PARKINSON’S ESSAYS

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33077, 18 November 1972, Page 10

PARKINSON’S ESSAYS

The Fur-lined Mousetrap. By C. Northcote Parkinson. Leviathan House. 109 pp.

Professor Parkinson’s earlier books of essays, most notably “Parkinson’s Law” sold a great many copies in numerous languages and attained such fame that many who have never read a word of his writing speak with facile authority about it. It will probably come as a surprise to such people, if they ever do attempt one of his works, to discover just how readable he is. “The Fur-lined Mousetrap," his latest selection of essays, would be a good starting point for such a discovery, for in this he covers a rather wider range of subjects than in his previous “law” books. “Government and Business," “Left is Right,” “Revolting Youth,” “On Genius," “Advertise or Perish” are some of the titles of the dozen essays collected in this slim, amusinglyillustrated volume. All of them are treated not merely with the humour we have come to expect from C. North-

cote Parkinson, but with a perception, and frequently with a provoking perversity which stimulates the reader to careful thought on the subject under discussion.

Professor Parkinson has stated that he did not invent his famous law but merely discovered it and indeed this law, like some of the concise and emphatic statements in these essays, has an obvious truth which makes one wonder why it was never formulated previously. This is possibly Professor Northcote Parkinson’s greatest feat as an essayist — that he can present a theory in a way which impresses with both its humour and truth, and by so doing jolt the reader into taking a fresh look at himself and his fellow men.

This may be making heavy weather of what is essentially a book of humorous essays but much of the interest of “The Fur-lined Mousetrap’’ lies in wondering just how serious Professor Parkinson is at any given point.