January 1948
In This Issue
Explore the January 1948 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Death of a Pig
“I just wanted to keep on raising a pig, full meal after full meal, spring into summer into fall.”
Gypsy Fiddle
Violinist and writer, JOSEPH WECHSBERG converted his experiences in a ship’s orchestra into the thoroughly diverting book, Looking for a Bluebird. He is an American via Czechoslovakia and is now traveling in Europe, whence he has promised theAtlantic an account of tourisme in Switzerland.
Rice and Curries
Author of many cookbooks, an authority on food and drink, CROSBY GAIGE is equally well known as a theatrical producer. He is the chairman of New York’s Wine and Food Society.
Thanks for a Terrible Try
THE nom de plume R. J. HICKS conceals the identity of a well-known newspaperman.
Scrimshaw
MACKINLEY HELM is the author ofModern Mexican Painters, and of Angel Mo’ and Her Son, Roland Hayes and A Matter of Love.
Problems of the Catholic Writer
HARRY SYLVESTER was graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1930 and for several years thereafter was employed as a newspaperman in New York City. Then fiction beckoned, and in 1935 he became a free lance, devoting full time to novels and short stories. He has written three novels, the latest of which, Moon Gaffney, was exceptionally well received by the critics. At the invitation of Bishop Sheil he defined these problems of the Catholic writer in a lecture at the Sheil School of Social Studies in Chicago.
The Far East
Literary Memories
FRANKLIN P. ADAMS has the same bitter precision of memory for his juvenile reading that makes him unable to forget popular song lyrics, punch lines from old stage plays, and much good and bad poetry. Uninspiring though his reading list may have seemed to him, it launched him on a long and successful writing career. He now takes his ease each Friday night as a member of the “Information Please” radio team — and for that matter, throughout the rest of the week as well.
"I Personally" Awards
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Raoul De Roussy De Sales
Civil War Scrapbook
Across the Wide Missouri
A Multitude of Living Things
Sons of the Stranger
Paris Herald/Late City Edition
Ordeal of the Union
Adventures With a Texas Naturalist/Cache Lake Country
Before the Deluge
The Mind on the Wing/Book-Collecting as a Hobby
Canada
Fiasco in Food
Waste and misdirection still balk American efforts to solve the world’s food crisis: our production of food is ill chosen; too much of our grain is fed to cattle; we eat far more than we should; we throw huge quantities of food away. DR. FREDRICK J. STAREis one of our foremost authorities on nutrition. He holds a Ph.D.from the University of Wisconsin and received his M.D.from the University of Chicago School of Medicine. Editor of Nutrition Reviews, he is Head of the Department of Nutrition at Harvaid University.
Radio and Who Makes It
Resistance to new ideas, fear of experiment, reliance on ancient formulas, have brought American radio almost to a standstill. Its comedy was borrowed from vaudeville, its drama from the films and theater. The broadcaster would rather imitate a safe old scheme than generate a new one. More leadership by the broadcasters and less control by advertisers is the cure proposed by JOHN CROSBY, whose syndicated column “Radio in Review” is the most widely read commentary in its field.
The Middle East
Banking Is an Art
A native of Newburyport and a graduate of Harvard, JOHN MARQUANDbegan writing fiction in 1921. The Late George Apley won the Pulitzer Prize for 1938, and the four novels which followed established Mr. Marquand as a painter of the contemporary scene, a novelist keen, mature, and always entertaining. Now the Atlantic presents a major theme culled from the first half of his new book. The scene is laid in the Stuyvesant Bank of New York, where two junior executives, Charles Gray, back from the war, and Roger Blakesley, are being sized up for a vice-presidency which has fallen vacant. Tony Burton, the bank’s president, will have to make the choice. Meantime we see Charles as he deals with clients and associates. The reader should remember that this is the first draft of Mr. Marquand’s work and that the wording may be changed slightly in the final version.
Balzac
When W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM was asked to select and edit the ten best novels in world literature, he thought at once of Stendhal, Dickens, Tolstoi, and Dostoevski; then the choice became difficult. Finally he chose three novels from France, two from Russia, one from America, and four from England, and for each book he wrote an introduction. His appraisal of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary we printed in November; his essay on Fielding and Tom Jones in December; his craftsmanlike discussion of the other novels will follow in successive issues. The set of the Ten Best Novels will be published by the John C. Winston Company.
General Patton's War Letters: From Luxembourg and Germany
When GEORGE S. PATTON, JR., graduated from West Point in 1909, he was Adjutant of his class and a fine horseman, swimmer, and marksman. He teas our tank expert in 1917-1910 and despite a serious mound prated the leadership which was to make him the most feared army commander in the Second World War. These letters, written to Frederick Ayer, are the affectionate record of a commander who was eager, audacious, proud of his men, wryly humorous, and implacable towards the enemy. This is the last of three installments.
The Peace of Lazarus
Backroads River
A novelist and one of the leading teachers of composition in this country, WALLACE STEGNER divides his time between his English courses at Stanford University and his forays into the remote woods and canyons of the West, trips which renew his spirit and his writing. Western born, he spent his boyhood now under canvas in the deep woods of Washington, now on a remote farm on the Saskatchewan-Montana boundary, and later on the shores of the Missouri. Readers will remember his novels, The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Second Growth.
Psychiatry Today
In a world gripped by mistrust, insecurity, and selfishness, the self-doubt of the individual looms larger than ever. What, we ask ourselves, is a normal reaction? And in increasing numbers we turn to psychiatry for its healing advice. DR. WILLIAM C. MENNINGER, President-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, is General Secretary of the Menninger Foundation. At the Atlantic’s urging he addresses himself to significant current objectives of the psychiatric profession.
Washington
Low Water
Author of two novels, Rogue Male and The Third Hour, GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD is a talented English writer whose first short story appeared in the Atlantic in 1936. His gift as a linguist made him of immense value to British Intelligence during the war, and later he served with distinction as a major in the British Army of the Middle East. Now he has returned to England and to the writing which has been so long deferred.
Oracles and Omens
At every stage of his development, Man has tried to read the future. In America numerologists, ostrologists, palmists, and mediums still beckon the gullible. A Bantu diviner gets his advance information from bones, and in Borneo the behavior of birds is the best clue to the future. In this article, drawn from his forthcoming book. The Heathens: Primitive Man and His Religions, William Hotvells has collected the more significant omens and portents. He is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin.
The Love Letters of Mark Twain
DIXON WECTERhas recently been appointed Literary Editor of the Mark Twain estate.Last August he made the trip by riverboat down the Mississippi with Mark’s pilot book to guide him to the old landmarks. Now at the Huntington Library,as Chairman of the Research Group,he is editing the unpublished letters of Mark Twain, of which the most endearing are those to his fiancée, later his wife, Olivia Langdon. In the earlier selections which appeared in the November and December issues, we saw Mark, the suitor, forswearing profanity, tobacco, and alcohol and pledging himself to read Beecher’s sermons.
The Lady and the Unicorn
Safe and Insane
PHILIP WYLIEis an American novelist and critic with a prose that cracks like a whip. Since he intended to become a doctor, his education was largely scientific. But he left Princeton at the end of three years to work as a press agent, then as one of the editors of the New Yorker and as a film writer. Later he became a free lance, traveling extensively in Europe and Russia and making his headquarters in Florida, where most of his writing is done.
Action at Salano Bay
As with so many of his generation, EDWARD K. MORRIShad to wait until the war was over before he could begin to write. Commissioned in the U.S. Submarine Service, he saw sea duty for a year and a half on the S-34. At the war’s end he married, went back to studying under the GI Bill (concentrating in English),taught for a year at the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, and then turned free lance.
Thus to Revisit
This Month
