Nine Twentieth-Century Essayists

by Harold C. Gardiner (Editor)

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Barak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I quite enjoyed this compact book.

I mean, sure, some of the essays were a bit tiresome as they were written more than 50 years ago about subjects such as how and when it is most effective to cut hay. But hey, others were funny, engaging and even still relevant (such as E. M. Forster' Does Culture Matter?).

I always found rewarding that History of Ideas' perspective which attempts to decipher what was it that bothered people at a specific era, what caused their tossing and turning at night, what were the things they found significant in their lives.

Two examples are Sir Max Beerbohm's nervousness in the essay Speed:

We are constantly told by the press that we must be "traffic-conscious." But there is really no need to tell us we must be so. How could we be otherwise? How not be concussion-apprehensive, annihilation-evasive, and similar compound words? When the children of this generation, brought up in fear, shall become adult, what sort of nervous ailments will their progeny have, one wonders? Many of the present children won't grow up at all. Very ole people and very young people form the majority of those who are annually slaughtered upon the roads.

and Orwell's ironical disbelief in the essay Marrakech:

As the Jews live in self-contained communities they follow the same trades as the Arabs, except for agriculture. Fruit-sellers, potters, silversmiths, blacksmiths, butchers, leatherworkers, tailors, water-carriers, beggars, porters - whichever way you look you see nothing but Jews. As a matter of fact there are thirteen thousand of them, all living in a space of a few acres. A good job Hitler wasn't here. Perhaps he was on his way, however, You hear the usual dark rumours about the Jews, not only from the Arabs but from the poorer Europeans.
"Yes, mon vieux, they took my job away from me and gave it to a Jew. The Jews! They're the real rulers of this country, you know. They've got all the money. They control the banks, finance - everything."
"But," I said, "isn't it a fact that the average Jew is a labourer working for about a penny an hour?"
"Ah, that's only for show! They're all moneylenders really. They're cunning, the Jews."
In just the same way, a couple of hundred years ago, poor old women used to be burned for witchcraft when they could not even work enough magic to get themselves a square meal.