plunging us into the depths of despair. He studies his characters meticulously and, deliberately avoiding the heaping of praise upon their virtues or the taking of a contemptuous attitude toward them, limits himself to a systematic delineation of them. The delineation is a direct one; their actions and thoughts are usually reported directly. When they fail in their purpose or meet disaster, it is evident that their misfortune was as inevitable as their birth. This element of fate, in conjunction with catastrophe, plays an important part in ADDRESS UNKNOWN. The author has written a highly imaginative story of two scientists, Marcus Fragsen and Charles Mack, who, free to use their time as they wish, discover another inhabited planet in the course of their radio experimentation. The inhabitants of the planet, as represented throughout the novel by one of them, Zoom, are shown to be highly evolved in their mental and material accomploshments. So highly are they evolved, in fact, that they find it necessary to improve upon human nature. Marcus and Fragsen, unable to cope with the profundity of Zoom's radio lectures, call in one Bertran Hippersley, a club acquaintance. Mr. Hippersley sits in on Zoom's talks and, after listening to Zoom praise the beauty and perfection of his race and the hopelessness of the human race, calls him to account.
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