Study of Human Living

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

Study of Human Living

A PUBLISHER'S note on "Johnny ■*- x Pye and his Fool-Killer," which refers to its "deep wisdom of the commonplace," goes to the root of the matter. The adventures of Johnny Pye, who spent his youth running away from the Fool-Killer, only to learn that the latter's harvest is all humanity, are commonplace, and rightly so, for Johnny is Everyman, drawn bv an artist in such a fashion that while the dividing lines of idiosyncrasy are erased ho yet appears no less a defiuite personality. Distinctively he is American, even Yankee; more distinctively he is human, and with a fino humanity . and a deep simplicity does Mr. Benot Drawing by Charles Child, tell how he left his native village to wander in the world, driven on by the echo of the dreaded step when ever he found himself—as of courso he always did find himself —in the company of fools, until ho went back home, knowing all men,to be fools and being as ready, or reluctant, to meet tho Fool-Killer there as anywhere. It is nothing (so far as originality goes) and it is everything, the prose homily of a poet upon certain universal aspects of human living. Tho spacious printing and Mr. Child's atmospheric and often charming drawings give it the dignity and ornament —plus tho frequent dash of humour —it properly deserves. "Johnny Pye and the FooJ.Killer." By Stephen Vincent Benet. Drawings by Charles Child, (Heinemann).