Shorter Notices
The Story and the Fable. An Autobiography by Edwin Muir. (Harrap. ts.) The Story and the Fable. An Autobiography by Edwin Muir. (Harrap. ts.)
MR. Mum was born in 1887, the son of an Orkney farmer. His childhood in the islands, family life, and early schooling are here described simply and with nostalgic charm. He was a sensitive child, much troubled by dreads and dreams and inhibi- tions, which did not finally leave him until 1922, when he had been psycho-analysed and was happily married. The latter year marked a definite break in Mr. Muir's life, and he has therefore ended this volume there. As an afterthought he has appended some extracts from a diary kept between 1937 and 1939 when he was writing the autobiography. They are not uninteresting in themselves, but they seem out of place tacked on to a narra- tive so orderly and well rounded off. The story itself moves from Orkney to Glasgow, whither the Muir family migrated and where for the most part they perished. Edwin held a success on of ill-paid and uncongenial positions—in a beer-bottling factory, a bone-crushing firm (almost too realistically described), and to on. Always he loved books and wanted to be a writer. Ifis first poems he sent to A. R. Orage, who printed them in Toe New Age. Orage advised him in his reading, and he became for a time a fanatical student of Nietzsche. Eventually he found his way to London and important literary beginnings. The story proper ends with a short but charming account of several years which Mr. and Mrs. Muir spent in Prague and Dresden. Some may complain that the book lacks humour and contains too many descriptions of dreams, but most intelligent readers will find it a moving and distinguished account of a man's physical, mental and spiritual growth in days of darkness.
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