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Author Fineman's sympathy, strangely but unmistakably, is with his hero Roger, whom an alienist would call an invert, the plain man a prig.
Mann's Dog
A MAN AND His DOG—Thomas Mann—Knopf ($2.50).
Few literary men since Shakespeare have dared to dislike dogs. Gentle Will never mentioned them without a sneer, but Thomas Mann has a dog of his own, likes him so much he has written a book about him.
Bashan, "a short-haired setter" with a broad hint of Airedale, is a dog of engaging but not heroic character. A great actor, he hates to be hurt. "If he happened to have scratched his belly a little in vaulting over the fence, or sprained his foot, I have been treated to an antique hero's chorus, a three-legged limping approach, an uncontrollable wailing and self-lamentation." Bashan pretends to be a mighty hunter before his lord, actually never kills any thing but field mice, though he thinks him self a ravening threat to rabbits. He once caught a pheasant by accident and had no idea what to do with it, was relieved when it went away. Best scene in the book: a description of two strange dogs meeting for the first time, "both with hangdog look, miserable and deeply em barrassed and both incapable of yielding an inch or of passing each other."
The Author. Thomas Mann, 55, is reputed Germany's most considerable liv ing novelist. In 1929 he won the Nobel Prize. He lives with his wife, six chil dren and Bashan in a villa on the outskirts of Munich. Other books: The Magic Mountain, Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, Royal Highness, Children and Fools, Early Sorrow.
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* Published Sept. 18.
* Published Sept. 24.