PEOPLE are talking war and thinking peace today and the paradox is equally to be observed in print and in conversation. Travelers returning from the Continent will shake their heads and wonder aloud if war can possibly be averted for another two years — and then spend the rest of the evening trying to invent some safeguard which will keep Europe intact. Never has hope wrestled harder against the cynical fact. It is petty consolation to think that we may be able to keep ourselves out of the scrimmage, at least for the first round.
This concern may call into being a new crop of books about the Great War, books written with the perspective of twenty years and fired by the determination to check the new pugnacity before it s too late. Such, for instance, is Sagittarius Rising, by Cecil Lewis (Harcourt, Brace, $2.50), which has the worst title and some of the best descriptive prose of 1936. Mr. Lewis was six foot three and going on seven teen when he entered the R, F. C.; he flew through 1910. ‘17, ‘18, had a charmed (and zestful) life, won the M. C. and a captain’s commission, and came down after the Armistice with sound nerves, an unscathed body, and a conviction which has grown with him ever since that an international air police is about the only way left to save what we call civilization.
’To-day the voice of no one man or no one country can save Europe. . . . If we cannot collectively rise above our narrow’ nationalism, the vast cred-
its of wealth, wisdom and art produced by Western civilization will be wiped out. If we really want peace and security we must pool our resources. disarm and set up an international air police force, federally controlled.’
I don’t mean for an instant that this thesis is intrusive. For the most part, the book is concerned with the exhilaration of flying, the serenity of the upper reaches, the fine pen portraits of Pip, Bodie the Gadget King, and the aviator’s father, the comedy that went on at the airdromes, the cool skill and fierceness of the ‘dog fights,’ and the steady attrition of one’s courage as friend after friend was destroyed. The author caps his war chronicle with a fantastic and lovely account of his flying in China. But at the core of his experience is the molten metal, the philosophy which tells him with increasing heat that this gallant, wasteful life which he so enjoyed will he utterly valueless unless our self-interest can be subordinated to the preservation of others. Fine, vivid writing and the inner truth make this narrative particularly acceptable at the present moment.
The Atlantic will be glad to reprint for individuals or institutions the list of recommended books which appears on the page directly following the Bookshelf.
