Forsyte Footnotes*
ON FORSYTE 'CHANGE—John Galsworthy—Scribners ($2.50).
If sincerity and earnestness were the keystone to artistic success, John Galsworthy would have built by now a triumphal arch. What he has made is a solid garden wall around a corner of Old England. The people who walk there are known to many as the Forsytes. This book of short stories Author Galsworthy calls "footnotes to the chronicles of the Forsyte family." As his reason for adding to the family saga he pleads that "it is hard to part suddenly and finally from those with whom one has lived so long."
These 19 footnotes begin in 1821, end with the Armistice. Only a student of The Forsyte Saga could untangle the relationships of the characters, but most of the stories will stand alone. The best: Revolt at Roger's (two children mutiny to save a beloved butler from dismissal) ; The Dromios (a London night-adventure of two brothers who understand each other without much speech) ; Soames and the Flag (a history of the War in one old Britisher's mind).
The Author. John Galsworthy, 63, read law at New College, Oxford, and was called to the bar, but disliked it; took to traveling and writing instead. So great is the fame of his Forsyte Saga that last spring a telephone exchange in Hacken sack, N. J. was named Galsworthy. He has a prejudice against cinematization, but his famed Old English (with Actor George Arliss) at last went Hollywood. Baldish, white-haired, with lined, long face, honest eyes, he looks his type: the mental and moral bulldog. He has written more than 50 novels, books of essays, plays. Some of them: The Man of Property, The Patrician, The Dark Flower, To Let, The White Monkey; (plays): Justice, The Fugitive, The Mob, The Skin Game.
Where Children Rule the Roost
GROWING UP IN NEW GUINEA—Margaret Mead—Morrow ($3.50).*
Youthful Anthropologist Margaret Mead (Mrs. Reo Fortune), no bookworm theorist, believes in getting her data at first hand. Two years ago she published an account of primitive adolescence (Coming of Age in Samoa). Now she reports how children grow up among the Manus of the Admiralty Islands.
The Manus are isolated, unreformed by missionaries, almost uncontaminated by white men. They live in thatched huts set on piles in a lagoon. Children learn to swim, to use a boat, almost before they can walk. For six months Margaret Mead and her husband lived among the Manus, learnt their language, their tabus, took photographs, asked questions, saw as much as they were allowed. Anthropologist Mead's conclusion is that among the Manus only the children have a really good time. Children do exactly as they please; parent's may plead, they never discipline. But with marriage a hard life begins. The married couple have never seen each other till their wedding, rarely like each other. They have no house of their own, must work hard to pay back the marriage expenses. Divorce or separation is frequent. Mrs. Mead is reminded of the U. S.