THE IMMORALIST—Andre Gide—Knopf ($2.50).
Author Andre Gide, wary as a cat treading among eggs, writes delicately of a delicate subject: homosexuality. Michel, archeologist son of an archeologist father, is wrapped up in his career, cares nothing for women, but to soothe his dying father promises he will marry. Shortly after his marriage he comes down with consumption; his wife nurses him back to health, he falls in love with her. But his sickness and his convalescence make him for the first time aware of his body: in his worship of health his intellectual life begins to wane, his preoccupation with his physical life begins to grow sinister.
When he is cured, his wife falls ill, she has caught the sickness from him. He is not so faithful a nurse as she was, leaves her alone for long hours. When she dies in the same town in northern Africa where she nursed him back to life, he has already become homosexual. But not once does Andre Gide speak out, he hints, writes between the lines. The book is certainly not an attack on homosexuality, nor propaganda for it; it reads more like an apology.
Author Andre Gide, 60, wrote L'lmmoraliste 28 years ago; this is the first U. S. translation. The book caused a storm of controversy in France. Other books: The Counterfeiters, Dostoevsky, Lafcadio's Adventures, The School for Wives, Strait is the Gate, Travels in the Congo.
Sociologist
GRIM YOUTH—John Held, Jr.—Vanguard ($2.50).
Illustrator John Held, Jr. is famed in the U. S. for his funny satirical drawings of flapper youth, of the golden nineties.
Few knew he could write more than amusing captions to his pictures. But Grim Youth, a collection of short stories not only illustrated but written by John Held, shows he can write as well as he can draw. Some of the stories: a semiprofessional winner of beauty contests, tells an artist how she does it; an alumnus father embarrasses his undergraduate son by a display of oldtime college spirit; an earnest student falls for a wallflower. Author Held's dialog is slangy, up-to-date, topical, effectively atmospheric. Not all the stories are funny: one tells how a smooth young sheik behaves to the girl he has made pregnant. Best story: Man of the World. Best picture: "Go ahead; I guess it must be love."
Author-Illustrator John Held, Jr., originator of famed flapper moron "Margy," has a broad face, broad grin, elaborately tattooed arms. He likes farming, raising horses, lives on a farm near Westport. Conn. Grim Youth is the May selection of the Book League of America.
Adventurer
MOGREB-EL-ACKSA, A Journey in Morocco—R. B. Cunringhame Graham— Viking ($3.50).