BOOK OF THE WEEK

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1931, Page 13 (Supplement)

BOOK OF THE WEEK

A PRODIGIOUS MEMORY

('By

C.E.)

“The Puppet Show of Memory,” by Maurice Baring; William Heinemann, Ltd., London, through Thos. Avery and Sons, Ltd., New Plymouth.

This being the first volume in Heinemann’s Crown Library that I have had the opportunity to mention in this column, it is fitting that I should say a few words about this very admirable publishing enterprise. The object of the publishers is to afford readers a library of better class books at a low price. They include works of biography, history, travel, science and letters, all of which possess qualities that are likely to endure. The books are printed on' good paper in clear ■ type, and the binding is sound and suitable. In every case a complete reproduction of the original' text is given. The result is that one can now purchase for 5s many a book originally published- at three or four times that price, and yet the new volumes are so well got up as to adorn a bookshelf. Everyone who treasures books will buy the Crown Library. The Hon. Maurice Baring’s book is perhaps the most remarkable of the series already issued by Heinemann’s. The original made its appearance nine years ago, four-impressions being issued within a few months, which is sufficient evidence of the interest it created. Mr. Baring was then a little under 50 years of age, and he chose to write reminiscences of his younger days, carrying the story up to 1904, when he was 30 years of age; I have-not been a great admirer of the biographies written by very young men in recent years, for I know of few that have been anything better than wearisome attempts at self-glori-fication. Baring, however, was old enough to know better when he wrote, and he had many interesting experiences to recall. ■

As a journalist and author Maurice Baring is probably well enough known. He was a war correspondent in the Russo-Japanese war, he undertook varied duties during the Great War, including that of personal secretary to Sir Hugh Trenchard in the Air Office, and he earned some distinction. For a few years before 19'04 he was in the diplo* matic service, and it is the record of that period which; gives “The Puppet Show of Memory” its greatest virtue. Fourth son of the first Lord Revelstoke, Maurice Baring was brought up under altogether pleasant conditions. One would judge from his book that he quite appreciated that fact, for he gives a voluminous account of his earliest years. Whatever else may be said of him, he certainly has a most prodigious memory. The first thing he recalls is a Christmas Tree in 1876, when he was two and a half years old. Notz many of us, I suppose, have his definite recollection of any event so early in our lives.- His, however, is so retentive a memory that he finds no difficulty in producing an almost day-to-day history of his school and college career. Readers will wonder whether Baring’s meticulous presentation of detail..does not become wearisome. It .would/if it were not for two reasons. He is a pleasant writer, simple and direct in style rather than showy, but always graceful and apt in his phrasing. And his detail affords us clear and intimate pictures of the times of which he writes. We have a cliild’s view of life in London and in the country at a very interesting period, and the life of Eton, Cambridge and Oxford, is presented, with convincing sureness. Moreover, since the story is that of a peer s s°n, it . throws some light' on social Conditions. But it is when Baring writes of his rather brief experience of diplomacy that he really holds one’s interest. Going into the Foreign Office in 1898, he was appointed to the British Embassy in Paris the following year; from there he went to Copenhagen, and finally to Rome. A fine linguist, he was able to be intimate with the foreigners among whom he lived. Thoroughly appreciative of literature, music, drama and art, he had many interests, and he writes of them, all with keen, insight and sympathetic understanding. Moreover, diplomacy in his time was one of the finest arts, and the glimpses he gives of it are illuminating. One feels that it is a goqd. thing a man with such understanding and ability to express his point of view apent the few years he did'in the European capitals. Baring writes wonderful descriptions of people who are worth meeting. When he was in Paris the Dreyfus case was occupying everyone’s attention and General Galliffet, the Minister of War, was very unpopular. Baring sums him up in a neat paragraph: “The General was a. picturesque and. striking figure, not tall or imposing, but carved, as it were, in some enduring granitedike substance, with steely eyes, a quick, rather hoarse, jerky utterance, and a very direct manner, a little alarming to a newcomer owing fo its abrupt frankness and his way of saying what he thought in the most pointed, Gallic manner. His illustrations, too, and his confessions were sometimes startling.” That is quite an adequate picture. The third member of the embassy at Paris —a sort of chief clerk —is the subject of another intense description: “Reggie Lister was an artist in life and the of life. He built-his arrangements and those of' others with a light scaffolding, that could be taken down at a moment’s notice and iearranged if necessary in a different manner to suit a change of circumstances. He was radiantly sensible. He had a horror of the trashy and the affected, and his gaiety iwas buoyant, boyish, and infectious. If he was really amused himself, his face used to crinkle and his body shake like a jelly, ‘like a big baby,’ as a Frenchman once .said. His intuition was like second-sight and his tact always at work but never obtrusive, like the works of a delicate watch. I never saw anyone either before or after who could make such a difference to his surroundings and to the company he was with. He made everything effervesce. You could not say bow he did it. It was not because of any exceptional brilliance or any unusual wit or arresting ideas; but over and over again I have seen him do what people more brilliant than himself could not do to save their lives, that is, transfigure a dull company and change a grey atmosphere into a golden one. It was not only- that he could never bore anyone himself, but that nobody was ever bored when he was there. You laughed with him, not at him. He took his enjoyment with him wherever he went, and he made others share it. Here I am at the end of my column with a lot left unsaid, but that last passage should convince everyone that Baring is worth reading.