United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

Page 26 text:

Fortune’s Fool Herbert V. Friesen “T OOK, Oswald, you know the rules. No one gets into the club without a rejection slip. Now run along and try a little harder. Maybe next time.” Oswald pushed back a dangling orange- colored hank of hair with resignation, and ad¬ justed his bi-focals for one last attempt. “Well, I—I’m sure my last story was good enough to me ...” “Run along, Ozzie,” interrupted the cruel angel guarding the gates to Paradise. Oswald turned and dropped out of the yard. With increasing distance from the club house, his stifled emotions slowly grew into frustrated anger. In fact a rather dirty personality bared itself as 1 he approached the bus stop, elbowing aside worn-out old women and little children. Once aboard the bus, he strode the length of it like the Grim Reaper, leaving a harvest of bruised shins and indignant squeals of pain in his wake. “I’ve tried as hard as any of them,” he brooded. His face gradually turned a purplish hue as he recalled the short stories and novels he had submitted by the bale to the publisher, but which had all been returned in th e next mail with such comments as ‘Must be type¬ written’, ‘Must be double-spaced’ and ‘Must have a plot’. Not once, however, had they the grace to send a formal rejection slip. It was the rejection slip that actually bother¬ ed him, for without it he had no hope of joining the Unappreciated Writers’ Group of 1950, whose sole qualification for acceptance was at least one rejection slip. By the time he arrived at his home, his head was seething with wild thoughts, and he stared balefully at the bus conductor as he alighted from the bus. “Oh Hello, Oswald,” carolled his mother. “Come say hello to Mrs. Jones-Worthington.” “I think you’re growing more every day, Oswald dear,” said Mrs. Jones-Worthington sweetly. “And do you still write those cute stories?” “Oswald’s growing out of that stage now, Bess,” replied the mother. “He criticizes books and plays and things. Why, just last week he wrote a tremendously good thing on Shakes¬ peare, or was it Hamlet. . oh yes, it was Hamlet. And it was so good. Tell Mrs. Jones-Worthing¬ ton what you wrote, dear. You know, he seems to analyze everything so well. Of course I read Hamlet when I was going to school, but that was a long time ago .. . well, of course it wasn’t really that long ago . . . but anyway I didn’t notice half the things Oswald did. You know where that old . . . what’s his name . . . that old Pnewmonious ... no, what was his name, Oswald?” “Polonius,” grumped Oswald. “Yes, Polonius, surprising how you forget those things, but then as I said before I’ve been out of school so long, no I didn’t say that either . . . well anyway, you remember how Polonius met Hamlet in the hall and asked him what he was reading? If you haven’t read Hamlet you won’t remember, naturally, but nowadays everybody seems to have read Hamlet. But Polonius asks him what he is reading, and he says ‘Words, words, words’. Well, Oswald just proved that Hamlet had a terrible affliction, he stammered, and he was really trying to say ‘Wordsworth’. I told Bill about it, because Page Twenty-four

Page 25 text:

contributors pen the book reviews, with more or less pleasing results, depending, oddly enough, upon whether or not you have read the book. What appear to be objective, and certainly clever, summaries are to be found in the Letters from various foreign and American points. Regular correspondents include one Genet and Mollie Panter-Downes, who customarily haunt Paris and London, respectively. The Reporters At Large series turn this objectivity upon human interest stories, often with an innocent¬ appearing tendency to satirize that type. To anyone desirous of improving their conversa¬ tions with references, say, to the recent James Joyce exhibition in Paris, these reports and letters are just the thing. In fact, I’m saving up that particular one to use on Prof. Hallstead. For cartoons the New Yorker is unbeatable. Steinberg’s naive style and Whitney Darrow’s peculiar form of humor are sheer art. (At one time I considered movies and radio arts, too). And the reprints of bits from other publica¬ tions, plus comment, is another New Yorker special which fails to pall, unlike its imitators. A sweeping criticism of the short stories is of course the only possible kind, a fact which probably saves me from making an utter fool of myself. The stories are inconsistent in their quality, but usually provide sufficiently good reading. There, that’s safe enough. Finally, a word to anyone wishing to read the New Yorker despite. If you cannot afford to purchase one, drop by the Winnipeg Book Store any Friday afternoon and borrow Prof. Hallstead’s copy, which he usually neglects picking up till Saturday. COMPLIMENTS OF S’taUauDS’mtlGti). Manufacturers of fine clothing WINNIPEG CANADA 33 234 TWO PHONES 235 UNITED TAXI ALL PASSENGERS INSURED WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS COUNTRY TRIPS PROMPT SERVICE 479 Portage Avenue West of the Mall CAREFUL DRIVERS Page Twenty-three

Page 27 text:

fathers are supposed to be so proud of their sons, but you know Bill; he just yawned and said Wordsworth hadn’t been invented yet, but he’s always that way.” “I think you’re amazingly clever, Oswald, and I’m so ” began Bess Jones-Worthington. “Yes, I always said so, and do you know who else I think is clever? None other than Hannah Tightnoose. Remember that old yellow skirt she had: well you’d never know it was the same. . . . Oh Oswald, get the mail will you? The mail-man’s coming.” Oswald turned and glared belligerently in the direction of the door. “Parcel for you,” said the mail-man cheer¬ fully. “Bet it’s an airplane kit.” Oswald gave him a look of the most profound and concentrated disgust, but started forward when he was handed a long, flat parcel. He gulped quickly, grabbed the parcel and ran up the stairs to his room. He hastily fumbled at the seal, then ripped it open. The Hamlet article thudded to the floor, and a sheet of paper fluttered after it. Nervously clutching the let¬ ter, Oswald read: “ . . . we would be pleased to accept your article for publication, providing you make the minor alterations in the second paragraph which we have previously outlined. Upon receipt of the revised article we will be happy to forward a cheque in the amount of $750.00.” Something prevented Oswald from fainting dead away with delirious happiness. It took a moment or two before he realized what it was. He still didn’t have that rejection slip, and without it he could never join the Unappreci¬ ated Writers’ Group of 1950. For the next half hour Oswald fought a private battle, both sides well armed. Eventually the case for the club won out, for even 750 dollars would not buy the prestige such as would be attained by member¬ ship in the exclusive club. Oswald wrote a brief letter requesting a rejection slip. Two long weeks dragged by, but eventually Oswald got his rejection slip. He raced with it to the club house. As he pounded on the door, he became aware of a sheet of paper tacked to the door frame. “This is to announce,” he read, “that the Unappreciated Writers’ Group of 1950 has now become the Associated Best Sellers of Tomorrow, by virtue of the combined efforts of the members of the club having pro¬ duced a treatise on GARDEN PLANNING, and having the same accepted by thfe Rural Iowa Gazette.” This was almost more than Oswald could bear. In utter despair he left the club house and Wandered aimlessly. He neither knew nor cared where he was going. The minutes went hurriedly by, grouped in sixties. Soon street lights snapped on and hung about like isolated eyes, dimly illuminating a poorer section. Yel¬ low lights speckled the fronts of tall, grim apart¬ ment buildings. A garbage can standing sen- tinal beside a doorway awoke Oswald as he clattered unseemingly into it. Startled, Oswald looked at his watch. Nine-thirty! Just then a whining voice floated out of an open window. “But, mother, you can’t make me do that!” Oswald heard. “Yes, I can and I will. Throw every one of those vile comic books out of the window im¬ mediately. I’m not taking the chance of spend¬ ing the next five years in jail for having crime comics in the house,” retorted the irate mother. “But I’ll have to build up a whole new library,” was the moaning reply. For answer a sheaf of comic books were jet- propelled through the window, in the general direction of the garbage can. “But mother, it’s unjust. Listen to what Mil¬ ton wrote in ‘Areopagitica’. He’s writing on licencing books in England and of the harm of doing it. Listen to this: “. . . But of the harm that may result . . . first, is feared the infection may spread; but then all human learning and contro¬ versy in religious points must remove out of the world, yea, the Bible itself, for that oftentimes relates blasphemy not nicely, it describes the carnal sense of wicked man not unelegantly, it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against Provi¬ dence . . .” “Enough of that!” interrupted the mother. “Anybody who writes long sentences like that should be in jail.” “A wise man, like a good refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and a fool will be a fool with the best book ... If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regu¬ late all recreations and pastimes . . .” Page Twenty-five