THE NEW BOOKS

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19399, 27 October 1934, Page 18 (Supplement)

THE NEW BOOKS

A COCKROACH LOOKS AT LIFE. ARGHY’S LIFE OF MEHITABEL. By Don Marquis (Faber and Faber). It is some years now since Archy the Cockroach (or, as he would put it, archy the cockroach) first began to express his practical sni.il on the Ivpewriter kindly provided by Don i Marquis. Unfortunately, since typewriters were not designed for the use of insects, he could only operate the machine by jumping hard on each key in turn. It was obviously impossible for him to use. two keys at once, and hence capitals’and punctuation marks were (quite literally) beyond his reach. In another age this might have been a fatal obstacle to a poet but luckily (and it was not altogether a coincidence) Archy was born into an era of free verse. He has been writing free verse in the columns of the daily press ever since; and this is the latest volume of his, collected works. It is pointed out in the preface that Archy has had a longer life than was anticipated.- He was invented at a time when satirizing was a common pastime among comlo writers every Where: and Archy was Intended as an ingenious means of carrying on the good work. But he has survived beoause his verse is genuinely funny quite apart from Its merits as burlesque. Some of it, It is true, is still frankly parody. There is an amusing Kipling piece, for’ instance: , the waterspout came bellowing out of red horizon’s rim and the grey typhoon and the black monsoon' surged forth to the fight with him With three-Told might they surged to the fight for they hated the big bull roach and they cried begod as they lashed the sod and. here Is an egg to poach But most of it consists of Arohy’s unaided reflections on life. Sometimes they are hostile to man: man cannot even make war with the efficiency and generalship of an army or-warrior ants and he has done little else hut make war for centuries make war and wonder how he Is-going to pay Tor It man is a. queer looking gink who uses what brains be bas to get himself Into trouble with and then blames It on the fates the only Invention man ever made which we Insects do not have Is money and he gives up everything else to get money and then discovers that It Is not worth What he gave up to get It And there are other times when he frankly meditates revolution: 1 have declared war upon humanity 1 even feel 1 shall fling the mighty atom that splits a planet asunder 1 ride that microbe that crashes down- Olympus where have you been you ask me where 1 am Jove and rrom my seat on the edge of a bowl of beef stew 1 launch the thunderous moleculte .that smites a cosmos Into bits. > But In his milder moments he decides that It is his mission in life “ to bring humans and ’cockroaches Into a better understanding with each other, to establish some -sort of entente cordlale or hands across the kitchen sink arrangement." , It Is possibly with this object in view that he writes the life of Mehltabel the cat. Mehltabel was also created as a very pleasant help in time of satire. She Is a very modern cat: and her "loveliffc n Is. described with some of the freedom that other writers In modern metres permit themselves. It was In an earlier volume that -she inspired the immortal lines (at least one hopes they will -be immortal) its cbeerio my deario that pulls a lady through and her autobiography, which Archy lIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIii

GOOD ENTERTAINMENT.

' " THE ROAD TO NOWHERE." By Maurice Walsh. (Chambers.) One can always rely on being pleasantly entertained by Mr. Walsh’s books and this, though not quite up to the standard of “ While Rivers Run ” and “ The Small Dark Man," is good reading. It Is perhaps not so fullblooded in Its action as "'Blackcock’s Feather" but not a whit behind It in the furious scraps of its two-<flsted tinkers. “ The Road to Nowhere " is rather a strange tale with stranger characters and tells of how one Rogan Stuart, erstwhile Scottish Rugby international, seeks peace of soul after being deserted by his wife and daughter. He becomes suspected of complicity in a murder and joins the family of Jamesy Coffey, a wealthy gypsy .leader, as a tinker his idea being to lose his identity till the facts of the murder are revealed and also to give an outlet in the open air life to his own restlessly, slumbering soul. So he becomes “ Rogue McCoy, travelling man •—outcast from heaven and hell—going the twisty roads of Ireland In Jamesy Coffey’s tail and abiding by Janfesy Coffey’s .code" and follows the road to nowhere with a promise to return after a year. Queer characters his -lot falls among: Shamus 'Og, -Coffey’s pugnacious' ■’son, Maag Carty his tantalising wife, Captain Eudmon Butler, ‘terror on two feet in love or war’ and the cause of all his misery, Julie Brian, Elspeth Trant for whose sake he fights a glorious battle with Jamesy keeping the crowd back and Shamus Og laying out the Sergeant intent on interfering. Jamesy’s narrative of this light as told In court after McCoy’s arrest is an exhilarating bit of work:

“ Mart in this chair to-day, your Honour, have swore that It was a rough fight an’ a dirty fight: an’ I ask anyone here to-day what chance would any man have against the Black captain with parlour tricks? M. your Honour, ’twas two hardy men Tull of hot blood, face to face and nothin’ barred. Up and down, in and out, on the ground and off the ground, over the guard and } inc *® r the guard, collar and elbow, the In3ide lock and the back heel, the point of the elbow, the pan or the knee —they were all there an’ more besides —an’ need for your Honour! An’ they took the Black Captain—what was lert or him —to the hospital above on the back ot a door. An’ Rogue McCoy stood like a rock on his two reet, with two of the guards at his side an’ no hand touchtn him. He was as quiet as that when it was all over. Pity you didn’t see it, your Honour.” , . . „ / “It was not so bad at second hand, murmured the Justice as he bent over the papers to hide his twitching nostrils, the fighting devil In Ills eye.”

It would spoil a good tale to tell how -the mystery of the murder was solved and ho-w Rogue McCoy overcomes the Black Captain and wins from hint the charming -Elspeth Trant. > “ The Road to Nowhere " can be recommended as a tale though the oompany of swearing gypsies with . their outlandish tongue rather leaves one guessing at times —they are perhaps such as never were on land or sea but a few hours of the fantsstlo are not bad when one is content to let one’s ,fanoy take one anywhere. G.M.

relates here, Is full of the same spirit. Occasionally Archy signs of feeling the strain of having to meet the dally (or weekly) demands of subeditors: but on the whole he keeps It up very well; and his creator canclfflm. to have added something to the stock of very excellent light verse that stands to the credit of the twentieth century. —D.H.M.