The Intimate Journals of Paul Gauguin. (Heinemann. 15s.) FOR thirty
years admirers of Gauguin's paintings have regarded these journals as the complement of his work. They have the same colour, violence, humanity and un- expectedness. " I should like to be a pig : man alone can be ridiculous . . . I like the philosophers except when they bore me or they are pedantic. I like women too, when they are fat and vicious." Those who do not admire the paintings will not learn to like them through reading what Gauguin wrote about art and life, but they must at least be impressed by his overwhelmingly positive personality and the directness of his speech. These jottings are much more amusing, too, than the usual artist's note- book. " I have never been serious," Gauguin writes, " and you must not be offended by my jocular style."
The journals were finished by 1903, but they are remarkably modem in tone, and the questions they ask have not yet been answered. " When will man understand what Humanity means ? " Gauguin talks in a series of fireworks, and whether they explode or merely sparkle they hardly ever fail to go off. He repeats perhaps a little too often that " this is not a book." It makes one wonder whether one enjoys books anyway. Gauguin makes also the alarming statement that " he never reads books of which he had already read criticisms." Any- one who missed this volume on its appearance thirty years ago should buy it now and not wait for a Gauguin revival. M. C.
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