STUDIES OF SHAW AS THE MAN OF IDEAS

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32234, 28 February 1970, Page 4

STUDIES OF SHAW AS THE MAN OF IDEAS

Shaw —" The Chucker-Out." By Allan Chappelow. Allan and Unwin. 598 pp.,14 plates. Index.. BernardrShaw-r-A Reassessment. By Colin Wilson. '‘HUfchinson; 306 pp. Index. At ’ a’.tiiitp in which- -the commercial theatre is all but ignoring Shaw, it is significanttjwt two famous Shaw scholars' shtfuld both concentrate their studies oil the man of ideas rather than the man of the theatre: decline in production is: paralleled by enthusiastic study of TH pfeiys in universities, and both of these books seem ideally suited to those 1 exhaustive “reading lists” at which. English departments excel and students generally despair. In some ways, Shaw, was asking for this kind of treatment; his famous “objectivity” often flirts wiith the academic, and the visual emaciation of his plays makes them less dependent on stage presentation than much modern theatre. Chappelow’s “Shaw the Villager and Human Being” was rightly hailed as one of the most important books on Shaw that can ever be written. In form it was a symposium of reminiscences by ordinary people who knew Shaw as an ordinary man; Shaw would certainly have approved of the book—indeed, many of his plays resemble carefully contrived symposia. “Shaw The was originally planned as an appendix to the first book, containing a collection of statements by Shaw oh subjects which the members of the symposium had found confusing. Significantly, his political opinions consume most of the volume, and there is also a lengthy account of the alphabet reforms, but the short statements on literature and morals generalise on material which is expressed at much greater length in the “Prefaces.” In his first chapter. Chappelow asserts that "My overall endeavour has been to bring Shaw vividly to life for the reader,” and if overall includes “Shaw the Villager" he has succeeded. Read in isolation, however, the present volume refers only obliquely to Shaw the man. In contact with the villagers of Ayot St Lawrence, Shaw was vividly alive; writing angry letters to newspapers, he was dehumanised into “G. 8.5. Readers should not make the mistake of treating this book as an

independent work: without “The Villager,” “The Chucker-Out” is a monstrosity of scholarship portraying almost a mechanical literary bouncer. As an extended appendix, this book is an invaluable addition to the earlier work, but if this perspective is lost Shaw is reduced to just G.B.S. The most impressive quality of Colin Wilson’s “Reassessment” Is that it forms so neat a complement to the monumental work of Chappelow. Wilson places unusual emphasis on the period of Shaw’s "long apprenticeship” (it takes him a. hundred pages to get round to “Widowers’ Houses”), and examines in . considerable detail the development of the persona called G.B.S. He freely acknowledges. Shaw’s lack of any real influence in proportion to the detail in which his ideas were expounded, but he blames this on the public image of the “G.B.S. monster.” The evolution of the shy, introverted critic into the armour-plated literary phenomenon is traced carefully and convincingly, but the real value of this approach is only appreciated when one gets to the period after 1921 when, for Wilson, “Shaw has ceased to be a creative force as a dramatist. He has lost interest in people to an extent that makes it difficult for him to produce a recognisably real person." Quoted in isolation, this assessment sounds unfairly harsh, but one suspects that this is just Witeon’s way of apologising for his cursory dismissal of the later plays (they are obviously not his chief interest, and he dispenses with them in 20 pages). The section does, however, contain a brief but levelbeaded appraisal of “St Joan,” which has long enjoyed a popularity quite incongruous with its rightful place in the Shaw opera. Wilson’s study is provocative, independent, and in places most penetrating, but, having finished the book, one wonders just what the advertised “reassessment" refers to.

Many of his opinions are original, some of them indeed valuable, but they lack the general co-ordination that the term “a reassessment” seems to imply. Possibly, the answer lies in Wilson’s final chapter, “My Own Part in the Matter,” which does unify several recurrent themes, but its unassuming status as "Postscript” argues against such importance.