Found in a Ditch
Everybody's Letters. Collected and arranged by Laura Riding, (Arthur Barker. 10s. 6d.) Tim reader who enjoys being mystified must be warned that this review is written as a guide for those who prefer a less subtle and perplexing manner of editing than Miss Laura Riding adopts in her collection of letters by a variety of pseu- donymous or possibly fictitious persons. One does not like to distrust Miss Riding, but both the statements, "Every letter is printed exactly as found" and "I need not assure you that these are all ' real ' letters," are slightly evasive in their wording. Suppose that we ask to be assured ?
' The book as a whole is quite convincing ; it is easy enough to swallow the camel, but the gnats have .a way of stinging as they go (Iowa For instance, we believe inAntoinirtte the under-nourished and illiterate and adoring modiste, and in the very young American, Lilian, literate but equally adoring (Pp. 129-144). But when, after the five letters from each to liermann, whose affections they unwittingly share, all our expectations about him are fulfilled by the "fragment of a letter found in a ditch," the episode seems a little too neatly ended. And having strained at this gnat we begin to remember the camel and feel it lie heavy and hairy on the stomach. We begin to wonder how many of these letters Miss Riding found in ditches, and where she found the rest, and whether when she gave the writers and recipients their fictitious names, she did not amuse herself by giving two or even three names to the same person.
It would not lessen the value of the book if some or even if all of the letters turned out to be either made up or patched up. Since Cyril and Harry (poor wretch), Rachel and Hulls Loo have no existence for the reader outside this book, they may just as well be imaginary as real people. The important thing is that the letters should sound real, as most of them do, and the only reason for discussing this point is that the gratuitous mystery will annoy the average reader. Until one can make up one's maid what sort of a game Miss Riding is playing, it is as difficult to enjoy the book with an easy mind as it is to talk freely to a fellow guest at a party without knowing his name. To me it seems that a certain amount of editing has been done—and why not ?—to create the effect of many different types of people and different friendships, and to arrange little surprises for us—odd and unexpected eon flexions, contrasts and resemblances. Miss Riding has a weakness for the game of African exploration : the world is a jungle full of utaknown savages, and then all of a sudden in the middle of the jungle Stanley-and-Livingstone shakehands. "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."
-The book is divided into three sections according to a dis- tinction more clever, than evident, but where any one writer has written several letters they are printed together. Most of the people whose correspondence is considered typical of the English spirit are acquainted with one another. James, the young man at Oxford to whom Cecil writes in the beginning of the book, himself appears on page 66, telling Lilith and Hubert how he came to be arrested by the police. But for• fuller, light OH Lilith and. Hubert we have to wait rather un- necessarily until pages 171-175, when Lilith turns , out a strangely unsympathetic character in the kind of letter which is sometimes written but not often posted. The naive vul- garity and egregious friendliness. of .Johnny Archer, who had provoked her, is brilliantly done—either by Johnny or by someone who knew him even better than he knew himself. It also seems unnecessary that the letters to the Chesneys in the first part of the book should not have been postponed until we come to the Chesneys themselves, a tribe of art-crazy Americans who rush about Europe whenever they manage to let their draughty log cabin near Chicago. The pages given up to the Chesneys are the least amusing in the book, but Eva Wylliams on page 179 irEgood comedy.
The rough material of novels and life is the same : it is in the putting together and finishing off that novels so often lose the queerness that belongs to life. In this collection of letters, which contains the embryonic plots of at least a dozen novels, the material has been left in the rough. - It is well worth examining ; you may find that you prefer your novels
Previous page
