NEW YORK CITY (including all Boroughs) TELEPHONE DIRECTORY--N.Y.
Telephone Co., N.Y. 1920. 8vo. 1208 pp.
In picking up this new edition of a popular favorite, the reviewer
finds himself confronted by a nice problem in literary ethics. The
reader must guess what it is.
There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who
constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those
who do not. Both classes are extremely unpleasant to meet socially,
leaving practically no one in the world whom one cares very much to
know. This feeling is made poignant, to the point of becoming an
obsession, by a careful reading of the present volume.
We are herein presented to some five hundred thousand characters, each
one deftly drawn in a line or two of agate type, each one standing out
from the rest in bold relief. It is hard to tell which one is the most
lovable. In one mood we should say _W.S. Custard_ of Minnieford Ave.
In another, more susceptible frame of mind, we should stand by the
character who opens the book and who first introduces us into this
Kingdom of Make-Believe--_Mr. V. Aagaard_, the old "Impt. & Expt." How
one seems to see him, impting and expting all the hot summer day
through, year in and year out, always heading the list, but always
modest and unassuming, always with a kindly word and a smile for
passers-by on Broadway!
[Illustration: "The most popular book on earth."]
It is perhaps inaccurate to say that _V. Aagaard_ introduces us to the
book. He is the first flesh-and-blood human being with whom the reader
comes in contact, but the initial place in the line should
technically go to the A. & A.A. Excelsior Co. Having given credit
where credit is due, however, let us express our personal opinion that
this name is a mere trick, designed to crowd out all other competitors
in the field for the honor of being in the premiere position, for it
must be obvious to any one with any perception at all that the name
doesn't make sense. _No_ firm could be named the A. & A.A. Co., and
the author of the telephone directory might better have saved his
jokes until the body of the book. After all, Gelett Burgess does that
sort of thing much better than any one else could hope to.
But, beginning with _V. Aagaard_ and continuing through to _Mrs. L.
Zyfers_ of Yettman Ave., the reader is constantly aware of the fact
that here are real people, living in a real city, and that they
represent a problem which must be faced.
Sharp as we find the character etching in the book, the action,
written and implied, is even more remarkable. Let us, for instance,
take _Mr. Saml Dreyslinger_, whose business is "Furn Reprg," or _Peter
Shalijian_, who does "pmphlt bindg." Into whose experience do these
descriptions not fit? The author need only mention a man bindg pmphlts
to bring back a flood of memories to each and every one of us--perhaps
our old home town in New England where bindg pmphlts was almost a
rite during the long winter months, as well as a social function of no
mean proportions. It is the ability to suggest, to insinuate, these
automatic memories on the part of the reader without the use of extra
words that makes the author of this work so worthy of the name of
craftsman in the literary annals of the day.
Perhaps most deft of all is the little picture that is made of _Louise
Winkler_, who is the village "sclp spclst." One does not have to know
much medieval history to remember the position that the sclp spclst
used to hold in the community during the Wars of the Roses. Or during
Shay's Rebellion, for that matter. In those days, to be a sclp spclst
was as important a post as that of "clb bdg stbls" (now done for New
York City by Mr. Graham). People came from miles around to consult
with the local sclp spclst on matters pertaining not only to sclps but
to knt gds and wr whls, both of which departments of our daily life
have now been delegated to separate agencies. Then gradually, with the
growth of the trade guild movement, there came the Era of
Specialization in Industry, and the high offices of the sclp spclst
were dissipated among other trades, until only that coming strictly
under the head of sclp speclzng remained. To this estate has _Miss
Winkler_ come, and in that part of the book which deals with her and
her work, we have, as it were, a little epic on the mutability of
human endeavor. It is all too short, however, and we are soon
thereafter plunged into the dreary round of expting and impting, this
time through a character called _J. Wubbe_, who is interesting only in
so far as he is associated with _M. Wrubel_ and _A.N. Wubbenhorst_,
all of whom come together at the bottom of the column.
The plot, in spite of whatever virtues may accrue to it from the acid
delineation of the characters and the vivid action pictures, is the
weakest part of the work. It lacks coherence. It lacks stability.
Perhaps this is because of the nature of the book itself. Perhaps it
is because the author knew too well his Dunsany. Or his Wells. Or his
Bradstreet. But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the
weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which
clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this. We
see here the logical result of a sedulous aping of those writers such
as Tolstoi, Andreief, Turgenief, Dostoiefsky, or even Pushkin, whose
_metier_ it was to fill the pages of their books with an inordinate
number of characters, many of whom the reader was to encounter but
once, let us say, on the Nevsky Prospekt or in the Smolny Institute,
but all of whom added their peculiar names (we believe that we will
not offend when we refer to Russian names as "peculiar") to the
general confusion of the whole.
In practice, the book is not flawless. There are five hundred thousand
names, each with a corresponding telephone number. But, through some
error in editing, the numbers are all wrong. Proof of this may be had
by the simple expedient of calling up any one of the subscribers,
using the number assigned by the author to that name. (Any name will
do--let us say _Nicholas Wimpie_-Haxlem 2131.) If the call is put in
bright and early in the morning, the report will come over the wire
just as the lights are going on for evening of the same day that
"Harlem 2131 does not answer." The other numbers are invariably
equally unproductive of results. The conclusion is obvious.
Aside from this point the book is a success.