Robert Louis Stevenson School - Circus Yearbook (New York, NY)

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THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY HENRY' JAMES The Portrait of a Lady by Henry james is indeed a portrait of one lady Isabel Archer Osmond surrounded by her intimates. After reading nine hundred and some odd pages you will be able to see this portrait-Isabel and everyone who has affected her life grouped around her. You will be intimately acquainted with these persons' intellect and personality, but their physical proportions will have been supplied by your imagina- tion for Henry James doesn't describe his characters' features, except once or twice when he alludes to some very prominent point that emphasizes a specific personality trait. Henry james takes an insignificant plot that can be described in a dozen words. lt's the kind of plot that Faith Baldwin might stretch into two hundred pages of fiction. The characters, too, would be insignificant in the hands of many other writers, since basically each is one or another stereotype. The wonderful part of The Portrait of a Lady is what Henry James does With such often misused material, of course, he wrote in the 18805 and it may have been fresh then, but I doubt it. The characters are skillfully described, their personalities are unfolded by the author's direct description of them and by the opinions of the novel's other characters. Thus the characters become not only individuals but related people- one affecting another. The people form a unit: meeting at each other's houses, scheming, quarrelingg and generally living. You become absorbed in the book, and forget it's just a make-believe story till suddenly, you come upon a situation which seems to be a cliche. Then you'll find yourself startled because the conventional solution doesn't appear. Upon examination, however, it's logical. You don't feel cheated. The characters are people acting according to their own personality patterns. This honest character portrayal is true to life making the whole book three di- mensional. Things happen gradually. You have waited for them so long they are anti- climaxes when they occur. Even the crisis of the book doesn't cause your heart beat to change. But it's a story involving people, real people, caught in meshes of their own weaving by their own personality, which you have thoroughly examined. Isabel Archer Osmond, the lady with whom the book is particularly concerned and around whom its situations revolve, becomes very well known to you. After the first one hundred pages I could have described her, now I'm too well acquainted to pin her down with adjectives. In the beginning I saw her outward mask: the unpretentiousness, the charm, the wit, and the imagination. Now I still see the same qualities, but also what's behind them and how they act. I could say confidentially to a friend, Isabel's very unusual. She's witty, and very imaginative. just wait till you hear her ideas! Oh, I know you'll like Isabel very much. But I would like to ponder a long time, if I had to go further. All the while you're reading, you know that Henry james has drawn his characters to scale with an eye to every one of your reactions. You feel that he really knows people and how to describe them. Henry james persuaded me Cwithout objection on my partb that people are im- portant. Important in the largest sense possible for people not only affect material things, but even more, other people. james thinks the latter of primary importance. The changes brought about in people are permanent and remain even though they may be obscured by the development of some other long hidden personality trait. The Portrait of a Lady was enjoyable for its realistic attitudes. However, I can see that its length and repititions, which might sometimes have been omitted, would annoy a reader impatient for action and escape. mia minfrau!

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WASTELAND BY JO SINCLAIR Wasteland by joe Sinclair, is the most unusual book I have ever read. It is a book that shows the progressive thinking and writing of young America. It made me think deeply, to the point where it still lingers in my mind. l Wasteland is the psychological study of a man-his loves, desires, hates, frustrations-his life from a point where he is bitterly unhappy to where he at last finds himself. It is not only a story of human relationships, but also of things that make life human. jake Brown, the central character, is a man of thirty-tive with a successful job as a newspaper photographer,-he is unhappy, and frustrated-he feels that his life and surroundings are one huge, desolately hopeless wasteland. Under the guidance and persuasion of his sister, he goes to the psychiatrist to whom she has been going. He is reluctant and completely adverse to the whole idea of psychiatry, but he is miserable to the point where he feels that anything is worth a try. In the beginning Jake finds it impossible to talk to the psychiatrist. But slowly, gradually, he tells of his life-his torments and fears -his family, whom he dislikes, but cannot tell why. As the story progresses, his family assumes a very important role. First there are his parents-two people whom he feels were never parents at all, but people to be tolerated, put up with, his father, tyranical, weak, his mother, oppressed, timid, without a personality, his nephews, Bernie and Allen, whom he wants to protect and do right by --especially Bernie, mis- understood unhappy adolescent, and most important of all, his sister Debby-the only person strong enough to overcome the miserableness of her life, and be happy, intelligent, creative, sensitive Debby- bearing without hate people's contempt of her because, as a child, as a result of the weakness of the father and the whole family, she had had to assume the responsibilities of a man, and had therefore become a homosexual. jake, in the beginning, doesn't realize his problems. What seems to him to be the real problems- his unwillingness to attend the Passover Seder which is a ritual in his family-his reluctance to photo- graph the persons close to him - his feeling of aloneness - are in reality superficial cover-ups for the deep problems that grew out of his childhood. As the psychiatric treatment progresses and you are able to see the why and wherefore of these problems, you find yourself more interested in the problems, their roots and the treatment than in Jake or the book itself. Psychiatry becomes fascinating as you realize the reasons for jake's withdrawal from his home, his family, and most important, his people. You are made to realize that everyone has a wasteland of repressed fears and doubts and desires and that each person has to overcome that waste- land individually, with or without the understanding and guidance of a psychiatrist. The author writes with unbelievable understanding, ,knowledge and courage. For it takes courage to write, in a first novel, about the taboo subjects -of the sub-conscious of a man, of psychiatry, of homo- sexuality, of the jewish religion and tradition-especially in a world where there is still so much con- vention and opposition to the mere mention of these things. This book is honest and sincere. Human beings and their problems are portrayed realistically and with throbbing sympathy. It is bitter at times, but the bitterness is filled with truth and frankness. It is, and will remain to me, a true and beautiful book. Susan lgearfnan

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The Tale of the Headstrong Worm The flowers bloomed And the birds had sung, When out of the earth, There suddenly sprung A large and remarkable worm. He called to his brothers len million strong, And he spoke of the terrible deeds of wrong Which the creatures on top of the earth had done, To the cultured and civilized worms. They use us for bait to catch hshf' said he, And all other kinds of unpleasantry, For they feed us to birds, and they plow up nests, And they never give us a momenfs rest, Went the doleful tail of the worm. So let us unite, and fight, fight, hght, And demand of these people our natural rights The equality of the worm. Then all at once, from the sky, so blue, A star dropped down and cut in two this patriotic worm. The head part began to cry aloud, Go back in your crack, like the rest of the crowd While I say a thing or three. But the tail part said, Though you are the head, Youarenotasnearl wellb 'l fl y ru , or ff 1 , or as rnannerty as me. So on they fought, the live long night, While the other worms crawled to their holes in fright! In fact the blood worms turned quite white At this whimsical fiddle-dee-dee. Then down from a tree, flew a well mannered bird, Whose rest these fellows had quite disturbed, And he swallowed them silently. Now the moral ofthis story is to have you be prepared When you're cut in two, Don't fight with you, But have yourself repaired. Jael? .jJar-rid Q 43 O AI nano JI, an Jr, 9