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VASSAR MISCELLANY NEWSW city , . .(CoriJiJiiicci from pupe 1. col. 1)seen in all her work* but a few examples will suffice to illustrate what sort of thing it is. and to suggest, at least, a direction in aesthetics. Take two stories particularly: “Power house/* and “Asphodel/ In the first, she has tried to portray a jazz musician tit could only be Fats Waller), but he has tried to do a great deal more. She has tried to catch, in combinations of words, the sound of jazz, and the way it plays itself out (and I do not mean that she attempted anything so simple as making the prose sound like jazz, either,) and she has tried to catch the way jazz musicians’ lives are; to bring to life the tensions, and the terrors, of their world. The finished product is the model for anyone who cares to look.ExpressionismWhat she has done, of course, is to break away from the realistic conventions that were so strong in the Thirties; anyone who tries to read •’Powerhouse” as realism will find himself pretty much at sea. What she has done is remake reality into a number of symbols (and I am thinking of Melville ■kind of - holism: not Kafka’s)and weave them together by means which are best called ex* pres'sioiiisfie She has tried to find a series of things—the band playing. the way the musicians urge each other on. their talk in a colored bc*er joint at intermission. Powerhouse’s relations with his distant wife, some very surrealistic talk about an individual namedUranus Knock wood — and to in*■an expression to the full experience of hearing and watching jazz music and musicians.It is a temptation to try to describe the story further here, but no paraphrase is any good; you'll just kmvc to go an■ 1 look at it for you self a d mink about \ in order to lt;oe how radi ally she has changed what textbook- ore wontto call, a little stupidly, technique/*The second story, “Asphodel us a little like “Powerhouse’ in its means, but entirely different in every other way This is the story of a picnic made by some young ladies, for whom, as they go towards the deserted eld river house, on whose ruined grounds they plan to eat. everything undergoes a “sea change you are thrust back into a world of memories: of Greece, of salvr and fauns. Paris and the judgn end of beauty. In the end. of course, you see it: there is a burden that this period in such lives is always enchanted and haunted. But it isnot just two stories, laid one on ( top oi another. U is something quite different, a rather astonishing , experiment, something new.It is that, of course, which makes 2 Miss Wei tv an important writer, rather than simply a good one.And it is that which, very probably, will make writers in a generation yet unborn go back and look carefully at the works listed above.Attractive, intelligent, but Sedentary Princeton Junior MUST have date for House Parties, May 4, 5. Reply: 97 Blair Hall, Princeton University.We invite you to use the services offered in our modern quarters located on Raymond at LaGrange Avenue Nearest Bank to the College one block from CampusVassar BranchThe First National Bank of PoughkeepsieSPECIAL CHECKING \CCOUXTS FOR STUDENTS SAFE DEPOSIT BOXES, GENERAL BANKING FEU VICKSServinz the c mmunitx since 102$0 Good t°
Newspaper Details
Poughkeepsie Miscellany News
Poughkeepsie, New York, US
Wed, Apr 25, 1956
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Melissa F.
USA 31 Jan 2025
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