CULION

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23496, 26 November 1941, Page 10

CULION

CURRENT BOOKS

Who Walk Alone. The Life of a Leper. By Perry Burgess. J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. 318 pp. (12/6 net.) The author of this book, president and director of the American LeprosyFoundation, knew well the man whose : story he relates; the story of a ter. rible fate, nobly encountered and mas, tered. Nine years after Ned Langford returned to the United States from military service in the Philippines, he began to suspect that he had brought home with him the curse of leprosy, ■ Suspicion became certainty; and the - man who 'had had a happy marriage and material success to look forward to chose to go back to the Philippines and enter the American leper . Culion —chose to arrange a so that his brother could gifffe ifcou? he was dead; to spare relatives and friends a knowledge which would have filled their days with revulsion and fear. The greater part of the book, which follows, is an account of Langford’s years in the Culion settlement.' The reader will learn much, incident* ally and from an appendix, about thespread of the disease, its course and? effects, tests and treatment, and the> search for more certain means of control. Some of this information is pain, ful reading, but it helps to “do away with the unjustifiable horror which has been fastened upon leprosy through centuries,” Much fuller, however, fit the picture of life at Culion.. Courage, : devotion, gentleness, and humour; embodied in many a well-touched char-acter-doctor, priest, or dramatised in abundant incident, these relieve its sadness and set it in pro*;, portion. But above all this part of the book exhibits the power of self, dedication to redeem a life from living ■ death. Ned Langford’s story proves it The American Booksellers’ Association voted this ebook their “discovery; of the year.” It is recommended by the Book Society, GERMAN MASS-MIND Germany Possessed. By H. G. Baynes,! Jonathan. Cape . 305 pp. (16/- net) Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. i The author of this book, a medical psychologist, examines Hitlerism, Hit-' ler himself, and the German mass-ma4‘; from a professional point of view. There is hothing unfamiliar in the' background of fact he draws upon: for example, the German swing back fo paganism after the defeat of 1918. Some knowledge of the terms and theories of psychology in its application to groups, especially primitive groups, and to the workings of the unconscious mind will make it easier to follow Mr', Baynes’s split-personality reading of Hitler himself and of the Germans and to see why he casts Hitler as the . “living symbol, combining god and 1 barbarian, the venerated and the outcast, invincible conqueror and primitive medicine-man, in a single image,” through which the “racial unconscious” of the Germans sought fulfilment. No such knowledge is essential, however. Key sentences—“lt is the imbalanced man with infirm will who seeks supernatural support”—give frequent and clear guidance through the mirk bt “introverted fatalism,” “collective libido,” and so on. PARD MUSTAR * D’Air Devil. By Frank Clone, Angus and Robertson Lt' 1 251 pp, (6/-.) | Soldier (Gallipoli, Mesopotamia), airfighter from 1917 up to the armistice with Turkey, post-war member of the A.F.C., and pioneer of the heavy transport flying that developed the New Guinea gold discoveries: the stork of , “Pard” Mustar ought to have been tM.-; before. It nearly was. Mr Clune teJ; been able to use a forerunner’s aboF doned notes. But he deserves his luck in not having been forestalled. He hasseen what others missed, done what, they did not attempt or failed to complete, gathered the talk of Mustar’s friends, more copious than his own, and). even won some confessions from this “shy bird” himself. And Mr Clune is, above all, the very man to tell the story. He has hoped to make it “an inspiration to Australian boys”; but nift* only youthful readers will welcome,., and praise it. Mustar is now in uniform again, Squadron Leader and instructor in the new R.A.A.F. AT A GLANCE Framework of Freedom Professor C. B. Fawcett, declaring unanswerably that “it is not enough to have only goodwill” to secure the world’s peace and freedom, but that there must also be “a strong framework of law and order and adequate power to enforce the law,” writes The Bases of a World Commonwealth (Watts. 167 pp. 7/6 net) as a reasoned plea fob the full co-operation of Great Britain and the United States in constructing and maintaining this framework. In part the argument is from physical facts. The distribution of natural resources and the routes by which they may be brought together mark out the world-area under British and American control as one of the very few which can furnish “the bases of world power.” Most theorists of the “new order” overlook these geopolitical factors or are less able to deal with them than Professor Fawcett But he regards as “equally vital” the. “non-material bases.” These he studies in relation to his general proposition, that “real community of thought is easier across the Atlantic than between north and south on either side of it.” “Brush Up” Series Messrs J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. have added to their well-known “Brush Up” series Brush Up Your Afrikaans (Knap U Engels Op), by Jan Nieuwoudt Tromp. The South Africa Act of 1925 included Afrikaans in the definition of Dutch (1909) as the twin official language, with English, of the Union of South Africa. Since 60 per cent, of the 2,000,000 whites in the Union speak Afrikaans and many ot the others must know something of it, this change was a necessary one. Mr Tromp’s book is cast in the form ot conversational record of a South. African tour, English on one page* Afrikaans opposite. The dialogue is lively and informative. At the end are grammatical and other notes on tn®' conversations; also some word-lists. On one end-paper a map of the Union is printed; on the other, some facts useful to the traveller. Drawings by Steven Spurrier diversify the text. The Countryman The October-December issue of th® Countryman is as usual to welcomed with a chant of praise. A tew items from the variously excellent contents list: the recollections of youth m a Little Market Town," the new; collect\ tion of notes, “Across the Atlantic,! H. R. Darlington’s “The Making ofj»v Ro& Garden,” the symposium on Future of the Land,” prompted by » Daniel Hall’s declaration in favour a control by a Land Commission, an . another symposium on “The Pl® 3 .*. Real Bread.” One quotation on “is last topic, from Sir Frederick Keewe, F.R.S.: “What a pity it is that those concerned with our food dont unae , stand that the greatest of all wartim food economies is to make flour out wheat and not out of the least nuin tious part of it."—J.' W. Scott, Idbury, near Kingham, Oxtora shire: 2/6. War and Peace The nine broadcast talks which Pro” fessor W. K. Hancock collects inU* Modem Map (Oxford University Press. Melbourne. 59 pp. 9d net) begin questions of strategy. His estimate factors which support confidence , Allied victory is admirably ration • But he goes on to deal more fully an even better with the factors of roowj power and the deeper political issue*. These talks explain, with author!. I .?’ lucidlv, practically, hopefully, and humour, what sort of “old order war is being fought to end; and the ideals of freedom and peace can. , translated by victory into the re a hU —economic, social, political—of ordinary man’s work, security, heaiw. and happiness.