PROFESSOR MORRISON'S BELIEFS

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The reviewer of "The Stones of the House" in yesterday's CRIMSON makes some statements about Theodore Morrison, the author. Mr. Morrison, it is the reviewer's opinion, "considers a student body as a necessary but unpleasant prop in a college"; he "implies that students in a classroom are not primarily concerned with learning; instead they face their instructors maliciously, much like a mob that needs skillful handling"; in short, "he does not understand his students."

The basis for these statements is not at all clear. The reviewer appears to be examining the people and the situations in Mr. Morrison's book, then, by judging that these people and the situations do not resemble certain people and situations in real life, to be drawing conclusions about what Mr. Morrison believes. I have no desire to refute these conclusions. They reflect less on Mr. Morrison than on the reviewer, as anyone who knows Mr. Morrison will understand. I should imagine, though, that if Mr. Morrison actually believes that the college newspaper in his own novel "gleefully wants to embarrass rather than inform"--another curious charge, in the making of which your reviewer seems to have concluded that the shoe which he has come upon fits him--your review would be likely to convince him of the applicability of that belief to college newspapers in general.

A Groundless Charge

But actually, that charge is as groundless as the others. "The Stones of the House" is a novel. In this novel, the author has created a fictional world, in which he has placed a college. The central character in this fictional world is Andrew Aiken, president of the college. Andrew Aiken, as the author portrays him, appears to hold some strong opinions about students and about the college newspaper. But to ascribe these opinions to Theodore Morrison is to confuse the fictional character and his world with the character and the world of the artist who created them--a fairly serious critical error. That your reviewer commits this error seems plain. In six consecutive sentences (including the end of paragraph two, all of paragraph three, and the opening of paragraph four), are listed a number of specific attitudes. At the beginning of this sequence, the "he" to whom the attitudes are ascribed is Andrew Aiken; by the end of it, the "he" has become Theodore Morrison.

Of course, if your reviewer means to deny that Mr. Morrison is an artist--to deny, that is, that he has created a fictional world in his novel--that is another matter. To make such a denial stick would require some evidence and some argument, neither of which is offered. Your reviewer concludes patronizingly: "before he writes another novel, Mr. Morrison should get to know his students a lot better." Would it be unkind to suggest that before he writes another review of a novel, your reviewer should get to know a lot more about how to read fiction? S. M. Parrish   Teaching Fellow in General Education and in English

The reviewer felt these opinions belonged to Mr. Morrison rather than to Andrew Aiken, because they were inconsistent with Aiken's other thoughts and actions. As he has already mentioned in the review, he considers Mr. Morrison's sketches of mature people understanding and quite perceptive. Andrew Aiken, in his dealings with the members of the faculty, is consistently a sensitive man, one who sees many sides of his colleagues' personalities. Mr. Morrison, it is true, seldom puts Aiken in direct personal contact with a single undergraduate. The reviewer has no idea what the outcome would have been in such a meeting, and admits that this is never necessary to the plot. He maintains, however, that Aiken's views of undergraduates in groups is one-sided and wholly out of keeping with the character portrayed. This inconsistency creates a cavity in the fictional personality uncovering the views on prejudices of the author. The artistic impression is momentarily destroyed, and Andrew Aiken no longer seems the sensitive president of Rowley, but rather a vehicle for the author's own impressions. If this is not so, then Andrew Aiken is not a character the reviewer can believe in. If this inconsistency exists for a purpose, Mr. Morrison has not adequately explained why Andrew Aiken has this one blind spot in an otherwise appealing personality.   M.M.