(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
I confess that I was at first a little alarmed by the title of
_Friendly Russia_ (FISHER UNWIN). A book with a name like
that, with, moreover, an "introduction"--and one by no less a person
than Mr. H. G. WELLS--seemed to threaten ponderous things,
maps probably, and statistics and unpronounceable towns. Never was
there a greater mistake. What Mr. DENIS GARSTIN has put into
his entertaining pages is simply the effect produced by a previously
unknown country upon the keen and receptive mind of a young man who
is fortunately able to translate his impressions into vigorous and
picturesque language. I have met few travel books so unpretentious,
none that gives more vividly the feeling of "going there oneself" that
must be the final test of success. The last few years have made a happy
change in the popular English conception of Russia. Even before the
War, our old melodramatic idea, that jumble of bombs and spies and
sledge-hunting wolves, had begun to give place to a slightly apologetic
admiration. Now, of course, we are all Russophil; but for the
understanding proper to that love there can be no better introduction
than Mr. GARSTIN'S pleasant book. Spend with him a happy
summer by the waters of the Black Sea; share, along with his humour,
his appreciation of that life of contented simplicity, where easy-going
and hospitable families are ruled by the benevolent despotism of
equally easy-going domestics (O knouts, O servitude!), where the
casual caller "drops in" for a month or more, and where everyone knows
everything about everybody and nobody minds. By way of contrast to
this, the latter part of the book contains, in "Russia at War," some
chapters of an even closer appeal. You will read here, not unmoved, of
how that terrible week of suspense came upon the soul of a people, of
the fusion of all discordant factions into one army intent only upon
the Holy War. There is encouragement and a heartening certainty of
triumph in this that should be an unfailing remedy for pessimism.
* * * * *
None of your confounded subtleties and last cries in _Mrs. Latham's
Extravagance_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL). An unvarnished tale,
rather, fashioned according to the naïve method of simple enumeration
and bald assertion, with such subsidiary trifles as characterisation
left to the discretion and imaginative capacity of the reader.
_Christopher Sheffield_, an artist, post-cubist brand, married his
model, a dipsomaniac as it happened. Whereupon he implored _Katherine_
to share his life, which, to keep him from going down-hill, she very
generously did, it being explicitly understood that she was to have the
reversion of _Mrs. Sheffield's_ marriage lines. _Christopher_, however,
becomes infatuated with the widow Latham--who had married a rich old
gentleman for his money, while in love with _Lord Ronald Eckington_,
then the penniless fourth son of a marquis, now the celebrated and
well-paid photographer, "_Mr. Lestocq_"--so that when _Sheffield's_
model wife dies, he, instead of doing the right thing by _Katherine_,
suggests settling the matter on a basis of five-hundred or (at a push)
five-fifty a year. Naturally she draws herself up very cold and proud
and refuses the compensation. And then, with a hardihood and success
which nothing in this ingenuous narrative sufficiently explains, the
_Honourable Lavinia Elliston_, _Lord Ronald_ and the extravagant _Mrs.
Latham_ rush in to patch up the _Christopher-Katherine_ alliance. I
don't suspect Mr. THOMAS COBB of thinking that people really
do things quite like this, but probably he found that his characters
took the bits between their teeth--as they well might. _Lord Ronald's_
share in the transaction seemed particularly gratuitous. I can only
think that since moving in photographic circles he had discarded his
high patrician polish in favour of a distinctly mat surface. He didn't
marry the widow _Latham_ because he hated the thought of touching old
man _Latham's_ money. She, discovering this, disposed of the whole of
it in a few months of gloriously expensive living and giving. This,
by the way, was her "Extravagance," which of course brought the happy
ending. O, Mr. COBB!
* * * * *
The king of curmudgeons could not complain when Mrs. CONYERS
is described as "one of the most entertaining hunting novelists of the
day," but when Messrs. METHUEN call her book (_A Mixed Pack_)
"a collection of Irish sporting stories" I may at least be allowed to
wonder at the inadequacy of their description. For the fact of the
matter is that a third part of this volume, and by no means the worst
part, is concerned with little _Mr. Jones_, a traveller in the firm of
_Amos and Samuel Mosenthal_, who were dealers in precious stones and
about as Irish and as sporting as their names suggest. _Mr. Jones_,
in the opinion of the _Mosenthals_, was the simplest soul that they
had ever entrusted with jewels of great value. Although the tales of
apparent simpletons who outwit crafty villains are becoming tedious in
their frequency, I can still congratulate Mrs. CONYERS upon
the thrills and shudders that she gets into these stories of robbery
and torture. Not for a moment do I believe in _Mr. Jones_, but for all
that I take the little man to my heart. As for the tales of sport, it
is enough to say that they are written with so much wit and _verve_
that even I, who am commonly suffocated with boredom when I have to
listen to a hunting story, found them quite pleasant to read.
* * * * *
My expectations of enjoyment on opening _The Whalers_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON) were _nil_, for the tales of whaling to which from
time to time I have been compelled to listen have produced sensations
which can only be described as nauseating. Somewhere, somehow, I knew
that brave men risked their lives in gaining a precarious livelihood
from blubber, but I was more than content to hear no further details
either of them or their captures. Let me acknowledge, then, that Mr.
J. J. BELL has persuaded me, against my will, of the romance
and fascination of the whalers' calling. The twelve stories--or perhaps
they ought to be called sketches--in this book contain plenty that is
romantic and practically nothing that is repulsive. "There is," the
author says with engaging frankness, "much that is slow in whaling.
On the whole there is more anxiety than excitement, more labour than
sport." Not for me is it to contradict such an authority, but even
granted that he is right the fact remains that no one can justly
complain of a lack of excitement in these stories, though complaints
may legitimately be made that their pathos is sometimes allowed to drop
into sentimentality. "The Herr Professor--an Interlude" deserves an
especial word of praise, for it proves again that Mr. BELL,
when not occupied in other directions, can be simply and delightfully
funny.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _At the War Office._ "OH, PLEASE COULD YOU TELL ME
HOW TO FIND LORD KITCHENER'S ROOM? I WANT TO SEE HIM PARTICULARLY, AND
I WON'T KEEP HIM LONG. IT'S JUST TO WRITE HIS FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND
FLOWER IN MY ALBUM."]
* * * * *
It must have happened to all of us to be hailed by some friend with
the greeting, "I've got the funniest story to tell you; it'll make you
scream," and to listen thereafter to something that produced nothing
but irritated perplexity. Then, if the friend were a valued one, with
a record of genuine humour, we would perhaps evoke with difficulty a
polite snigger, and so break from the encounter. Well, this is very
much what I cannot, help feeling about _The Phantom Peer_ (CHAPMAN
AND HALL). I have had such entertainment from Mr. EDWIN
PUGH in the past that I prepared for this Extravanganza (his own
term) in a mood of smiling anticipation. But from the first page to the
last it had me beat. Fun is the last subject in the world upon which
one should dare to dogmatize; and to others, more fortunate, the thing
may bring laughter. I can only envy them. It is not that I complain
of the impossibility of the plot. Extravaganza covers a multitude of
coincidences. When _Johnnie Shotter_ was persuaded to take the name
and personality of an imaginary _Lord Counterpound_, I bore without a
murmur the immediate arrival on the scene of an actual holder of that
very title. It was the dreariness of the resulting muddle that baffled
me. To make matters worse the intrigue, such as it is, breaks off
abruptly for several chapters in the middle, to permit the introduction
of what appears to be an attempted satire upon forcible feeding. At
the end, one of the chief male characters turns out to be a woman;
but as none of them was anything but a knock-jointed puppet jumping
upon ill-concealed wires the transformation was just academically
uninteresting. I am sorry, Mr. PUGH, but even for your sake I
can only say, "Tell us a better one next time!"
* * * * *
From the letter of an American restaurateur to a new arrival from
England:--
"DEAR SIR,--Before I chef--one Italian noble family--now
come America--start the business my own--house top side this paper.
Everybody speaks it me. Lunches and Dinners worth two (2) times. I
delighted preparation for you--no charge extra--only notification
me few hours behind. I build for clientelle intellectual--they more
appreciation my art."