Catalog a Provocative Work

Catalog a Provocative Work
John Bellairs
The Excalibur (Shimer College; Mount Carroll, IL)
March 6, 1967

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The 1967-68 Shimer College Bulletin, while not a work of enduring importance, is at least substantial. The bricks on the front cover (some of them flawed, as are all human things) give a sense of solidity, while the Wordworthian foliage on the inside front and back covers leads us along forest paths to Dionysiac enchantments. The Table of Contents calls us back from unruly ecstasy, and ressures us with its serried dots, regular margins, and orderly progression of page numbers. From there our fancy takes wings to flit over various delights: the LSD molecule diagrammed on p. 20, the crucified swimmer on p. 71, and the picture of the unidentified but distinguished-looking gentleman on p. 19. Haunting questions are raised by some of the mysterious features of the book: why is Mr. Weiser, in the picture on p.27, talking with students in a basement, his face ghoulishly lit by what must be a railroad flare? Why was the picture at the top of p. 72 included, since it shows Ruthenian students talking outside the old Festspielhaus in pre-1940 Slunj? Who is the pensive dark-haired woman on the last page? Why is she sitting in the waiting room of a sanitarium, staring blankly at the glittering light that burns insanely into the very Heart of Darkness?

There is remarkable variety in this suggestive book. When we have rendered snow-blind by the dazzling whiteness of the first 28 pages, we are swept suddenly into the somber world of late autumn by a succession of brown pages; they whirl us off into memories of muddy sojourns by the banks of the Waukarusha, where the crisped leaves weave their Runic spells in ragged letters. The original engravings on pp. 51 and 55 hint at a daring modernity, and the picture on p. 60 of Campbell Library in ruins is delightfully fanciful, if in questionable taste. There is wit in the selection on pp. 3-4, which is an obvious but delightful parody of the opening chapter of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy; but we are brought back to stern good sense by the military bearing the heading "General Staff" on p. 94. All in all, this provocative work, which runs the gamut from the tongue-in-check treatment of the course offering to the litanic enchantment of the Index, will probably earn for itself a place on the bookshelves of discerning fiction lovers for years to come.