(3 of 3)
. . . HIS FRAGMENTARY AND DISTORTED WORD-PICTURE OF THE YOUTH OF FRANCE WAS AS UNFAIR AS IT WAS UNTRUE. KARNOW MERELY APES THE KREMLIN'S DESCRIPTION OF OUR OWN YOUTH IN THE U.S. HE GROSSLY INSULTS THE INTELLIGENCE OF TIME'S VAST AUDIENCE NO LESS THAN HE DOES THE FRENCH PEOPLE.
A. N. SPANEL CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD INTERNATIONAL LATEX CORP. PRINCETON, NJ.
Sir:
A French TIME reader and the mother of a student (law, alas), I really feel I must congratulate you on your article . . . There is not a word you write that I can't subscribe to ...
MRS. R. H. CARO Nice
Sir: Congratulations to TIME'S correspondent in Paris on his article, "France: the Younger Generation"; he has hit all his nails squarely on the head, and seldom have I read an article so deeply comprehensive—and sympathetic—of all the ills that plague France at the present time as reflected by French youth and interpreted through American eyes. Even after years of close and happy association with my French friends, I still never fail to be appalled by the very typically Gallic shrug of the shoulders accompanied by the timeworn and threadbare excuses which reach back to the War of 1870 and the Prussian occupation of Paris . . .
CARL B. HUMPHREY
Casablanca, French Morocco
Sir:
A little over a year ago I was one of the youths in France that Mr. Karnow has written about. It was striking that the situation, as he describes it, is exactly the reason I left there. But I wish I could agree with what he says about sex. . .
Concerning the educational tools being rusty, I can also tell you that when a youngster of 16 or 17 gets out of high school, he knows much more than his American counterpart, much less about baseball, but certainly more about arts and sciences . . .
C. V. RACINE South Bend, Ind.
Prose & Poetry (Contd.)
Sir:
I add a hearty ditto to all you have to say about Dylan Thomas [May 30], but I am amazed, confused, and decidedly annoyed at the offhand manner in which you have dealt with Robert Frost . . . Did you seek to vault Thomas even higher in the literary castes by forcing Frost nearly out of the picture ? . . . Perhaps I misunderstood; I certainly hope so.
DONALD C. REAM Philadelphia
Sir:
. . . You say that the public expects its poets to be "boisterous, dissolute, sometimes repellent." If it is the literate public you have in mind, I hasten to inform you that it expects nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it demands that a poet be a gentleman, in the most significant sense of the word. Lice and low company, added to booze and borrowed breeches, are the marks of the charlatan, not the true poet . . .
GERTRUDE GOEBEI
Cincinnati
Seaway
Sir:
It is unfortunate that the article on the St. Lawrence Seaway neglected to mention Milwaukee's excellent present harbor facilities and plans for future development . . .
JAMES H. BRACHMAN Milwaukee