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BOOK REVIEW MEADDOUGH

BOUND TO VIOLENCE. By Yambo Ouologuem. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. 182 pages. $5.95.

This one has gotten a lot of attention and a great deal of publicity. Undeserved, I think. The story undertakes to follow the prince of an African tribe through several generations of violence, intrigue, politics, encounter with European imperialists, etc. And so forth. The author writes in a quasi-legendary style, like ancient Greek or Roman mythology and it is truly interesting (May God refresh his couch!). But the author has his problems too for his concern, attention and denunciation of the "niggertrash" suggest a self-hatred of the author rather than the protagonist (May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his balls!). If Ouologuem's purpose was to show that the African tribal conflicts were every bit as savage as the European nations' invasions, it is an acceptable premise, but what is the point? None of the characters seemed finished, or accomplished, or sympathetic to my reading. "Perhaps the first African novel that truly merits this name," Le Monde is quoted as saying. When a Black author reaps this kind of praise he should check his writing, or his pockets, or his mind, because at least one of these will be missing. 

BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. By Dee Brown. Holt-Rinehart-Winston, New York. 487 pages. $10.95.

Wounded Knee is the best non-fiction effort to date on popularizing how the West was really won. It runs the gauntlet from Sand Creek to Wounded Knee, year by year, tribe by tribe, trick by trick, in relating the destruction of the American Indian. Brown also discusses the political and personal differences between tribes and tribal leaders in lay terms so that, at the least, one gets a feeling of the societal structure of Indian Life. And there is a true nobility of the Indians as they face superior firepower and overwhelming man power, as the white tide floods the land to the Pacific. But then, all losers are noble; it's all they have left.

BRING US TOGETHER. By Leon Panetta and Peter Gall. J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia. 380 pages. $6.95.

Leon Panetta was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Dept. of Health, Education & Welfare. HEW was responsible for implementing school desegregation. Mr. Panetta took his job seriously. Mr. Panetta was canned. This, in essence, is the story of the canning. It is painfully obvious by now that the current administration has neither interest in nor a sense of obligation to minority groups in America. The President, sequestered in the White house (how

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