Art for Art's Sake
How Much is That in Dollars? By Art Buchwald. (Heinemann, 15s.) THIS scissors-and-paste job of Art Buchwald's columns in the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune creates an unfortunate first im- pression. The dust jacket is more than off- putting. On the back we have a photograph of the author hung about with eight cameras, assorted light meters, yellow filters and all the rest of the paraphernalia so dear to the hearts of those who would rather take pictures of things than look at them. He is smoking a big cigar and trying, successfully, to look like a member of the Dismal Seepage, Ohio, Rotary Club. Turning to the text, the first few pieces are abysmally dull: but stick with it, if you have the time, and the whole deal gathers speed. One reads on with a gentle smile playing about the lips. The cumulative effect is of charm and kindness.
The humour of Art Buchwald, to get this seminar off its unpleasant cavilling note, is very American, very .poker-faced. He is no Thurber or S. J. Perelman (it is one of the world's great sadnesses that there are only the two of them), but he has a lot in common with Abe Bur- roughs, well-known Broadway play-doctor and composer of the immortal waltz, 'Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed; I needed a wife like a hole in the head.'
Perhaps Buchwald's finest effort in this book is the story of Lovlost-by-the-Sea, 'that tiny European country that has been a bulwark against Communism and friend of the United States since the early days of 1946.' Lovlost's currency is the bardot, and it has the only carrier-pigeon station in NATO. There are two stalwart members of the American armed forces on duty in Lovlost who are catered for by a PX with 500 civilian employees. How Dean Rusk stays so calm in the face of all this is more than I can understand.
Stories about Israel and the Far East as well as Europe are given us, a nice one about why Peter Ustinov was unhappy at his prep school Mother was a Lousy Sprinter'), the saga of Mary Soo who, by tradition, has the garbage concession for all US Navy ships entering Hong Kong harbour, and there is a letter to a criminal about to be sprung from Leavenworth explain• ing why he will find a more fruitful future in one of the big American electrical companies than in the newspaper world. ROSALIE PACK ARD
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