(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Mr. JOHN HASTINGS TURNER, who had already to his credit a play, a novel and
various successful revues, has now produced, in _A Place in the World_
(CASSELL), what is, I understand, to some extent a fictional version of his
play. How far this may be so I am uncertain (not having seen the play), but
I am by no means uncertain that it makes here a wholly admirable story, one
moreover that shows a notable advance in Mr. TURNER'S art as novelist,
being firmer in touch and generally more matured than anything he has yet
written. The plot concerns the adventures, spiritual and other, of _Madame
Iris Iranovna_, pampered cosmopolitan beauty, when fate or her own
egotistical whim had dumped her as a temporary dweller in the semi-detached
villas of suburbia. The theme, you observe, is one that might excuse the
wildest farce, since the effect of _Iris_ upon her unfamiliar surroundings
was naturally devastating. Mr. TURNER however has chosen the more ambitious
path of high comedy. In _Iris_ herself, and even more in the kindly old
vicar who so unexpectedly confronts her with her own weapons of wit and
worldly wisdom, he has drawn two characters of genuine and moving humanity.
I shall not tell you how the conflict (essential to real comedy) works
itself out, nor after what fashion the empty brilliance of _Iris_ is
humiliated and transformed. If I have a criticism of Mr. TURNER'S method,
it is that, as with _Bunthorne_, a "tendency to soliloquy" is growing upon
him which will need watching. But he clothes his reflections pleasantly
enough. Already known as what the old lady called "an agreeable
rattlesnake," he has now proved himself a story-teller of conspicuous
promise.
* * * * *
VON FALKENHAYN'S _General Headquarters 1914-1916 and its Critical
Decisions_ (HUTCHINSON) seems an honester book than LUDENDORFF'S; less
political, less querulous, less egoistic. VON FALKENHAYN, who was War
Minister when the War began and retained his office after he had superseded
VON MOLTKE as Chief of the General Staff, shows himself incurably Prussian,
refusing even to consider the possibility that any State which could wage
war effectively would hesitate to do so from any ethical or humanitarian
scruple. "Don't bother about a just cause, but see that it appears just
before men," he seems to say. "The surprise effect of gas (at Ypres) was
very great," is all the comment that tragic episode draws from him. He was
a submarine campaign whole-hogger. But he has his own soldierly virtues of
modesty and loyalty, and refuses to air his personal grievances in the
matter of his supersession by the HINDENBURG-LUDENDORFF syndicate. If, as
seems likely, he speaks the truth, as he had opportunity to see it, we must
revise our too flattering estimates of the German superiority in numbers
and attribute a good deal of the stubbornness of their defence to their
quicker appreciation of the character of siege war. The holding of
front-line trenches with few men and consequent immense saving of life was,
according to the General, practised by the German Command long before we
discovered its value. He gives a reasoned criticism, which has to the
layman a plausible air, to the effect that the relative failure of Joffre's
great combined Champagne-Flanders offensive of 1915 was due to the
overcrowding of the attacking armies. General VON FALKENHAYN, though he has
a prejudice for the German soldier, can bring himself to testify to the
valour of his British and French opponent. A readable and conscientious
account of a difficult stewardship.
* * * * *
I wish I could feel as enthusiastic about _The Booming of Bunkie_ (JENKINS)
as _Mr. Peter McMunn_, who, falling off a motor-cycle, landed in that quiet
Scots village and proceeded to turn it, by a series of stunts, into a
well-known watering-place. He undertook the job, I gather, partly for a
joke and partly for the bright eyes of _Evelyn Kirbet_, whose father put up
the money for the purposes of publicity and propaganda. The transformation
of a hamlet into a seaside resort has been treated as a sort of
psychological romance by Mr. OLIVER ONIONS in _Mushroom Town_, where the
human beings are a background as it were for the bricks and mortar; Mr.
A.S. NEILL, having chosen to make a farce of it, has provided a hero who
believes in humorous advertisements, and has evidently persuaded the author
to take him at his own valuation. This is hardly to be wondered at, since
_Mr. McMunn_ seems always keener on popping his puns than on selling his
goods. Specimens are given of speeches, press articles, posters and cinema
productions, but the fun rages with the most furious intensity round the
golf links, where eighteen holes have been compressed into the usual space
of one and the winner stands to lose drinks. There are also some parodies
of ROBERT BURNS, some jokes about bathing-machines and some digs at the
Kirk. One has been, of course, before to seaside places that were a bit too
bracing, and I am afraid that the air of Bunkie leaves me cold.
* * * * *
I really think that _The World of Wonderful Reality_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON)
may come to be something of a test for your true follower of Mr. E. TEMPLE
THURSTON. You recall the ingredients that went towards the first, or
_Beautiful Nonsense_, book? Sentiment in the slums, Venice with a very big
V and poverty _passim_ might be regarded as its composition. Well, here you
have _John_ and _Jill_ home again; no more Venice, a palpably decreasing
sentiment and only poverty to fill up with. I am bound to confess that I
found _John's_ protracted preparation for his nuptials rather less than
enough as subject-matter for a whole book. Of course all this time there
remained _Amber_ (you recollect her; she "also ran" for the _John_ stakes),
and at the back of your mind a comfortable conviction that two strings are
still better than one. Having censured the book for insufficient plot, I
had better not proceed to give away what there is. I will content myself
with a personal doubt as to whether _John_ and _Jill_ will quite
reduplicate their former triumph--and that for various reasons, not least
because (for purposes of sequel, I suppose) even _Jill_ herself has been
permitted so grave a lapse from the attitude of stand-anything-so-long-as-
it's-slummy-enough that so endeared her to her former public. Touch that
and the bloom is indeed gone.
* * * * *
_With the Chinks_ (LANE), a volume of the "Active Service Series," treats
of the training of Chinese coolies for work with the Labour Corps in the
B.E.F. The special interest of the racial type was, for me, exhausted by
the charming photographs; the task remaining for Mr. DARYL KLEIN,
Lieutenant in the Chinese Labour Corps, of so conveying the atmosphere as
to absorb the reader's attention, was not achieved. On the two main aspects
of the topic, the origin in China and the result in France, he makes no
serious attempt. I got no clear impression of the coolie at home or of why
he took to being an ally, and I was left with but the vaguest conception of
the unit in France, since the narrative ended at the disembarcation.
Lastly, I have with regret to complain of one sentence in particular, where
he tells us: "It is high time I said something about the officers." He had,
from the general reader's point of view, already said too much. It is a
pity to have to speak thus moderately of a war-book obviously written with
care and treating of an enterprise which must have cost much labour in the
achieving and, in the achievement, must have duly contributed to our
victory. For those personally involved it will be a welcome memento. For
the conscientious historian it will have a certain unique value. And in
fairness it must be added that in the latter half there are touches of
humour and humanity which make the reading easy and pleasant.
* * * * *
It has been my lot, and I am far from complaining about it, to read many
war-books, but never has my luck been more completely in than when _With
the Persian Expedition_ (ARNOLD) fell into my hands. Major DONOHOE, while
never losing sight of his main object, finds time to tell us a number of
entertaining stories with a sedate humour which is most attractive. Seldom
has an expedition set out on a wilder errand than this of the "Hush-hush"
Brigade, or, as it was officially known, the "Dunsterville" or "Bagdad
Party." It was commanded by General DUNSTERVILLE, and briefly its objects
were to combat Bolshevism, train Persian levies, prevent the Huns and Turks
from threatening India by way of the Caspian Sea, and a few other little
things of the same nature. The men of this "party" were picked men, and it
is enough to say that their courage was as high as their numbers were few.
It is indeed a mystery why any of them escaped with their lives, for, as
experience proved, it was one thing to train Persian levies and another to
get them to fight when they were wanted to. And without the levies the
"Hush-Hush" party was outnumbered again and again. I could have wished that
the excellent map which is firmly embedded in the binding had been
detachable, for the interest of the chronicle compelled me constantly to
refer to it, and I suffered great distraction.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "IS HE A SAILOR, MUM?"
"YES, DARLING."
"THEN WHERE'S HIS PARROT?"]
* * * * *
_Sidelights of Song_ (LONG), by Mr. GILBERT COLLINS, contains a few sets of
verse which have appeared in _Punch_.