Man from Georgia

THESE BARS OF FLESH--T. S. Stribling --Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

Andrew Barnett was a portly, ruddy-faced, middle-aged Georgia politician. When he was in the legislature he fathered a bill requiring all county superintendents of schools tohave college degrees. But when he voted for a measure compelling farmers to put up fences, the opposition gave him such a hiding it was a wonder he was elected school superintendent afterwards. People voted for him for the same reason that women were kind to him--because he was big, good-natured, couldn't quite take care of himself. But as school superintendent Andy had to have a college degree. Leaving Matilda and the kids in Georgia, he registered in Megapolis University's summer school, where he made a small sensation by giving homely accounts of his troubles to strangers, discoursing amiably on the superstitions of Negroes and the laws of practical politics, keeping his appreciative eyes open for the beauties of Northern womanhood.

Andy was no mental giant. In fact, the opposition papers in his native Atlee County called him Simp Barnett. Since he bought newspapers only when the newsboys shouted something that interested him, his knowledge of current events was sketchy. But with his unhurried way of talking, his patient attempts to find out if acquaintances had any kinspeople in Atlee County, he made friends, soon found himself written up as an expert on folklore. Before he knew it he was an unpaid ghost writer for the high-pressure, racketeering Dr. Fyke, who wrote books on sex and income, on how to make people notice you, and who conducted experiments in telepathy with a pretty, unmoral girl named Marie Redeau. Andy could not do Dr. Fyke's work, but when he persuaded a rival professor to do it his feat so tickled the dean that he was given a class of his own--in practical politics, where he talked about his own campaigns. Andy was very well pleased with the way things were going, especially his love affairs, when he ran into trouble. One day he told a nice-mannered young reporter that university professors were communists, found himself plastered on front pages all over the country, and out of a job.

Until this point in These Bars of Flesh readers are likely to enjoy Thomas Sigismund Stribling's 13th novel as a satire on Southerners and educators, and to enjoy it most when it approaches farce. But Author Stribling sets his stage for comedy only to get moodily mystical, rings in some queer high jinks involving a stolen television device, Russian spies, long-winded philosophers and spiritualistic seances, until the line between what he is satirizing and what he is taking seriously becomes blurred. When the medium goes into her last trance, and even Simp begins to talk about the triumph of spirit over matter, readers are left wondering whether Author Stribling is kidding them, Simp, or himself.

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