Death Be Not Proud. By John Gunther. (Hamish Hamilton. 7s.
6d.) BRITISH reserve may flinch a little at the project of describing, in minute detail, the long Illness and death of a much-loved only son. Occasionally this memoir is over-effusive, and it includes some over-minute details (which indeed must be included if a book of two hundred pages is to be made of a fifteen months' illness). At the same time, Mr. Gunther's account is intensely moving, as the description of any creature's fight against death and death itself must be ; and he has used his journalistic skill and élan to make the illness itself, a brain tumour, its progress and the remedies attempted, of lively interest. Johnnie Gunther was seventeen when he died—an intellectual, serious and gentle boy—and, in spite of the American setting, a good deal of his character emerges through the conversations reported, the short letters and the staccato little diary (quoted at length). The book ends with "a word" from his mother describing her reaction to his death. "It means loving life more, being more aware of life, of one's fellow human beings . . . obliterating ideas of evil and hate . . . caring more about God."
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