SHORTER NOTICES.
THE BOOK OF MY YOUTH. By Hermann. Sudermann. (John Lane. 12s. 6d. net ) THE BOOK OF MY YOUTH. By Hermann. Sudermann. (John Lane. 12s. 6d. net )
It is difficult to believe that this somewhat sentimental chronicle records the first twenty-five years of the author of Magda and The Song of Songs. It repeats the fallacy that childhood sixty years ago was more romantic than to-day, and gives the usual details of school life, University duelling and drinking clubs, and trivial amorous adventures. Apart from glimpses of a schoolmistress who brought a bedcover to school to save pocket handkerchiefs, of a tragic post- mortem on a self-murdered girl, and of Bismarck in a fury dancing to the speaker's seat in the Prussian Chamber, " as a boy dances along on a hobbyhorse," there is little that is memorable or individual. There is no guidance for the spirit, and nothing of that constructive reminiscence to be found in Hermann Hesse's Demian or Stephen Hudson's Prince Hempseed. Sudermann frankly confesses to juvenile conceit and megalomania, and a parasitism one has long suspected in his dramatic practice, but makes no observations of any psychological or literary value. The book will be read with incredulity by those who believe that " lives of great men oft remind us," and with pleasure by the less critical admirers of a very German Galsworthy.
Previous page
