YOU STILL HAVE YOUR READ

Incapacitated by a physical assault which sent him tumbling down a flight of stairs, Mr. Schoenberner lay paralyzed from the neck down for 18 months. Fortunately, his mental faculties were fully intact giving him an opportunity to reflect upon his past intellectual excursions and to venture anew into that area. Granted the fact that these dissertations are framed by the life-in-a-hospital theme- the altercations, interruptions and fraternizations with staff and visitors- we find them shy of organization and unity, though heightened by a verbal fluidity coupled with wit (often at his own expense). We are invited to review his ideas about modesty, the duality of mind and body, the American character, health and sickness and other tangential topics. He comments on the life of Heinrich Heine, Job, Jung, Ezra Pound, Albert Schweitzer and quotes liberally from D. H. Lawrence. A visit from Helen Keller, opinions of the age of faith and the age of reason, German barbarism are described with a marked style, but bounce around like a poorly-organized editorial. Mr. Schoenberner is the author of the competent books Confessions of a European Intellectual and The Inside Story of an Outsider.