Beer & Skittles*

Beer & Skittles--

CAKES AND ALE--W. Somerset Maugham--Doubleday, Dor an ($2).

Somerset Maugham writes a workman-like novel; easy to read, witty, sardonic, realistic, far from the borderline of boredom. He does not believe in "great" books; has never written, will never write one. His habitual bitterness, whether natural or acquired, has become part of his stock-in-trade. He now uses it effectively, usually cloaks it in brusque but polite irony.

Cakes and Ale: or The Skeleton in the Clipboard is a novel without a hero. Narrator is William Ashenden, middle-aged bachelor writer, through whose disillusioned eyes you see unfolded the story of Edward Drimeld and the lovely Rosie. When Edward Drimeld died his late-won position as Grand Old Man of English Letters was secure. His shrewd second wife wanted an official, respectably-mum-mifying biography, asked the popular novelist Alroy Rear to write it. But Ashenden was one of the few who knew anything about Driffield's early life. When Kear tried to pump him, Ashenden had reason to tell only a little of what he knew. The rest he tells to the reader.

Ashenden was a boy when he first met Drimeld, then a struggling author, and Rosie, his beautiful barmaid wife. When the Driffields "shot the moon" (left town without paying their debts J, Ashenden thought he would never see them again. But years later, while a medical student in London, he met Rosie on the street, went home with her to tea, became an habitue of the Drimeld salon. Rosie was the chief attraction. Kindhearted, affectionate, she became Ashenden's mistress, but he knew he shared her with others. One day she ran off to the U. S. with a married man she liked better than any of them. Wrhen Driffield married again his second wife did her best to dragoon him into respectability, finally outwardly succeeded. Word came from the U. S. that Rosie was dead. But close-mouthed Ashenden knew better. On a lecture tour in the States he had had a note from her, had called to find her a widow in Yonkers. Rosie was old, fat, bobbed-haired, but just the same under- neath. On the living room wall was a large photograph of the man with whom Rosie had run away. Said Ashenden, "I wonder what it was you saw in him." The picture "showed him in a long frock coat, tightly buttoned, and a tall silk hat cocked rakishly on one side of his head; there was a large rose in his buttonhole; under one arm he carried a silver-headed cane and smoke curled from a big cigar that he held in his right hand. He had a heavy mustache, waxed at the ends, and a saucy look in his eye, and in his bearing an arrogant swagger. In his tie was a horseshoe in diamonds. He looked like a publican dressed up in his best to go to the Derby. 'I'll tell you,' said Rosie. 'He was always such a perfect gentle-man.' "

The Author. William Somerset Maugham (pronounced "mawm"), 56, playwright, novelist, essayist, studied to be a doctor, knows how to articulate a skeleton, but prefers to do his dissecting in books. Of medium size and corpulence, with heavy, mustached face, he lives in Cap Ferrat, France, travels widely, stutters, has effeminate men friends. Though he has written some popular books and plays, his cynicism has kept the great public from crowning him a favorite. Says he cynically: "I have never called myself cynical. . . . I've always thought myself truthful." Author Maugham has written: The Trembling oj a Leaf, Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Six pence; The Gentleman in the Parlour (TIME, May 5); (plays): East of Suez, The Circle, The Letter.

Happiness Without Tears

THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS--Ber-trand Russell--Liveright ($3).

The books of Bertrand Russell are a modern substitute for the Bible. One of the high priests of our day (a scientist, a No. i mathematician), his writing "is not addressed to highbrows, or to those who regard a practical problem merely as something to be talked about." Few deny the high morality of his lucid logic, which makes even his rational counsels of perfection sound like simplest common sense, but few could put these counsels of perfection into practice. At least his simplifications should be an antidote to confusion.

Few will quarrel with his thesis: that unhappiness is widespread through civili-zation--"very largely due to mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, mistaken habits of life . . . matters which lie within the power of the individual." Confesses Russell: "I was not born happy. ... In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life. . . . This is due partly . . . to having discovered what were the things that I most desired . . . partly ... to having successfully dismissed certain objects of desire. . . . But very largely it is due to a diminishing preoccupation with myself."

The happiest men today, says Russell, are the scientists. "Many of the most eminent of them are emotionally simple, and obtain from their work a satisfaction so profound that they can derive pleasure from eating, and even marrying." Russell thinks happiness is not a gift received but a conquest to be won. If you want to be happy you must work for it, acquire zest, congenial work, impersonal interests, freedom from worry, resignation. "The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."

The Author. The fame of Hon. Bertrand Arthur William Russell will hardly be increased if he becomes third Earl Russell (he is heir presumptive). Philosopher, mathematician, he is great & good friend to Philosopher-Mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, with whom he wrote Principia Mathematica, incomprehensible to laymen, to mathematicians a delight. During the War Russell's pacifist activities in the No Conscription Fellowship cost him his Cambridge lectureship, -L-100 fine, six months in prison. Twice married, he has two children (by his second wife), lives in Cornwall, where he conducts a school for children on his own educational principles. Clean-shaven, red-faced, he has thick white hair, seamed cheeks, a trenchant nose, a stubborn but unaggressive jaw, a wide, clear eye. He has written many books. Some of them: The A B C of Relativity, Education and the Good Life, Problems of Philosophy, Proposed Roads to Freedom, Why Men Fight, Marriage and Morals (TIME, Nov. 4. 1929^-

Open Boats

THE WRECK OF THE DUMARU--Lowell Thomas--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

On Sept. 12, 1918, the new wooden steamer Dumaru sailed from San Fran- cisco with a cargo of gasoline and explosives for Honolulu, Guam and Manila. In her Wartime camouflage she looked "like a clown on an evil sea." The grisly tale of what happened to her and her crew was told to Author Lowell Thomas by one of the survivors, Fritz Harmon, first assistant engineer.

Two hours after leaving Guam the Dumaru ran into a tropical thunderstorm and was struck by lightning; the cargo in the forward hold exploded. She began to burn. All the crew got safely off but the boat Fritz Harmon was in had 32 men, too many. For five days they tried to make Guam against head winds, then gave it up and headed hopelessly for the Caroline Islands or the Philippines.

On the 13th day the first man died, raving; on the 14th day their water gave out, two more died. They tried to make a condenser to get fresh water, but had little success. On the iyth day the chief engi- neer died. With part of his body they made a broth. "The salt in the sea water in which the flesh was boiled was absorbed by the flesh, leaving the broth free from salt and not unpleasant to taste. The flesh was like tough veal." On the 23d day the survivors drank the blood from a fresh corpse. Next day they sighted land. Out of 32 men, 16 were alive.

One of the 32 had been Lieut. E. V. Holmes, U. S. N. Says Harmon: he committed suicide by jumping out of the boat. On account of his death a naval investigation was held. The Dumaru survivors decided to tell the truth, the whole story came out but no arrests were made. They had admitted cannibalism but not murder.

The Author. Lowell Thomas, 38, lecturer, journalist, traveler, onetime professor of oratory, was born in Ohio but spent his boyhood in Cripple Creek, Col., as miner, rancher, realtor, newshawk. During the War he was with Allenby's army in Palestine, with famed Col. Thomas Ed- ward Lawrence in Arabia. (Say partisans of Lawrence: it was partly to correct misstatements of Thomas' With Lawrence in Arabia that Lawrence wrote his Revolt in the Desert.) After the War he accom- panied the Prince of Wales on a tour of India. Air-minded, he wrote the official account of the U. S. Army's world flight (1924). Last February he returned from a long trip through wildest Asia. Says he: "I have never been bored for five minutes in my life." Other books: European Skyways, The Sea Devil, Raiders of the Deep, Woodfill of the Regulars, The Sea Devil's Fo'c's'le.

Success Stories

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ACHIEVEMENT-- Walter B. Pitkin--Simon & Schuster ($4).

If you are under 35, and one of the four or five ablest of your surrounding 100 fellow-citizens, this book is about and for you. Otherwise not. says the author. The Psychology of Achievement should be a bestseller.

Not Success but Achievement is Author Pitkin's theme. "Achievement is distinguished successful endeavor, usually in the face of difficulties. As such it always possesses two characteristics: first, a certain superiority of aim; and, secondly, exceptional skill in execution." For Achievement three ingredients are necessary: the Wish, the Chance, the Man. Says Pitkin: a man should discover his capabilities, capitalize them to the utmost, but not try something for which nature has unfitted him. Many and varied are his examples of achievement, of nonachievement. Some of them:

Baseballer Babe Rtith. "Far from being 'a man in a million,' [he] is at least one man in 50 or 60 million. . . . Were men paid according to the scarcity of rivals who can do their work equally well, Babe Ruth should be receiving at least ten million dollars a year, instead of the paltry 80 thousand he now pockets."

"As Grant's achievement is the most brilliant in American history, so is Lenin's in all modern history."

Bernarr Macfadden. "Probably he has done far more good than David Livingstone and a thousand other missionaries."

Warren Gamaliel Harding. "The only case of 'triple zero achievement' in our day and generation, so far as I know. ... A man of weak sexuality is in luck, from the point of view demanded by high achievement. For he is not distracted from his aim by blonde winks and brunette giggles. . . . No Elks' picnic ever reaches Par nassus. The only man who has ever achieved something through the aid of tea parties is Sir Thomas Lipton." Such high-sounding words as Idealism and Service have little to do with Achieve ment, says Pitkin. "A man by the name of William Randolph Hearst built up the largest and most profitable newspaper and magazine business in America. By Ideal ism? By Service? A citizen known as Doheny has built up one of the vastest oil businesses on earth. Has anybody ever found a chemical trace of Idealism and Service in him?" The Author. Walter Boughton Pitkin, 52, is himself no mean achiever. At 14 he herded cattle, delivered packages for a Detroit drygoods store, then worked on a school census to get money for college, where he paid his way by training a prize fighter, selling class canes, newspaper work. After college he studied languages and psychology in Europe. Onetime U. S. Managing Editor of Encyclopedia Britannica, he is professor of journalism at Co lumbia University, is famed among editors for his consultant ability in reviving mori bund magazines. Other books: The Psy chology of Happiness, The Twilight of the American Mind, The Art and Business of the Short Story, How to Write Stories, Must We Fight Japan?, The Art of Rapid Reading, The Art of Sound Pictures (with William M. Marston: TIME, Jan. 27).

--New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME -were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular retail price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City. --PubIished Sept. 5.

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