The Entertainment of a Nation
By KNOPF, $2.50
COMMENTS on the Serious Drama, Musical Shows, Burlesque, Cabarets, Carnivals, and Coney Island, at this particular moment in the history of this particular nation, seem dated and quaint. Such fate, however, is not the fault of the author, but of our headlong times.
To many persons Mr. Nathan, particularly in his loftier and more erudite discussion of The Drama, is an acquired taste, like learning to eat and like durians. But when he steps into the elevator and descends from his penthouse in the Ivory Tower to view the lower levels of show business he relaxes into the perfect commentator. His critique of fustian and fake and folderol in this book is in the happiest manner of the famous Mencken-Nathan collaboration. The essential quality of the Great American Boob is mercilessly exposed in the discussion of the entertainment he pays cash to enjoy. Mr. Nathan’s chapters on such subjects as the Strip Tease and the Movies are not only critically acute but philosophically sound, and they are written in the lively and colorful idiom his readers know and like so well. Also this latest book shows signs of mellowing but no fatigue. The orange may tart, but it is an orange and not a lime. R. E. D.