The Private Life of Helen of Troy
by . Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1925. 12mo. x+293 pp. $2.50.
THIS is a skit — two hundred and ninety-three pages in length — made up of conversations by persons who bear the names of the Homeric characters. The language and tone of the work are studiously prosaic, unerringly commonplace, and designedly slipshod. This modern and local atmosphere is so conscientiously maintained that the differentiation between the various characters of the book all but disappears. The author seems to have felt this; for he has inserted an unescapable preliminary ‘Note,’ saying that ‘Helen, apart from her divine beauty and entire frankness, was a conventional woman.’ This does not Help us much; for all the characters are conventional and all are frank.
Indeed the book belongs to a class of literature in which all the characters are conventional and frank. The germ of this literature came from the drama. A situation is exposed, and there ensues a great deal of talk. Ibsen led the way in this field; Shaw, Brieux, Bourget, and others followed. The great public thereupon took to reading plays, and the prose-writers took to writing conversations. The next step was to have the talkers hold forth in the weeklies and dailies. Hence Chesterton and our own columnists.
The Private Life of Helen of Troy is to be taken as ‘admirable fooling,’ and relies on its wit for its appeal. The author, by adopting the Homeric names, finds his situations ready-made, and he adds a few turns of his own to the plot. But the main thing is the talk. Almost any page will reveal the mood of the book, and a reader who enjoys the mood will enjoy the whole book.
Those portions of it which reflect contemporary life and current topics are to be found in the many recurrent discussions of Marriage, Divorce, Love, Concubinage, and so forth, and perhaps the book may have a future historic interest as showing the languid manner in which such matters were dealt with in the drawing-rooms of Nineteen-twenty-five.
Helen’s own point of view is familiar to us through the old English school of wit, best seen in Wycherley’s comedies, and revised by Oscar Wilde. She says, for instance, ‘In Marriage, if anywhere, you need the courage of your convictions, at least at the beginning. . . . If we only knew beforehand and accepted the implications, that happiness is the last thing to ask of love. . . We have to build up the illusion before we can be disappointed. . . . You always think it Menelaus you’re embracing, and it turns out to be Paris,’ and so forth.
There is no use in arguing about what is or is not amusing, and every reader must decide for himself whether any particular book of admirable fooling suits him. I confess that there is one remark of Menelaus’s that makes me laugh whenever I think of it. This is when he says. ‘ If there’s one thing I hate it’s a family quarrel.’ But the length and the monotony of the book are severe. Everyone knows that a first-rate burlesque is the best thing in the world. But how about a ‘pretty good ' burlesque?
JOHN JAY CHAPMAN