Note-Books of Night. By Edmund Wilson. (Seeker and Warburg. 7s.
6d.) THIS is a very curious book, for it is a collection of odds and ends in verse and prose by a writer who has made a great reputation in England and America as a solidly instructed and exceptionally per- ceptive literary critic. But both the verse and the prose are singu- larly lacking in unity of style ; the writing is neither that of an Englishman nor an American. There is evident everywhere a sensi- tiveness to words and an ability to use them which, however, is marred by an unexpected deafness or insensibility to tone. For example, after a passage of rather good, academic English prose describing an uncle, Mr. Wilson suddenly uses the phrase deadpan insouciance. This is a jarring combination of adjective and noun in so sober a book. Everywhere there are similar incongruities or heaviness of style, such as " the incident dropped a partition between the Findes and me," and the verse is even more unsuccess- fully mixed. It is as if the author had diverse strains of literature running in his head, that of the nineteenth-century English and American classics and that of Life and the New Yorker, but was -tot able to keep to one or the other or blend them harmoniously. There is a certain power in some of the verse, particularly when evocative of landscapes and emotions such as in the pieces Nightmare, November Ride and Home to Town ; but nearly everywhere there are uncouthnesses and oddities of expression which jar—not because they are original, but because they are not effective.
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