BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 26

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The City Librarian has chosen "The Impregnable Women," by Eric Linklater, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:— It comes like a breath of keen, cold air to find another book from Mr. Linklater's pen among the new arrivals at the Library. "The Impregnable Women" is the usual riotous and tonic fun, gentle satire becoming now and then keener. The scene is laid at the time of the next war and the circumstances are that the women, tired of hearing clap-trap about the glamour and gallantry of war, have come to realise only the harm it does and the fact that it sacrifices the happiness of every man and woman. Lady Lysistrata Scrymgeour is the wife of the General commanding the British Forces who are allied with France against Germany. She incites the women of England to rebellion in an international movement isolating men entirely frori the lives of their women folk. A castle had been occupied by the War Office. Lady Lysistfata, a music-hall artist of the type of Miss Gracie Fields, who was known as Rose Armour, and a great number of other beautiful and in some cases highly placed women, combined to take possession of this stronghold and repulse all attacks on it. Soldiers coming home on leave found their homes empty and their wives, instead of welcoming them with open arms and doing what they could to brighten their period of leave, blamed them, and treated the war as a beastly bit of unnecessary butchery, started through the stupidity of men and carried on not for the defence of woman-kind as Cabinet fondly imagined, but as a menace to their safety, comfort, and happiness. Mr. Linklater, in debunking war, hits very hard in the gentlest and politest way. Some of the scenes of battle between men 'and women partake of a certain romantic quality which is the result of the author's descriptive powers and are reminiscent of G. K. Chesterton's "Napoleon of Notting Hill." McNab and McNulty, two brawny Scotswomen, provide the light humour. Cabinet is a masterpiece of caricature. Mr. Linklater's peculiar gift consists in writing satire which is,not caricature. Lord Pippin, the Prime Minister of England, is a real Prime Minis- | ter and not a puppet. Mr. Pelhamj Blair is another real character, and Sir Joseph Rumble might be one of fifty ior a hundred real politicians. The ! characters act true to type in the very extraordinary circumstances into [ which the author manipulates them. Among all the anti-war propaganda, isome in serious fun and some as this, merely mocking, it may be that nothing can be found which will avert at some time in the future another serious international clash. But if such a clash does come, it will be the case that those who have read such books as Mr. Linklater's will, at any rate, shoulder their rifles with their tongues in their cheeks. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent ac-i cession lists are as follows:-i-General: j "Sir John Reith," by G. Allingham; "Without Make-up," by U. Bloom; "Our Street," by J. Petersen. Fiction: "Journeying Wave," by R. Crompton; "To You Mr. Chips," by J. Hilton; "Andrew to the Lions," by H. W. Freeman.