Customer Reviews

The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17

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This is one of the wittiest books I've ever read and even though it's a book of mostly political essays, in coming back to it after having put it down for a day, I have that same sense of reentering another time and place populated by a host of interesting characters that you have with a really good novel. Here are just a couple quotes, selected at random:

"...the true tragedy of Oscar Wilde, the common enough tragedy of the clever young provincial who enters the deadly dull salons of London and, finding that the wit which was exacted from him as ordinary conversation by the more particular provinces is hailed as genius by the bored Londoners, forthwith abandons honest, artistic work."

[Defending Gaby Deslys, a dancer who was criticized for her scantily clad performance:] "When she crossed the Palace stage she turned the audience's thoughts to May mornings, and ices and money enough to go where you like. Now if most of us crossed the Palace stage, we would turn the audience's thoughts to November evenings and cold cocoa and thirty shillings a week in the Post Office."

And now a nonrandom selection, from a book review:

"The immense significance of this work lies in its binding."

The immense significance of this book lies not in the binding but in the ideas and observations of the brilliant mind whose words lie inside.