Bill Platypus's
Paperbacks
After the enforced limits of Platypus's last column, he has decided to be as eclectic as possible this week. The first choice is from Signet and is entitled Herman Kahnsciousness (70p), ' produced ' (the modern synonym for edited, I suppose) by Jerome Age. It is a book that lives up to the portentousness of its title by being as slick and as multi-mediad as you could wish, Dr Kahn, as all the world knows, is a 'great mind' and 'overviewer.' His simplistic and tendentious mots are given here the most ugly of camouflages: trick photographs. ` zany ' typography and montage, Ugh, Mr Agel has also been involved with Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan, which is known as pursuing intellectual fashion at almost any price. Dr Kahn emerges as a man of monumental boringness.
Penguin Books have just reissued the Selected Poems of Robert Frost (40p). The selection is, naturally, a large one and there is very little room for surprises. But the editor, fan Hamilton, has written a sensible introduction which punctures some of the pastoral mystique Which has surrounded this particular old codger. Frost was not a lovable man, and his poetry is neither as innocent nor as rural as was once imagined by urban America. It is good to see an editor facing up to his job, and apt writing the standard encomium, From the narrow paths of what was once known as showbusiness, two very different stories. Charles Chaplin's My 'AUtoblography (Penman 65p) is as plain as its title. The story. 'from thetaphoi ical rags to act ual riches, is a familiar one. But Chaplin doesn't surround himself With razzmatazz — his. fame and his friends are mentioned and then passed over. It is an unpretentious book, and Chaplin emerges as the quintessence of the ordinary man. This is his genius. In sharp contrast, reflected glory in Judy Garland Weep No More, My Lady (Mayflower 40p) by Micky Deans and Ann Pinchot. If you don't know already, Micky Deans was the handsome young man who married Judy Garland three months before her death. Not what you might think, of course. Mr Deans obviously cared very much for the .lady, and if there is any vulgarity it does not derive from false emotion. It is just that the bobk is exceptionally coy. The sticky sentiment which seems to surround this star would not, I think, have been appreciated by the ' legend ' herself, A disappointing hook to all but the most dedicated gossips.
Mentor have just published an entirely different life: Out Of My LH' And Thought (60p) by Albert Schweitzer. For a modern saint," as the blurb calls him, an autobiography , is not,. the most self-effacing of procedures. But the writing is clear and, although the translation makes for a certain amount of woodenness, exact. The person of Schweitzer remains firmly unrevealed.' and the centre of his narrative is taken up, with the details of, first, his theological studies and then his medical practice..in Africa. The piety and the rigour ol the man are extraordinary. I often feel that for people ef this spirit, iron must enter the soul very early in life, The whole book is astonishing. A weighty paperback from Routledge and Kegan Paul. The Uses Of Philosophy (el) by H. P. Rickman is an elegant synopsis of current philosophical interpretations. It is clearly not a book of mass appeal, but one that appears to place what are usually technical or abstruse questions in a larger and more comprehensible context. The paper edition seems to assume the possibility of a reasonably large market, and Routledge are to be congratulated for their faith in their audience.
Continuing this week's eclectic vein, Platypus will now change the subject. For he has noticed The Penguin Guide To London (75p), edited by F. R. Banks. This is a large compilation, and contains as much information as any tourist eould • want or use. Platypus used to live in a hole in Bayswater. and has first-hand experience of the eager and questioning ways of tourists. There are certainly enough of them to ensure success for this guide. Its information ranges from shops to museums, sights to hotels. It does not, naturally. contain the rather spicier information which can be picked up in more underground guides to the metropolis. But this is all to the good. Platypus thinks that there are too many horses being. frightened. In tandem, I suggest that you read The Evening Standard Guide To London Pubs (Pan 40p), complied by Martin Green and Tony White. Two colourful gentlemen who should be . rewarded for their perseverance, if nothing else. Over two hundred pubs are located and deseribed, enough 0 make even the most hardened drinker feel dizzy.
Previous page
