Books: Young Man

DEATH OF A YOUNG MAN—W. L. River—Simon & Schuster ($2). “These are the papers of my young friend David Bloch. . . . Perhaps he was dying. He did not wait to see.” Author River, after this introduction, delves into the mind of his young friend to discover therein the peculiar changes that occur when dying ceases to be an abstract and impossible conjecture, and when it becomes instead a positive and immediate thing to be done, like eating breakfast. David Bloch develops a paradoxical sensitiveness to stimuli; the two girls he liked, his friends, even his own senses, his most trivial actions become vastly important by their relation to death. In precise and beautiful language, Author River, a young man whose first book this is, explores so thoroughly that he makes no attempt to solve what is the most astounding question, the most unbelievable fact.