Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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22 M A S M I D BOTTOM DOGS By Edward Dahlberg In his hapless, hunger-beset struggle the squalid and the sickly degradation of moral- ity crawl out of the bottom-dog like the evils out of Pandora ' s chest. And, as in Pando- ra ' s chest, there is one redeemer, one cure — the hope of betterment. That hope is not ex- pressed in the novel itself — for it is a hope- less tale of a degenerating spirit — but in an excellent introduction by D. H. Lawrence. His stand is of the socialization of suffering. Now himself shriveled by death, his intro- duction is of vigorous compassion for the souls shriveled by death in life and for the misguided bodies that instinctively stumble through complacent wretchedness. Bottom Dogs dwells depressingly on the festering of moral decay. In the novel human beastliness and carnality have not even the vigor of animality. There exists only an insensate perversion of impotent characters. The hero, Lorry, has spent a guileless childhood as a street gamin and as an in- mate of a torturous orphan asylum. First he is subjected to the loose ways of street- prowling, and then to the stifling effect of a rigid discipline in the asylum. This dis- torted childhood could bring no essence of manliness: only a listless pessimism, defeat- ist ' s ambitions, and squelched vitality. Lorry, the victim of meted incompetence, hoboes it to the coast. The wanderlust in him seems to be a spirit drawing him away from his constant frustrations. This sensi- bility is the voice of a rebelling conscience and the last stronghold of virtue. This last redeemer, too. is killed and there begins in Los Angeles the period of fertile immorality The book abruptly ends with this initiation. For its style and substance Bottom-Dogs has an enervating shabbiness. The novel is typical of that ever-expressivencs, or style- lessness, of the scourged and of the blasphem- ous accuracy of the depraved and the pessi- mist. In one place Mr. Dahlberg distorts the expression History was repeating its faults again ' into History was vomiting over it- self. This is typical of the sulleness of his style — or lack of style which is very often just another form of expressiveness. Throughout there are vivid pictures of the colorlessness and morbidness of the bottom-dog, a morbidness that is a callous against all external abuse and yet contains the virus of an inward rotting. The pic- tures are done vividly — just as a grunt is a vivid expression of distaste. Its boast a genuine picture of the bottom- dog may be true, but its realism, we often feel, is carried far into coarseness. It has the same awkward realism of the energetic Frenchman who rubbed sand over his paint- ing of a beach. Mr. Dahlberg rubs too much mud over his picture — and the effect leaves us in a sense befouled. Bottom-Dogs and its human realism is another of those reeking ogres among well- groomed literature. The unkempt sufferers have a real cause — but they cannot success- fully plead it by denying the existence of the qualities that alone will bring their pitiable state to an end. H. G. THE WOMAN OF ANDROS By Thornton Wilder R. M. W. The trials and tribulations of to-day are the same as those of two-thousand years ago. Youth — today — doubts the purpose of lite, but no differently from the youth of twv ' ' thousand years ago. The tragedy of life is universal — and the same in all ages. So, preaches Thornton Wilder, whether we live, doubt, dspair and suffer in this twentieth century or twenty centuries ago, the story of our eventful, tearstained existence on this earth is of no more importance than to war- rant being commented upon as casually as the description of a sunset. What has hap- pened — of so much consequence to certain individuals — will repeat itself as long as Man breathes. And so the author describes a sunset over Spain, over Africa, over Palestine and over Greece. Incidentally, then, is unfolded the

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M A S M I D 21 Leaves and Lives JEWS WITHOUT MONEY By Michael Gold Of all the authors who have written about and tried to catch the spirit of the Jewish East Side, it has remained for Michael Gold to give us what is perhaps the clearest and truest picture of that remnant of the old Ghetto. Jews Without Money is a sordid tale of the sufferings, hopes, fears, despairs, ambitions, prejudices, hates, and passions of the East Side medley of beggars, gangsters, millionaires, ordinary workingmen and small businessmen. Mr. Gold writes here of his own childhood experiences, with a genuine and sympathetic understanding of all the undercurrents which move the East Side. The East Side is what it is because of the people who live there, and as a result the book must of necessity be a study of types of characters. The fiercely loving mother, witii no room in her heart for hate, the bluster- ing, arrogant father, and the parasitic green- horns, pimps, and bums who infest the East Side are brought clearly and vividly before us again. All these types are merely to give us one larger picture — the Jewish Immigrant in America. The East Side is for the fir t generation of immigrants — a vale of tears. It is the scene of his disillusionment; his dreams of a golden land disappear like so many pricked bubbles, and nothing is left for him but a hand-to- hand struggle with wretchedness, poverty, and starvation. Working from dawn to late at night he barely manages to eke out an existence. Finally he succumbs. Instead of a New Promised Land he finds the sweat- shops, the bawdy houses, and Tammany Hall. When he gets together with his fellow immigrants for some fun, the picture we get is of Egypt ' s slaves around the campfire in the shadow of the pyramids. America was not the place for him. America is so rich and fat because it has eaten the tragedy of millions of immigrants. The second generation, however, having no disillusions to depress it, leads in its youth a happy, carefree existence. The boy sees only the romance of the East Side, despite his all too often being hungry. He leads a life of adventure, mysrerious and thrilling, as he prowls the streets with his gang, steal- ing fruit, fighting enemy gangs, and explor- ing the secrets of sex through a keyhole. Only the schools cast a shadow over him. School is a jail for children. One ' s sin is youth, and the jailers punish one for it. Mr. Gold is highly figurative in his char- acter studies, and were it not for the utter baseness and degradation of most of the studies, we would say poetic. Character is placed before us so boldly, and unmistakably: She looked like some vulgar, pretentious prostitute, but was only the typical wife of a Jewish nouveau-riche. The inherent optimism — or hardihood — of the Jew gives him strength to endure in the face of the hardships and atrocities that occur under his very eyes. All these things happened. They were part of our daily lives, not lurid articles in a Sunday news- paper. The book is quite definitely tinged with Communism. Mr. Gold is a Communist, editor of the New Masses, and it was to be expected that he would attempt to preach his doctrines. ' O workers ' Revolution, you brought hope to me, a lonely suicidal boy. You are the true Messiah. He denounces the modern state as the breeder and trainer of gangsters and murderers. It is America that has taught the sons of tubercular tailors how to kill. Mr. Gold has here, with a generous ad- mixture of Yiddish idiom, given us a simple, intimate novel of that motley, colorful, hy- peremotional conglomeration that is called the East Side. He speaks as man to man, not as author to reader. Jews Without Money ' . ' may very likely endure to become the epic of the East Side. : B. G.

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M A S M I D 7 tragedy which overshadowed the lives of a group of Grecians on the Island of Brynos, in the Aegean sea; and after the curtain has dropped the author again takes up the de- scription of a sunset which is the same in another country. The story is the drama of the lives of the people of Brynos, and of the arrival of Crysis, the Woman of the Island of Andros, and of her young sister in their midst. Crysis is an heitaera, a member of the world ' s oldest profession, but a dignified and philosophical woman who arranges weekly banquets for certain privileged young men of the village at which philosophy is discussed. There is nothing new in the philosophy that is presented. It is pagan, with a pessi- mism peculiar to the Greek as he thought of the passing of youth, and of its helpless- ness in the hands of Fate. The real value of the book lies in its subtle style. The only definite allusion to the real period of the story is: The sun was setting over the land that was soon to become holy. The conversation of these ancients might well have been that of our contemporaries. As for their dress the only reminder that these people were living twenty centuries ago is an occasional phrase as he sat down he smoothed the folds of his robe, reminding us that the toga was the vogue of the time. Thus, the back-ground peculiar to that an- cient age seems to merit only casual mention, emphasizing the universality and repetition of the drama of life. Though Crysis, the Andrian, is an heitara there are very few references to sex. The re- ference to Crysis ' profession is not only not repellent but it affords a deep insight into the philosophy of lonesomeness. Crysis — because she realizes the lonesomeness of life, gathers about her a motley array of salvaged human derelicts, who, because they are de- pendent on her, will remain with her, unlike friends who are so fickle and transient. Crysis, says the author, because of her profession, re- alizes all the more this lonesomeness and its consequent craving for human companion- ship. Crysis tries to guard her young sister from falling into her footsteps, but fate tricks both. Pamphilus, the son of the first family of Brynos, has for years been expected to marry Philumena, the daughter of the sec- ond family of the island, but has continu- ally put off the marriage. Crysis secretly loves Pamphilus. but he loves her sister, Glycerium. Crysis dies, still alone; Glycerium, her sis- ter, bears a child from Pamphilus, out of wedlock, and soon dies, too, Pamphilus is left alone, still hesitating to marry Philume- na, the choice of his and her parents. ADAM By LUDWIG LEWISOHN The latest product of Ludwig Lewisohn ' s pen, Adam, contains almost all of the doctrines for which he has stood in the last few years. Adam is a realistic play con- sisting of a prologue, a body of nine acts, and an epilogue. The prologue deals with past and the body of the play with present Jewish problems; and the epilogue prophe- sies a scene in Palestine. The prologue presents a discussion be- tween Rabbi Tarfon, Rabbi Yishmoel, and Rabbi Akiba, and demonstrates the necessity of the Talmud in preserving Jewish unity during the exile. The play is the story of Adam. Elhar, the only son of a Polish Rabbi. Adam has fled from home and has worked himself up to the top of one of the famous firms in England. He has done everything to become assimilated into the Gentile world only to meet miser- able failure in the end. Honest and simple Englishmen and Americans, who respect him for his human qualities, refuse to accept him into their society. Even his young American wife who has tried hard to love him, feels the abyss that divides her from the Jew, Adam. The end of this marriage is separa- tion; and Adam, who could not finc happi-