THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9512310324
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
From 1945 to 1973, Mississippi-born Nash K. Burger labored on the editorial staff of The New York Times Book Review. He reviewed more than 1,300 books during that time, systematically tramped the streets of Manhattan like an infiltrating scholar and raised a family there. But through it all, Burger remained essentially, stubbornly Southern.
``I was never naturalized,'' he said.
Now 87 and into his third decade of retirement, Burger retains the deep-Southern elocutionary lilt, detectable in a telephone interview from his home in Charlottesville. He resides there with his equally Southern wife Marjorie, 77. This month they are celebrating their 57th anniversary.
And the publication, with researcher Pearl A. McHaney, of his third book, first memoir: The Road to West 43rd Street (University Press of Mississippi, 192 pp., $25).
``It was,'' he conceded, ``work.''
A man in close communion with his roots does not permit pretension, so it comes as no surprise at all that this winning volume is direct and unassuming in tone. Burger does not promote himself. He promotes reading.
``It's a great pleasure,'' he said. ``It's something one does because one wants to. Reading has been crucial in shaping our society, and I think it's important.''
It certainly shaped him. Growing up in Jackson, Miss., the son of a traveling shoe salesman, Burger could not have known he was finding a lifelong calling between the bright dust jackets of volumes borrowed from a Capitol Street bookstore owned by a family friend. Looking back, the man can see ghost mentors - Zane Grey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sax Rohmer - who guided the boy on his way.
Conventionally moral, these books emphasized courage, kindness, respect for others, ingenuity, and persistence in overcoming difficulties.
The violence was not excessive. Good conquered evil. If this is not the way of the world, it should be.
And books can point the way.
Burger also had an especially close pal who lived right across the street from Jefferson Davis School, which they both attended. Her name was Eudora Welty, future Pultizer Prize-winning fiction writer.
Years later, Welty was working at the Book Review when the word came down for staffers to seek out ``new, young, bright reviewers.'' She thought of Burger, who had acquired a master's degree in English at the University of Virginia and was, by then, an accomplished high school English teacher. Welty suggested that editor Robert van Gelder send her friend some books to review.
``This he did,'' recalled Burger, ``and a few months later (somewhat to my surprise) I was living in New York, reviewing and editing at the Book Review, and Eudora was back in Mississippi.''
What, in Burger's view, makes for a well-crafted book review?
``You first have to tell what the book's about,'' he said, ``and suggest what the author's ideas were. Then you must give your reactions and the reasons for them. Today, reviewing has gotten much more ideological.
``So many people think that if a book doesn't suit their political agenda, it has to be trashed.''
Burger noted wisely that popular opinion, over time, can supplant the conventional critical view. The New York Times reviewer of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer sniffed, in 1877: ``In the books to be placed in children's hands . Eugene O'Neill's collected plays complained, ``Mr. O'Neill's characters never have any fun.''
For the record, Burger was the early reviewer of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye who pronounced the book flat ``wonderful.'' And he is still going against the critical grain. Burger picked up a copy of The Bridges of Madison County not long ago to see what it was his colleagues had so universally savaged.
``I thought,'' he said, ``it was a remarkable performance, structurally.''
Deep into his ninth decade, Burger finds that books remain an abiding constant in his life.
``I still putter in the yard,'' he said. ``I still love to walk. Outside that, reading is about it.
``I don't care for television at all. Too many advertisements and too much simple-minded material. You just can't produce art in little bits and pieces, with somebody poking up every few minutes to sell something.''
Is he at all concerned about the reviews of his own new book?
``Yes,'' the old professional said, ``one thing does concern me. The name is Burger. That's B-U-R-G-E-R.'' by CNB