BOOK OF THE WEEK

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

BOOK OF THE WEEK

LONDON LIVES AND WAYS

(By

U.S.)

‘‘The London Roundabout.” by Jan and Cora Gordon. G. G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., London. A. J. Fyfe Ltd., New Plymouth.

The authors call their book “a collection of often disjointed jottings” about that *’ attractive, merciless, enslaving, invigorating agglomeration of people and streets that comprise the London of today. The “jottings” are those of two artists who have known many, peoples and circumstances. They contain frank criticism of many of London’s shortcomings and of the unlovely characteristics of much that pride makes the Briton consider, if not a national virtue at least an indication of the moral and mental superiority of the British race. The book finishes with the hope that in its pages will be found “some evidence of the peculiar and vivid humanity which can be found almost everywhere in London by the good-humoured seeker.” The hope is more than justified, for the Gordons have that saving grace of humour that keeps artists from being mere technicians, or even the more boring pharisee who is not as the common crowd. They take the reader among the common people. They sample life in. queer places, and they find in the mass as in the individual the, outstanding feature of the Londoner is his humour and his kindliness.

If -you go to the Caledonian Market, that great open-air fair where the bar-gain-hunter looks for spoil, not as a buyer, but as a seller of something stark .necessity makes you part with, you will, if the Gordons are to be believed, receive a fair deal from the traders there if you show them you rely upon them not to take advantage of your ignorance. “If,”, said one of those traders, “you bring me something and ask me a small price, why, then, I pay it. That’s your look-out. If you bring something and try to get the better of me, then I say to myself, ‘all right, lad, I’ll teach you a lesson.’ But if you come to me tad tell me that you don’t know the value, and ask me straight what the thing’s worth to me, I’ll tell you as near as I can afford to pay, and that won’t be far off the real market value. Lor’ bless you it wouldn’t pay us to go round doing people. This isn’t a gamble, it’s business, and to get anywhere Li business you’ve got to be straight.” The authors have a warm regard for humanity. Mrs. ‘Arris, the char-lady is a delight. She is one of those workers “who are not of the serving classes; she was a working woman, founded not primarily on a kitchen-sitting-room and a semi-private bedroom, but on her own home, husband and family. She sold her labour, but not the core of her existence.”

“Loife 1” said Mrs. Harris after the first introduction. “What I don’t know abaht loife ain’t ’ardly wuth knowing. ’Aven’t I had twelve children of me own ?” She had the physique of a dray-horse, the sharpness of the Cockney, an independence that poverty could not quench, and a philosophy and judgment that was tempered with kindness and humour. Mrs. ’Arris’ method of dealing with a troublesome school inspector is one of the best stories in the. book. But the authors reflect that with all her manifest humanity there came - a moment, even with Mrs. Harris, when decent jocularity became impertinent familiarity. Perhaps it was because they had the wit to see that ; moment when it arrived that the Gordons found Mrs. Harris so priceless a household adviser and helper. . ,J _ . A clever chapter is devoted to the “New Poor.” - They are the people for whom. the war; and. the economic difficulties of the post-war years have destroyed most, of .their old standards of liying. Some of them have" to face real privation,- all 7 of them conditions that to an- earlier; generation would have entailed a withdrawal into obscurity where poverty would have been..borne in silence and almost with shame. But a saner outlook prevails to-day. Lack of means is too widespread in- England to be accounted the fault of those who suffer it Values in living have changed, cheerfulness is found possible even when affluence has departed and the authors met many people who “refuse to admit that life, merely because it is hedged in by monetary limitations, should be either uncomfortable or deprived of all grace,” and some “transpose the department of housekeeping from the dull .kitchen, its normal abode, into the realms of sport.” And domestic economy as a sport has, say the authors, done a good dealto endear it to the New Poor. It is their sportsmanship that appeals. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon are Bohemian enough to see that the unorthodox can be refreshing though they have no patience with the “arty” bohemianism that is but another . term for sponging upon friends, selfish slovenliness or worse. !

Mrs. Gordon went to Hyde Park to sketch the speakers and their listeners at that open-air Parliament. Week aftey week the same habitual listeners strained their ears to absorb the same 'interrupted ineptitudes, but it was a soldier who pointed out to the artist that it was “the long-nosed folk what listens and the short-nosed what gets the fidgets and walks off,” an observation proved correct by. the artist’s sketchbook. London life is sketched from many angles. ,The parks, even the river beaches where the slum children bathe, and where in various shades of bathingdresses “colour has touched their drab lives with a hint of pagan beauty”; a nudist camp, evidently a dreary experience; performance for the 8.8. C.; an evening in a woman’s doss-house; and experiences behind the stage when a London pantomime is in progress. In aH these and other scenes the authors found that “London in its apparently formless complexity shows a coherence of its own.” They found that as the chaos and the poverty of architecture were made bearable and even dignified by the everchanging and beautiful atmosphere, so the first chill aloofness of London was more than mitigated by the profoundly human quality of the London individual, whose easy humanity made contact a continual delight. To those who know London at all this book will give great pleasure, and to those who do not it will give a series of pictures and adventures in living that are extremely interesting as well as provocative of something a little deeper.

The following books by D. ,H. Lawrence have just arrived; price 5/-, postage 3d: England, My England, Aaron’s Rod, Sons and Lovers, The Lost Girl, The Rainbow, The White Peacock, Kangaroo, The Ladybird. A. J. Fyfe Ltd., “The Book People,” New Plymouth. ’Phone 1397 *