In the First Person
The Autobiography of a Liverpool Irish Slummy. By Pat O'Mara. (Hopkinson. 10s. 6cL ) Secrets of the Sea. By Henry de Monfreid. (Faber and Faber.
12s. 6d-)
I, the Tiger. By Manuel Komroff. (Heinemann. 75. 6d.) HERE are three direct autobiographies and one written by proxy. Mr. O'Mara's book takes its place with The Ragged- Trousered Philanthropists and the earliest works of Mr. Patrick Macgill as a document of real value. It is told objectively, without violence or self-pity, and as if the author were quite unaware of the qualities of mind and spirit it shows him to possess. Mr. O'Mara was born in one of the lowest quarters of Liverpool. His father was about as disgusting a character as truth or fiction could produce. Liar, drunkard, cadger, petty thief, he defiled life for all with whom he came in - contact. His only assertions of virility were to beget children and so maltreat his wife that several of them miscarried. The wife, duped into marriage by tales of an inheritance (it materialized, many years later, at five pounds, and was blued in a drinking boat), stuck to this brute for the sake of her strict Catholic principles and her children. Almost the earliest task learned by the author and his sister was to distract their father's drunken rages in the attempt to save their mother ; and, often as not, the little boy ran out in his bare feet to fetch a policeman, lest she be killed. After years of struggling, the devoted three broke away from their tyrant, who gradually sank and decayed until, as Mr. O'Mara characteristically puts it, he " went to his reward." Meanwhile a good deal had happened to the boy. He had had consumption, been away to sea, and worked as a docker. The last chapters describe how he reached America, became a taxi driver, began writing, and was able to reunite the little family in new and happier surroundings.
Delightful though this conclusion is, and satisfying tribute to the spirit's victory over hideous odds, it is the early chapters that give this autobiography its chief value. They are a terrifying and obviously honest record of conditions which obtain, even today, in certain human plague-spots. There are things in this book which make one almost sick —and, be it added, the disgust is directed always at the things, never for an instant at the pen that set them down.
Yet, appalling as some of the details are, the bare recital of facts is enough ; the way the slummies lived (and died),
the brief biographies of the author's family and connexions. From a score of memorable passages the story of Aunt Lizzie, the fate of the sailors Otto and AugUst, the encounter between Father Toomey and the disagreeable exhibitionist known as the Black Prince, and the apparition of the author's mates aboard the Lowtyne,' will be as hard as any to forget. This is an uncommonly fine piece of work, which no one to whom our social conditions are of concern can afford to miss.
There follow two adventurers. M. de Monfreid is one of many who find little satisfaction in twentieth-century civilization. His individual solution has been to build a sailing ship and exercise himself. with a native crew up and down the- waters of the Red Sea, upon occupations, to- say the least, unorthodox : " Immediately after . . . the Administration tried to forbid my undertaking the culture of pearls at Maskali, on the grounds that I had no concession. One night, my breeding grounds were partly destroyed • Lavigne, decent fellow, took up arms in my defence and saved what remained. When his employer called upon him to remain neutral, he gave up his job rather than abandon me. It warmed my heart to have the generous friendship of this good fellow, and my energy was redoubled. We decided to try gun running so as to be able to continue my long and costly experi- ments with the culture of pearls. Lavigne would remain on the island of Maskali and look after the breeding grounds, while I roved the seas with cargoes of arms. I would have the Adminis- tration against me, and they would look blackly on my voyages, which would be most compromising for them. Then, too, Salim Mouti and Ato Joseph would do their utmost to wipe out a rival. All that promised me a fair amount of difficulties and struggles, but I was determined to try my luck."
The last few words are an epitome of the life here chronicled. Fortunately, M. de Monfreid has in abundance the type of resource needed for such enterprises.
" But what was I to do with this passenger ? Throw him into the sea and flee with all sails set ? Hardly a graceful solution to the problem. These Turks, up to the present, had been so very polite that I didn't want to be the first to start strong measures."
This is a vivid and interesting story, full of unusual information, well written, and well translated.
Miss Vidal's adventures, though fully as picturesque, have been set against the more orderly background of civilized life. Her book is well but superficially titled. Well, because the magpie is both an acquisitive bird and a, chatterbox. Miss Vidal shows herself, if not acquisitive, at least an adept in the art of getting something for nothing. As for chattering, it would be hard to imagine anything more garrulous than her story. Everything, big and little, important and trifling, is lumped down, the only unifying element being the per7 sonality .of the author. _Where the superficiality of the title comes in is that it in no way suggests the depth of experience and the pain underlying all these dramatic gestures and
this froth. Miss Vidal's hardships were not as grave as Mr. O'Mara's, but the scales were weighted heavily enough:.
At an early age she had lost a brother and two sisters, one by suicide ; had seen her- father. certified as a lunatic, and herself suffered a spell of restraint in an asylum : and, from! then on, had to battle with recurrent attacks of neurasthenia. Soon she was to lose another brother, and to become estranged from her mother and surviving sister. The astonishing variety of her eicperience falls under different heads, of which War service, a Salvation Army rescue home, journalismt governessing, sharing, and being down and out are only few., However one may 'dislike certain sides of the author's personality, and however one may wish that her book had been shorn of its trivialities and cut by half, one is compelled to honour the courage, the independence of spirit, and the almost savage will to live, that have made it possible. - Ninebranch, the Tiger, being unable to write his auto- biography direct, has had to choose a human medium.: and, as in pursuits where mediumship of another type is
necessary, it is not easy to be sure which is the medium and which is the spirit. True, Ninebranch had long and
unfortunate experience of human beings during his years of captivity : but he has too completely assimilated their vocabulary and conventions for his story to convince at
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