DOWN the garden path again, this time with the author
of God Is My Adventure, in the Sussex of 1939. Of No Importance (a daring but some will think justified title) is a diary covering about nine months, during which the anthophilous litterateur is gradu- ally transformed into an armed officer of the Crown. The main plan of the book is first to conjure up an idyllic picture of Mr. Landau's bucolic bliss, then to show it threatened, and finally to explain the drastic step which he thought necessary for its pro- tection. A simple and agreeable design in itself, and topical enough, but there are some conventions one hoped dead for ever. The discovery of the rural retreat, the difficulty of keeping the garden tidy, the author's dogs (two this time, complete with photo- graph), the " sun-bathing hollow," the local " characters "—here they all are again, interspersed with slabs of pretentious and wobbling mysticism. Often Mr. Landau has some good srn point to make, but then in comes Ouspensky, with Rudolf Steir hot on his heels, and such unhelpful sentiments as : " I can din feel that there is a lesson to be learned from it all ; but it has. r become sufficiently dear as yet what that lesson might be." It is only fair to add that all those people who have enjoyed Mr. Landau's other books, and who are constantly consulting him en religious and spiritual matters, will lap up this somewhat em- barrassing brew.
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