30 JUNE 1950, Page 23

BOOKS AND WRITERS

IN the language of the day it is customary, to describe a certain sort of book as " escapist " literature. As I understand it, the adjective implies, a little condescendingly, that the life therein depicted cannot be identified with the real life which the critic knows so well in W.C.1 or S.W.3 ; and may even have the disastrous effect on the reader of taking him happily fot a few hours out of his own real life in N.W.8. Why this should be a matter for regret 1 do not know ; nor why realism in a novel is so much admired when realism in a picture is condemned as mere photography ; nor, I might , add, why drink and fornication should seem to bring the realist closer to real life than, say, golf and gardening.

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