CURRENT PUBLICATIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 291, 7 December 1929, Page 18 (Supplement)

CURRENT PUBLICATIONS

In thc October North American Review, Dr. A. A. Brill psychoanalyses the sports fan. He thinks much of the glamour against vicarious enjoyment of sports to be so much piffle, the false propaganda of ‘ ‘ alarmists and 100s o thinkers.” “It is altogether to be hoped,” he says, “that for your psychic health and well-being you are to be found in that category to whom the World Series means more than the fate of nations. The physical culturists, the sociologists who lament that the frivolity of sport distracts us from the great problems of society, the young intelligentsia who sneer at mass-madness and the herd instinct, and the wife who grumbles because her husband has skimped his supper to stay through the fifteenth inning, all, all ar e dishonourable people to Dr. Brill. In the first place, he says, “vigorous physical activity is by no means an invariably sound prescription for the man whose normal occupation is sedentary or inactive, and indeed it may be distinctly dangerous.” In thc second place, being a fan enables one to “let off thc accumulated steam of ancient instincts” through the operations of the psychological laws of identification and catharis. The fan’s wife, he says, “might find him a much less pleasant animal to have around thc house, when he was there, if he did not absent himself from time to time” to visit thc stadium. The fan 1 * will be a better individual, a better citizen, a better husband and father.”

We have received two magazines from different parts oi thc Empire, both of which are deserving of notice. The Canadian National Railways Magazine for September, is an interesting and informing periodical published by th 0 C.N.R. and whilst chiefly written by railway men and for the railroad fraternity, it is well worth the perusal of the general reader. True stories of early days arc to be found in its pages—the sportsman will see photos of fish which will give him the desire to get to thc wide expanses of the North —thc ladies’ section is well written and well illustrated. From Australia comes thc November Stead’s Review (6d) containing several timely and informing articles. Of these several arc not of any considerable interest for us in New Zealand, unless w c are very politically minded, but others are of considerable interest on such subjects as the “Talkies,” “The High Cost of Dying,’’ “What do We Know of Modern Art 1 ?” and so forth. Edith C. Onians discusses the development of the sub-normal child in a particularly enlightening article. The subject matter i s of a most interesting type, taking it as a whole, and can be commended to the general public who like a brief review of thc what the world (and Australia) is thinking and doing.