ELECTRIC DELIGHTS
By
A vintage English belletrist, Plomer was at home in forms as diverse as the novel, poem, opera libretto, travel piece, and radio talk. Here his ""electric delights"" (""of admiring what is admirable""--Charlotte Bronte) range widely. An odd but logical-if-you-think-about-it defense of the mixed metaphor, plus appreciations of, among others, the Dutch novelist Louis Couperus and the grimly grinding George Gissing (Plomer knows Gissing didn't write great novels, or even very good ones; but there's something there of value that Plomer, the least concerned of men with critical fashion, means to air) and poet F. T. Prince and the country curate diarist Francis Kilvert--Plomer makes you want to go and hunt these books out. The travel pieces are modest in venue--Ireland, Brighton--but may contain his finest prose, which is very fine indeed. A charming and ambient selection, then, of one very liberal literary mind's grace.