Proud Peculiar Peanut

Proud Peculiar Peanut

WEDDING SONG--David Burnham--Vi-king ($2.50). If Ernest Hemingway should read this book he would be less flattered than embarrassed. Apparently with no intent of parodying his master's manner, Author Burnham has succeeded all too well. Though doubtless meant to hoist the standard higher, Wedding Song blows the gaff on the whole Spartan-boy-&-fox school of understatement. Kit has never forgiven his father, U. S. Tycoon Abbott, for his mother's death, for not accepting his own War bride until it was too late. His whole life is vowed to revenge. From Venice, where his sister Narcissa lives in anxious pomp with her noble Italian husband, Kit spins the cabled threads of a financial web in which to catch his father, bring him to his knees. Though details are left vague, his scheme is ripe for success except for money. This he gets at the last minute from a one-armed Englishman, an even more sinister character than himself. Apparently part of their tacit understanding is that the Englishman shall marry Kit's sister-in-law, Beatrice, with whom Kit is more than a little in love. The scheme carries and Tycoon Abbott sues for mercy. To complete his revenge, Kit discovers that he has slept with his father's new wife, though both were ignorant of the other's identity. Having made his father pay through the nose, Kit returns him all the money, with interest, which his upbringing has cost. From the rest he gives Beatrice a handsome dowry, Narcissa a present that will make her pomp less anxious, then takes himself and his sternly aching heart off to parts unknown. Net result of Kit's fierce attitudinizings is to remind the reader less of a Hemingway hero than of Carl Sandburg's fairy-tale character who. when asked: "Why do you always shadow us?" replied. "I ;.m a peanut, a proud, peculiar peanut."

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