Black & White*

THE WHITE KING OF LA GONAVE-- Faustin Wirkus & Taney Dudley--Doubleday, Doran ($3.50).

JUNGLE WAYS--William B. Seabrook-- Harcourt, Brace ($3.50).

Not many white men really like black men. But Faustin Wirkus, lately of the U. S. Marines stationed in Haiti, likes them; and Traveler Seabrook likes them ''on the whole . . . better than whites." These two not entirely unvarnished narratives should clarify much current opinion of unvarnished, kinky-haired Negroes; neither book mentions Harlem.

Faustin Wirkus, son of a Polish miner in Pennsylvania, wanted to see more of the world. He decided when he was eleven to enlist in the Marines. When he did, he was sent to Haiti. He missed the War because of a compound fracture of the arm, but had plenty of fighting against Haitian bandits, rose to be a Marine sergeant with rank of lieutenant in the native gendarmerie. A crack shot, he personally potted many a Caco (bandit), but in off hours he made friends with the peaceful natives, did many queer, unsoldierly things, such as acting as emergency midwife and going to voodoo meetings. Several times he visited the island of La Gonave, which had a bad name but attracted Sergeant Wirkus. He put in for the post of resident sub-district commander of the island, and in April, 1925, got it.

La Gonave (though Wirkus did not know it) was a socialistic matriarchate, ruled by Head Queen Ti Memenne, fat, squaw-like but executive. Under her were various sub-queens who presided over societies "which were actually labor unions." Ti Memenne took a great liking to Wirkus, treated him like a son, and used all her considerable influence to back up his authority. Another thing Wirkus did not know was that he shared the name "Faustin" with one of Haiti's black emperors, Faustin Soulouque.

To Queen Ti Memenne's support Wirkus soon added the genuine confidence and friendship of her subjects. He discovered they were being impoverished by grafting tax collectors; got the grafters removed and put in his own men. When he wanted to build a house he had his policemen round up vagrants whom he turned into paid workmen. Some of his other activities: judge, lighthouse keeper, sanitary inspector, census taker, doctor. The baby problem he solved by sending for the late Dr. Luther Emmet Holt's Care & Feeding of Children.

One fine day Wirkus was summoned to a ceremony; all the societies and queens were there. Much to his surprise he was crowned King of La Gonave and all his subjects swore fealty. "As each person approached, Ti Memenne called off the names as the woman did Ler curtsey or the man pulled off his hat and bobbed his head like a schoolboy, each saying bashfully but very earnestly: 'Bon soi, Roi!' " ("Good evening, King!'') Apparently King Wirkus was a good king, for he was obviously popular. After the completion of one big job (the building of a wharf) in which everybody had taken a hand, the president of each society in turn stepped up and shouted: " 'King, have you been satisfied with the work of this society? Has any member of this society failed to do his part or been disobedient or offended you in any way?' To each I had to make answer that the work could not have been done better by any people anywhere and that every man had done his share exactly as he was told. I asked if they had any complaints to make. They all shouted 'No' and laughed at me for asking."

News came to Port-au-Prince of La Gonave's white king, and over to La Gonave went black President Borno, white High Commissioner General Russell. They were given a great reception, inspected all the improvements, but black President Borno looked anxious. A few weeks later another surprise visit, and soon Sergeant Wirkus was transferred to another post. Said President Borno: "Haiti is a republic. I am its president. It is unthinkable that there should be a kingdom within a republic or a 'king.' " Sergeant Wirkus, ex-King of La Gonave, his enlistment over, arrived in Manhattan last week. He may lecture, may do field work for the American Museum of Natural History.

Jungle Ways is the record of a trip through the tribes of Africa's Ivory Coast all the way to Timbuctoo and back, but Author Seabrook has left out a lot that Traveler Seabrook had to put up with. There is not an uninteresting page in the book. Part of the time Seabrook's wife Katie was with him; part of the time he journeyed with Wamba, a young African witch with whom he was apparently on terms of friendly intimacy. But he was alone among the Guere, who were cannibals.

Not many white men have admitted eating human flesh; and even when they have admitted it have made the excuse of necessity. Not so Seabrook. He was curious, merely; he had long wanted to know what a man tastes like, and took the first chance he had of finding out. He says: "It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef." He liked it; it gave him no pains either in digestion or conscience.

Seabrook admits he is superstitious. He believes in witchcraft but not in miracles. Among the Yafouba he saw jugglers throw little girls high into the air and impale them on swords. A few hours later the girls were apparently all right again. He saw a broken vine-cable bridge, sunk in the river, crawl up on the bank at the command of a witch-doctor.

Among the Habbe cliff-dwellers Seabrook found everything topsy-turvy. A thief is punished with death, for they argue that if he steals once he will do it again, and as no one keeps his valuables locked up, stealing must be kept down. But if a man commits murder they all mourn with him, then he departs on a three-year exile. When he comes back the murdered man's nearest relative and the murderer's next of kin procreate a child, who is given the murdered man's name; then they call quits.

Author Seabrook, though he looks like a timid college professor, has been in many outlandish places, done many outlandish things. Insatiably curious and unabashed, he has seen, done and told about things few other white men would. Wirkus looks upon blacks as children; Seabrook regards them as primitives, with primitive knowledge and dark secrets which no civilized man can fathom. A onetime reporter and short story writer, his reports of his own adventures have been bestsellers. He has lived with a Bedouin tribe, with Druses in the Arabian mountains, in a whirling-dervish monastery at Tripoli, with Yezidee devil worshipers in Kurdistan, with voodoo worshipers in Haiti. During the War he served as a private in the French army and was gassed at Verdun. Other books: Adventures in Arabia, The Magic Island.

Comin' Through the Romany Rye

FLAMENCO--Lady Eleanor Smith-- Bobbs-Merrill ($2.50).

Lady Eleanor Smith (her father, the late Lord Birkenhead, started life as plain Frederick Edwin Smith) has several claims to fame: she is young, pretty, popular; and her father's career is a dowry richer than most English girls get nowadays. Last year she staked another claim by writing a novel, Red Wagon, which became a U.S. bestseller. Now she has written another, not great but good.

Way back in 1820, Camila was the daughter of Andalusian gypsies who had to leave Spain because Daddy had knifed a fellow-gypsy, a thing not done. In England her father sold Camila to a sottish squire who lived in Devonshire because he had been caught card-sharping in London. The squire's wife was an embittered dipsomaniac, his children unmannerly little devils; the house was not very orderly. Nevertheless Camila liked it. As she grew up she fell in love with one of her foster- brothers, Evelyn, who was beautiful. Unfortunately he turned out to be a provincial esthete and not much of a fellow. Her ; foster-father made sottish attempts on Camila, and when repulsed sold her to a brutal young gypsy man who led her a dance for a year. When she returned to her foster hearth Camila's outlook on life was somewhat changed, but she permitted Evelyn to marry her. Elder Brother Harry was really her man, and eventually she saw it that way.

Flamenco means gypsy, wild and strange. The book is the April choice of the Book League.

Brllliantine

MEN DISLIKE WTOMEN--Michael Arlen --Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

Some mean person once called Michael Arlen's style not brilliant, but brilliantine. There is more justice in this stab when it is aimed at his earlier novels than at his latest, best book. Still brilliantined in spots, Men Dislike Women may surprise Arlenites by its compactness, comparative hardness, freedom from the brittle artificiality, the paste tears, the pasty sentiment that have made even Arlen enthusias's call Michael Arlen ephemeral.

Andre, the first-person hero, of mixed Jewish and French blood, has been educated in England, lives in Paris, but goes to the U. S. to visit his younger brother, who has married a rich Manhattanite and become a respectable U. S. broker. Andre himself has enough money to do nothing, and lives according to his income. But he has Bohemian tastes and his sister-in-law runs him ragged, bores him to death with an interminable succession of highly respectable entertainments. One afternoon Andre, left unguarded for a few minutes, spies a temptingly good and quite empty car in front of the house, hops in and flees down Long Island to lose himself.

On a lonely road he encounters one Marilyn, a pretty and willful girl. Almost before he knows it he finds himself in the midst of Long Island Bohemia. Marilyn is in love with a sinister but sentimental racketeer, one-armed Charlie MacRae, who in turn idolizes the slightly shopworn Sheila. Andre likes these people, feels more at home with them than with his socialite sister-in-law, and gives the rest of his days and nights to their rowdy company. He thinks it would be a good thing for MacRae to marry Sheila, and does everything he can to put them together. Unfortunately MacRae discovers that Sheila is not intact, and the revelation is too much for his racketeering idealism. The sudden ending is tricky, Arlenesque. The men who dislike women are U. S. men.

Few novelists these days attempt epigrammatic narrative, and fewer of their attempts are memorable. Michael Arlen's attempts are at least persistent: "After all, the first lesson a young man has to learn is that he must forgive his father, for he knew not what he did." Sheila had "one of those lovely fair inane faces. . . . She was so utterly devoid of expression that it was delightful merely to sit and look at her and dream of better things." "One of the most significant factors in American life, usually overlooked by foreign observers, is that Americans really do like Americans. This, however, still leaves the people who like Americans in a minority."

The Author, Michael Arlen (Dikran Kouyoumdjian), an Armenian born in a Bulgarian village, lives in London and on the Riviera. He is married (since 1928) to the beautiful Italo-U. S.-Grecian Countess Atalanta Mercati. Once a struggling writer in London, at 35 Michael Arlen's struggles are over. Smooth, cosmopolitan, he is thus described by a warm friend: "His ties and socks are a gracefully subdued symphony. His barber is the best in town. . . . His Rolls-Royce is at least six inches longer than any other Rolls-Royce. With evening dress he wears a gardenia, one white pearl and one black." His well-known books: The Green Hat, These Charming People, Young Men in Love, Lily Christine.

*New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City.

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