Books in the news; Essays of J.B. Priestley

Robert or Oman books in the news. A quick look at newly published material and books of interest. Your host Robert Oram director for public services at the University of Illinois Library in the preface to a recent collection of essays by J B Priestley published by Little Brown Susan Cooper raises again the old issue whether the personal essay is dead. The essay she says is not the prose equivalent of the sonnet bound fast forever to a traditional pattern. It's a piece of reflective writing whose pattern changed with the gradual and constant changing of English prose and in Priestley's essay she claims you can see the develop more clearly than in any other man's work. Well yes there are a few others been writing essays for five decades I'm hard put to challenge or when reading these essays some of them for the second time I was much heartened to know that they are as charming and as personal as ever and they do hold up well. The short pieces range McGrew published in 1922 to a set taken from New Statesman in 1967. The earliest collection is a jaunty one called on travel by train which brings back all those English novels which take place on trains rather sums up that pastoral occupation which is not quite so extinct in England as it is almost here. A moving version of Ms Harper Christie says now

becomes a very different creature one capable of sudden a few bodies and rotting patients. One type is a large middle aged woman with Ruskin voice and face of bras. From the moment she has wedged herself in there will be no more peace in the world of travel. Some children do not make good travelling companions she says in classic English understatement. They will spend all their time daubing their faces with chocolate or trying to climb up the window. But be wary of the older the man who sits in the corner of the Kerry gin says that the train is two minutes behind time or he is the Ancient Mariner of railway travellers and will hold you with his glittering eye. What we usually see the pictures are J B Priestley they're all plump and jolly with pipe in hand and there's this one on the dust jacket of his collection is no exception at 75 and even 75 is even more rotund to Ruby going to pipe is still there. Well the reasons for the pipe can be found in an essay from 1966 where he notes that he has been smoking a pipe for half a century. He admitted he's an slaved by tobacco but all men are enslaved by something and there's worse matters in the weed then after some complains about how expensive it is now compared to 50 years ago he concluded his ally in life has been

tobacco. Even with it I have too often been impatient and intolerant without it I should have been insufferable. You may retort that I am insufferable anyhow but with a pipe. Nice they're going. I do not believe you. That is just a touchy personal essay I should have. What seemed to me the best essay here is a literary one a subject which brings out the best in priestly in what happened to Falstaff. He examines in roughly 16 pages the great comic character of the night and notes sagely that whilst I was not only a wonderfully written himself but he has been the cause for good writing from others. Well is there really anything left to explore in the character of Falstaff he asks and answers only if we explore the mind of Falstaff creator. I'm summing up the train of thought here rather to simply but in essence he states that Falstaff got out of hand the dramatist and Shakespeare was defeated by the poet. The drama of making the prince howl into Henry the Fifth almost got overshadowed by that huge triumphant effortless creation of Falstaff. He says for the character who seems himself a genius cannot be sustained by a conscious effort and arrives in unconscious

depths. He was created by an explosion of rebellious energy the voice of the inner man condemning the outer world of power and glory which he had to celebrate in officially in the history plays. Shakespeare had to get rid of all stuff in him to 54 he could not do two contrary things at the same time. Further he of course could not successfully revive Falstaff for the Merry Wives of Windsor. Briefly then goes into into a generalization. And against those who would celebrate power and glory calls only fullest offer favors the rejection of Falstaff by Henry the Fifth is symbolic of the fear of delight in life which has come between England under men of genius. He makes a very interesting comparison between Falstaff and Oscar Wilde. When I was generous and compassionate and corrupted no one who had not already been corrupted and wild suggests to us he says. E's merriment wit and humor and he was banished by those who practiced current and hypocrisy the false stuff Winters was much more honest I say and it should be read in for what you are the other pieces in essays of five decades

by J B Priestley. Books and the news is prepared and presented by Robert or Aman sponsored by the Illinois State Library. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.