Letters, Oct. 3, 1955

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    TIME made rather unfortunate use of the adjective "heavyhanded" in applying it to MGM's portrayal of teen-age brutality in big-city schools. It might better have been applied to both Mrs. Luce's decision to boycott the film Blackboard Jungle, or TIME'S defense of her act. Rather than be shocked ai American school conditions, be they typical or not, Europeans must have wondered at a humorless Government always ready to trumpet its virtues but equally ready with a whitewash brush for its vices.

    GERALD D. NELSON Fargo, N. Dak.

    Sir:

    As an American living in Italy, I wish to express my gratitude and admiration for Mrs. Luce . . . We know of these frightful facts of juvenile delinquency in our country, but I seriously doubt the patriotism of men, who, in their hone of gaining a prize, would show a film exposing, even facts, which must lower the" respect and admiration for our country in foreign lands.

    MRS. NICOLAS RAFFALOVICH Rapallo, Italy

    Sidetracked Train

    Sir:

    The article "Revolt & Revenge" [Sept. 5] is a good treatment of the subject, but pour-quoi do you find it necessaire to interrupt your English-speaking readers' trains of thought every now and again with un mot français? The practice strikes me as a bit stupide.

    Perhaps your writer wrote when the weather was taihen mushiatsui.

    (Japanese for very close and sultry). I threw that in to add a touch of Oriental mystery.

    FREDERIC B. LEACH Nutley, NJ.

    Touche.—ED.

    Wouk's Star (Contd.)

    Sir:

    Reading "The Wouk Mutiny" [Sept. 5] was like feeling a cool breeze when the temperature hits 98°. Hurrah! Decency has a champion in modern literature!

    ... As one Christian (Southern Baptist) with a Bible Belt (geographically and disciplinary) upbringing, I'm humbly grateful to Herman Wouk for his mutiny against the filth, pseudo-realism, gutter-slanted "frankness," cynicism and foul language so common in "better" literature today.

    ANNE SCANNELLY ABLE Charleston, S.C.

    Sir:

    He is fortunate indeed who delves no more deeply into Marjorie Morningstar than a reading of its able review. Not since Bernard DeVoto's The Year of Decision: 1846 has so much been said, by so few, about so little.

    ROBERT S. SEESE

    Higgins Lake, Mich.

    Sir:

    Here is one top author who is not "an angry man!" There is so much violence in the world from which we can find no escape; let us NOT have it in our reading.

    You have given your readers a most satisfying glimpse of an author whose personal life is dictated by an active conscience.

    HELEN S. ROSELLE Pueblo, Colo.

    Sir:

    The message I got out of Herman Wouk's Caine Mutiny is:

    (a) Believe! (b) Work! (c) Die!

    What a hell of a message that is.

    PHILIP K. DICK

    Berkeley, Calif.

    Sir:

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