30 OCTOBER 1936, Page 42

PARODY PARTY

Current Literature

Edited by Leonard Russell

HERE is a book (Hutchinson, 8s. 6d.) M which everyone whose literary enthusiasms are not incurably inclusive will find much to enjoy. In it fourteen authors parody the work of other authors, of a prominent statesman, of a distinguished churchman " who could never make up his mind whether he was a pillar of the Church or two columns of the Evening Standard," and of a contemporary literary fashion. Naturally not all. the contributions are equally good, nor even all of them successful. Mr. Francis Iles' " Close Season in Polchester " must have been written in a close season for W*Ip*1*-hunters, Mr. D. B. Wyndham Lewis reproduces Mr. St*nl*y B*10w*n's oratorical manner a little too closely for the reader's comfort, and Mr. John Betjeman's " Tomsk-Omsk-Omsk- Tomsk," described as. being " from the Russian via Hampstead and Char- lotte Street," reads less like anything emanating, however circuitously, from Russian soil than a burlesque of something else written by Mr. J*hn B*tj*En#n. But in the rest of the book the standard of achievement is high. with Mr. L. A.. Pavey doing very well by Mr. S*rn*rs* t M**gh*ni in a neat little . billiard-room comedy, Mr. Ivor Brown skilfully dogging Mr. P*t*r Fl*m*ng's footsteps in " A Stroll to the Pole," and Mr. Cyril Connolly briskly putting Mr. A*d*us H*xl*y through his most allusive paces. But good as these are they must all give place to the contributions of. Miss Rose Macaulay and Miss Rebecca West. Miss Macaulay's model is Mr. E*n*st H*m*ngw*y, and her brilliant pastiche of his mannerisms differs from some- thing which he might have written only in that it has a much better plot. Miss West's contribution is " A Tale of Mors, Seventh Viscount and Twelfth Baron Sepulchre," offered in " homage to Mr. Ch*. rl*s M*rg*n." It is a brilliant and devastating burlesque, to which nothing but wholesale quotation could do justice. Here is the solution of the Christmas present problem, provided that anyone can wait until Christmas to enjoy it.