ON THE SHELF

The recent issue of the Advocate is not the literary event of the century. It contains two stories of some quality, but these are balanced by two stories of no quality and one story, one poem, and one review of only passing interest.

"The Amerikanos" by Aristides Stavrolakes, unlike the other stories in the issue (and unlike Stavrolakes' review of Associate Professor Albert J. Guerard's new novel), does not claim to be Art. It tells simply and even with some humor of a Greek barman who has a vision of returning to his native land with a Cadillac; that is all. It is brief and well-written, an excellent vignette, and its major virtue is its unpretentiousness.

The other worthy story is "The Death of Adam Sadman" by Siegle Fleisher. Its virtue is its creation of mood (Mr. Fleisher is well-traveled in the morbid regions of the human heart. In this case we are dealing with a hospital orderly who has always wanted to see a patient die, and finally gets his chance). "But the author must gild his story with psychological comment: "Life itself was nothing more than a perpetual dying, and because it was so, was more life. Paradox lay at the root of all being." Fortunately, however, there is little of this stuff; for those who don't mind cadavers "The Death of Adam Sadman" is a fine bit of writing.

The rest of the material is poor to middling. Robert Sherwood's "The World of the Blind" is, briefly and completely, and American-soldier story. henry Fletcher ("Hurry to Get there") is in the great tradition of high-school literary magazines right down to the last "yeah" of his criminal escape story. I offer this quote "His eyes followed her without moving his head as a man watches an art trying to crawl out of a glass." As for James Chance's "Home is the Sailor," suffice it to say that a combination of James M. Cain ("Mark lit another Camel . . .") and James Joyce (". . . casting a net around Harvard-Yale Andover Exeter Groton Amherst Williams in Doe speramus.") is appalling.

Hugh Amory's Poem "Brittany" reads very smoothly but conceals its meaning with remarkable doggedness. It is well worth a quick reading (it must be read aloud).

The Advocate, in reducing its price to 25 cents, has economized on its proof-reading. There are no less than seven errors, including a delightful variant spelling: "sneakres."