Bigger & Worse

AMERICA AS AMERICANS SEE IT--Edited by Fred J. Ringel--Earcourt, Brace ($3.75).

On the perhaps arbitrary assumption that his fellow-Europeans hanker to know what the U. S. is really like, Editor Ringel, New York literary correspondent for Berlin newspapers, persuaded 46 U. S. literati and 100 artists to contribute to an omnium-gatherum of descriptions, opinions and whatnot. On the assumption that such a book, "intended and edited for publication in European countries'' would enthrall U. S. natives, it is first published in the U. S., crowned with the Literary Guild's June choice.

In spite of the book's serious-minded intent, many of its entries will seem ludicrous to serious-minded Americans. Contributor Walter Prichard Eaton, described in the blurb prefacing his article on "The Scenery of the United States" as "an artist who paints with words," paints the following unforgettable scene: "From the western slopes of the Appalachian chain, the water drains to the Mississippi, and the great plains begin." Authoress Faith Baldwin, introduced by Author Achmed Abdullah, writes of "Love and Romance," estimates that Colyumist Dorothy Dix is the best public advisor on such tender themes. Contributor Edward L. Bernays, writing the blurb for "Women" innocently observes: "Forty-nine percent of the population are of the feminine sex. And yet women still seem to be the perennial novelty that they have always been."

Such an environment furnishes a dull foil for the brighter items in the book. R. L. Duffus. Gardner Jackson, Muriel Draper, Gilbert Seldes and a few others contribute articles that would be illuminating anywhere. But, compared to the flickering literary illumination, it is the 140 pictures that shed real light. The 100 artist contributors make an almost perfect score of hits in the great game called "Understanding America." Drawings by Peter Arno, Otto Soglow, other New Yorker artists; photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, Anton Bruehl; paintings by George Bellows, Charles Sheeler, Georgia O'Keefe, Morris Kantor, Charles Burchfield et al. are intermingled with sculptural figures, early American paintings to make a vivid tout ensemble.

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