SIMPLE STAKES A CLAIM

Jess Simple, philosopher, helps Langston Hughes, writer, to view the race problem from various new angles. ""Simple"" is a sort of Negro Mr. Dooley, and his opinions on race, politics, the atom bomb, desegregation, the South we the North, housing, and the inconsistencies of the whites add up to a remarkably many fasted view of life from a corner in Harlem. These pieces are definitely not stories; the preceding three books about ""Simple"" while contributing their share of Simple's philosophy of life, contributed also numerous annedotes about his way of life. These brief views of Simple's and his answers to Hughes' arguments let one in on the emotional factors involved in the race problem. There is, only implicitly, a humorous angle here, though- if one keeps one's reasoning out of sight, Simple is funny.