Hanover Browsing
HERE are quick spot reviews of books I received for Christmas. Bernard. Shaw & Mrs. PatrickCampbell: Their Correspondence, edited by Alan Dent (Gollancz in London; Knopf in New York). This is a book which must have been published sheerly for the money involved. It is composed of silly and trivial letters, few of them worth reading, and they should have remained in somebody's safety deposit vault.
Shaw would make one feel that women attacked him with the abandon of a school of piranas, but I am one who doubts this. He ate too many vegetables to be a great lover, and his puerilities here displayed do not reflect credit on the writer of plays as good as Saint Joan, Man and Superman, and Anthony and Cleopatra.
Why Waterloo, by A. P. Herbert. Doubleday, 1952. The author is a very distinguished man, and here tries to set Napoleon out in a more proper light. The picture is an appealing one, and we see the "little corporal" through the eyes of certain women who loved him or who were married to him, and others who were with him in exile. Marie Walewska, the Polish lady, who gave all for country, and finally got to like it, is the most appealing of the women depicted. But there are also penetrating sketches of his sister, of Josephine, of Marie Louise who became his queen. Mr. Herbert writes with a grasp of all essential facts, with a sympathy for the Emperor, and with a knowledge of the sea, and of Elba, the scene of the novel. Altogether a noteworthy job.
Francis Thompson and Wilfrid Meynell. A Memoir by Viola Meynell. London, Hollis & Carter, 1952. This is a book I could hardly put down. Through its pages pass the fantastic character Thompson, laudanum drinker, opium eater, and great Catholic poet; Alice Meynell, devoted wife of Wilfrid Meynell, exquisite poet, and one whom Thompson adored in a spiritual love that nearly consumed him; Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, the Sussex squire, diarist, and friend of Thompson; and Wilfrid Meynell himself, editor, writer, rescuer of Thompson from oblivion and death, who lived to the amazing age of 96. Delightfully written, this is a fine addition to Engish criticism and biography.
A Matter of Fifty Houses: A New Vermontiana Collection, by Walter Hard. The Vermont Book Shop, Middlebury, Vt. This is Mr. Hard's first new collection in some time, and in it he has distilled the essence of Vermont. He does not write great poetry, but he is a penetrating wit, a good narrater, and he gives in these pages unforgettable pictures and stories of Vermont characters. I enjoyed this a lot, and will read it again.
Annapurna: The First 8,000 MetrePeak. By Maurice Herzog. Cape, London, J 95- This is one of the best mountain books I have ever read, and one of the most painful to read. In the spring and summer of 1950, a French group led by Herzog conquered Annapurna, 26,500 feet, the highest mountain ever climbed. This was done on the first attempt, without any previous reconnaissance, a feat thought impossible by all previous Himalayan climbers.
This ascent became a spiritual experience for the party, and Herzog and Lachenal both paid heavily for their courage and effrontery in attempting to conquer such magnificence. Excellent photographs, and it is to be placed beside Smyth's CampSix on your shelf of mountain books. (Comp. Lit. 24 alumni take notice.)
The Essential R. B. CunninghameGraham, selected by Paul Bloomfield. Cape, London, 1955. This is the third selection of Don Roberto's work to be published, and is one of the best. It is a wellbalanced selection from Mogreb-el-Acksa, from his Latin American histories, and from the best of his sketches and short stories.
Baker Library celebrated Cunninghame Graham's centennial by having in December an excellent exhibit of his letters, manuscripts, books, etc.
Chronicles of Barabbas, by George H. Doran. Rinehart. This excellent and interesting account of a great publisher's life has been brought up to date, and reissued in a fine edition by his son-in-law, Stanley Rinehart. Highly recommended.
