Judge — June 4, 1932 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGING THE BOOKS HEY tell us there are places in the South where the world is so wornout and poor, the white trash has nothing left other than its conscious superiority to its cullid brethren. Thus, a man may be white inside and cullid out, but yet not fit to live in a world with those who are white outside but black in. In this quaint code, it is also perfectly au fait for a white to take what is politely known as “advantage” of a yaller girl (or darker) but the other way ‘round it’s a rope necklace and a dangle for the cullid offender. In other words, nice people, even if they do live in the S “Amber Satyr” by Roy Flannagan is a disturbing test tube of irony, made up in the tidewater country down under, and concocted of such flammable substance It tells of Luther Harris, a strong oak of a man, @ brassankle with Indian and African blood, on whom = Sarah Sprouse, a rge lustful white cracker, with a weak ineffectual spouse, casts wanting eyes. Luther is too smart to toy with the fruit that would mean feast for the bloodhounds and a swamp death. But Sarah’s letters to him, even after he has moved away to avoid her find him out, and tho he he never let a sheepseye loiter toward her, he is offered up as a sacrifice to the tradition of the south. In the meantime, his daughter has been acrificed herself to the grand old tradition, one of her father’s assas- sins taking care of this. Also there is much other straight and biting satiric comedy of custom—gallows’ humor, they call it. From which you see “Amber Satyr” is a highly combustible little book and if it tends to rouse sleep- ing dogmas, the barking (and bit- ing, we hope) will do good all around. Roy Flannagan wrote it, and we're glad for several reasons. First, we believe Roy is a South- erner, so they can’t blame his subver- sive sentiments on us in the North. Second, if Roy first book “The Whipping” showed promise of a tal- ent for direct, melodramatic writing and a sharp sense of Southern peo- ple and matters, this book bears it out all the more. RESUMABLY you are still busy with Bertram Thomas’ “Arabia Felix” but the instant you've finished we want you without changing your pants to put your nose into Sven Hedin’s “Across the Gobi Desert.” Both are great adventures and yet tho both deal with sand and camels and sun they do not wander on each other’s territory. If one is explora- AT THE TOP A Lone figure in overalls surveys the fields of his labor. planted rows point lines Freshly their even around a gently rising hill. Seemingly the world and its people are far away. But this man is not alone! His home is at the top of the dis- tant hill. And in his home is a tel phone. Eighty-five million miles of wire lead to it. His call is a com- mand to one or more of several hundred thousand employees. Day or night he may call, through the Bell System, any one of nearly twenty million other telephones in this country and an additional twelve million abroad. And yet, like you, he pays but a small sum for a service that is fre- quently priceless in value. The presence of the telephone, ready for instant use, costs only a few OF THE HILL cents a day. With your tele- phone, you are never alone. It is an investment in companion- ship, convenience, and security. Through it you can project your personality to the faraway places of the earth, or bring familiar voices to the friendliness of your fireside. Undoubtedly a great factor in the continued progress and im- provement of telephone service is the intangible but real spirit of ser- vice that has become a tradition in the telephone business. This spirit expresses itself daily and in any emergency. And behind the army engaged in giving service is the pio- neering help of a regiment of five thousand scientists and technical men, engaged in the sole task of working for improvement. This group devotes itself exclusiv ing ways and means of making your telephone service constantly better and better. AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMP. tion into terra incognita the other is exploration into terra quite cog- nita, in fact so well known to travel- lers it’s surprising their isn’t # trol- ley line thru with hot dog stands and advertising. Yet both are travel in the raw, full of excitement, glamour, terrors and danger and eye- openers to you who prefer to loiter in speakeasies, considering explora- tion these days far too tame to make it worth a man’s salt. What we mean to say, is, it’s the Gobi with all its mystery and hazards and hard hu- mans for Shane, men, as soon as he can yet together a cheap caravan on the instalment plan. Modern ex- ploration, you know, costs wi the spring barki around summer’s heels, i being rather a bit of a bopp to suggest you look into Irene Caudwell’s “Damien of Molokai.” You see, it’s the life of the priest who brought leprosy into control and gave his life thereunto. But summer or no summer, we'd like to go on record at it’s a tremendously moving book about a practical saint.—TED SHANE comicbooks.com