Shorter Notices
Herbert Farjeon's Cricket Bag. (MacDonald. 8s. 6d.) THERE is a slick facility about this book which is rather disconcerting. The late Herbert Farjeon was, of course, one of our most successful writers of revue-sketches, some of which are included in this cricket miscellany. But the brain that contrives a nicely-turded point and the hand that interprets it with wit add brevity are not ideally suited to interpreting the spirit of cricket. Mr. Farjeon, in this collection of anecdotes, poems, essays and sketches is ,often amusing, always bright and sometimes breezy. But in adopting for the cricket-field a technique perfected for the theatre he is straining after a telling closure to the detriment of the play. Some of his sketches which one remembers sparkled on the stage like good champagne, taste, when read in black and white, more like flat ginger-ale.
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