Wilder-ness

THE WOMAN OF ANDROS--Thornton Wilder--Boni ($2.50).

When Thornton Wilder wrote The Bridge of San Luis Rey it was read by more than 250,000 people. Most of them could not even pronounce the title correctly. Many are still arguing about what the story meant. Author Wilder's books are polished, scholarly, classical. Nevertheless, the U. S. acclaims him. The secret of Author Wilder's success is his style--one of the most readable styles ever produced by a U. S. writer. Highbrows call it limpid. Plain people call it pretty smooth.

The Story. The first part of The Woman of Andros, says Author Wilder, is based on the Andria, comedy of Latin Playwright Terence (circa 185-159 B. c.) which in turn was based on two lost plays by Greek Playwright Menander (342-291 B. c.). On Brynos, one of the lesser islands of the Greek Archipelago, lives Chrysis the courtesan, the woman from Andros. She is the scandal of the island, not because of her loose behavior, for she is both dignified and circumspect, but by her "airs and graces." She gives weekly banquets, to which she invites all the most attractive young men: they discuss high matters of philosophy. "She cited often the saying of Plato that the true philosophers are the young men of their age. 'Not,' she would add, 'because they do it very well; but because they rush upon ideas with their whole soul. Later one philosophizes for praise, or for apology, or because it is a complicated intellectual game.' " Chrysis recites Greek tragedies, of which she knows many by heart. Occasionally one of the young men is allowed to stay for the night. Many of them are in love with her; none dreams of marrying her, for in spite of her superior education and her charm, her social position is not much better than that of a slave.

Her household is a queer one: marriage and children not being allowed her, she has adopted old broken-down waifs and strays, who give her nothing but jealous abuse, but on whom she can spend-her affection. She knew that "life had no wonderful surprises after all and that its most difficult burden was the incommunicability of love." Chrysis thinks she has grown beyond passion, but in spite of herself falls in love with Pamphilus, most silent of her guests, the son of the principal man on the island. But one day Pamphilus meets Chrysis' younger sister, Glycerium, who has been kept hidden in the house, and who has stolen out for a walk. They become lovers; when Glycerium is pregnant she tells her sister, who is ill, and the shock hastens Chrysis' death. Glycerium dies too, in childbirth; the queer household is sold into slavery; and nothing is left of Chrysis but the memory of a few young men, and the epitaph she once spoke for herself with no one to hear it but the sea: "Stranger, near this spot lies Chrysis, daughter of Arches of Andros: the ewe that has strayed from the flock lives many years in one day and dies at a great age when the sun sets."

The Significance. Author Wilder writes of paganism which to all intents is nearly Christian; of an almost prehistoric, primitive community which is more cultivated, up-to-date, than a comparable community today. Not that Author Wilder is primarily didactic, but that his beliefs show plainly through the words he has written. He is an exception among U. S. writers in that he is a believing Christian. He writes tales of artless faith cast in exotic settings. An accomplished artist, his drawing employs an apparently simple, but effective and carefully studied line, and he knows where to draw it.

The Author. Thornton Niven Wilder, famed, young, bespectacled, was born in Madison, Wis. (1897), but his family are New Englanders. He spent his early years in China, where his father, Amos P., was Consul-General; went to Thatcher School, California; graduated from Yale in 1920. At Yale he was a member of the "Pundits," band of undergraduate intellectuals which met fortnightly under the aegis of Dr. William Lyon Phelps. Author Wilder's first book, The Cabala, was a succes d'estime; his second, The Bridge of San Luis Key, won him the Pulitzer Prize ($1,000) in 1928, when he was a master at Lawrenceville Academy. He is slim, dark, nervous, baldish; speaks in a stumbling rush when excited. He admires Authors James Joyce, the late great Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Glenway Wescott, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. He has also written: The Angel That Troubled the Waters, The Trumpet Shall Sound (a play). He is now lecturing on classical literature at the University of Chicago.

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