MR BULLETT AS SATIRIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22504, 23 February 1935, Page 4

MR BULLETT AS SATIRIST

"The Bubble." By Gerald Bullett. London: Dent. Sa 9d. The delightful Mr Bullett has managed here to have a hit at almost everybody in the most charming possible way. Dipping his pen in the beat vinegar, he has satirised the London literary “racket in this 1200-line narrative poem completely and slanderously. The story tells in easy rhyming couplets how _ one Guy Chevenix achieved outstanding literary fame on the basis of a novel he was too lazy to write, after his would-be publisher had told his tame critic (a man of power) in a moment of alcoholic gaiety that the book was coming out and all about it. _ The completeness of the subsequent reviews saved anyone the trouble of actually attempting to read the hook, and therefore of discovering its non-existence, and established on an impregnable pedestal of unwanted fame that graceful exponent of the art of doing nothing. A delightfully amoral love story is twined neatly into the tale. While not a work of genius, this is a most amusing trifle. Mr Bullett has not borrowed the inkpot of Mr Evelyn Waugh or that of the nobly despairing Mr Patrick Balfour, but in an entirely individual fashion has achieved the proper aim of all satire, to make his victims laugh even under the lash, and, while laughing, to sep that he tells the truth. P. H. W. N.