Current Literature
STUFF AND NONSENSE
By " Beacheomber "
Stuff and nonsense it is : excellent stuff, ninety per cent. of it the other ten. per cent. arrant_ drivel. Throughout several pages of neat whimsy, sane fantasy, pointed satire, Beachcomber's humour will have all the warmth, body and bouquet of his Own favourite Chamberlin 1911—then suddenly, without warning, he pops out at us with a bottle of that same detestable Woollamaloo Chablis Which he himself so effectively mocks. His acquisitive, Scavenging Side rummages far and wide among the dustbins, newspapers and by-laws of this legalized, litter filled age : quick to snatch at any little sparkle in all this debris;-he daily performs an admirable service' by bringing sanity and_ humour into juxtaposition with the "news." But the dispossessed Beachcomber, on the cocksaire Philistine side, is a series of "blind .spots." And wherever we meet his blind spots we find little attempt to be funny. He, Who with such balanced and telling effect expresses his distaste for what is bogus or second-rate, merely growls his dislike of what is valuable but beyond his grasp. A satirist is simply a humorist who lacks that tolerance which in English is itself (because our island comedy approximates to it) often loosely termed a "sense of humour." Satirical anger and venom may perfectly well exceed a sense of the comic: but they should not obscure it. Beachcomber is, above all, a hale, human and fluent writer: and with such writers lapses from taste are nothing uncommon. But Beachcomber's side- slips are so startling that they either produce satire entirely blunted and vicious or deprive him of his sense of satire alto- getlur. He is funny at the 'expense of modern scientific jargons, silly when he sneers at the sensible and beneficial uses of science. To read him on Picasso' or Peter Arno is to shut the book with a snap—or a groan.. And to see him descend,' in rebuking the B.B.C.; on page 269, to: "Modesty always appeals to me . . . " and on page 202 to : " As a matter of fact I could write a dozen poems in the Lawrence manner, without thinking about it; but they would be more like poetry than his "is to wonder how one can ever have found him funny, or sane, or salutary. The book (Cape, 7s. 6d.) is enhanced with drawings by a brilliant comic draughtsman, second only to Low : Mr. Nicolas Bentley.
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