Mrs. Malachi Whitaker has a reputation as a writer of
stories. And So Did I (Jonathan Cape, 7s. 6d.) is a dangerous attempt to make new ground. It consists, apparently, in damp comments and scrappy reminiscences written at odd moments during her life in Yorkshire, and huddled together inconse- quently into a full-size book. The result, from a conventional literary point of view, is worthless. Mrs. Malachi Whitaker has a certain talent for economical description; but her thoughts and feelings are dull. That she should find Ouspensky vain and pretentious, or admit that her own marriage was sordid, does not distinguish her intellect any more than her emotions. But presumably And So Did I is an attempt to exploit the personality of the author, even at the expense of deliberate literary faults. Sterne, Mrs. Virginia Woolf, and, on a lower plane, Miss Stevie Smith, have written books of which the basic element has been, in a certain sense, their own per- sonality. But even Miss Stevie Smith has very great literary talents. Cases where an author has got himself across in spite of bad writing must be very rare indeed. Surely Mrs. Malachi Whitaker has been a little rash to attempt without artifice'what, even had she used the greatest art, was likely to have failed.
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