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The Parts Men Play By: Arthur Beverley Baxter (1891-1964) |
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THE PARTS MEN PLAY by ARTHUR BEVERLEY BAXTER Author of "The Blower of Bubbles" With Foreword by Lord Beaverbrook McClelland & Stewart
Publishers ======== Toronto
Copyright, Canada, 1920
By McClelland & Stewart, Limited, Toronto THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER JAMES BENNETT BAXTER WHO BELIEVED THOUGHT TO BE MORE IMPORTANT
THAN THINGS, AND WHO WENT THROUGH THIS
WORLD DISPENSING GENIAL PHILOSOPHY
AND KINDLY HUMOUR TO ALL
WHO CAME WITHIN
HIS CIRCLE
FOREWORD. Mr. Baxter is my countryman, and, as a Canadian, I commend The Parts
Men Play , not only for its literary vitality, but for the freshness of
outlook with which the author handles Anglo American susceptibilities. A Canadian lives in a kind of half way house between Britain and the
United States. He understands Canada by right of birth; he can
sympathise with the American spirit through the closest knowledge born
of contiguity; his history makes him understand Britain and the British
Empire. He is, therefore, a national interpreter between the two
sundered portions of the race. It is this rôle of interpreter that Mr. Baxter is destined to fill, a
rôle for which he is peculiarly suited, not only by temperament, but by
reason of his experiences gained from his entrance into the world of
London journalism and English literature. I do not know in what order the chapters of The Parts Men Play were
written, but it seems to me that as Mr. Baxter gets to grip with the
realities of his theme, he begins to lose a certain looseness of touch
which marks his opening pages. If so, he is showing the power of
development, and to the artist this power is everything. The writer
who is without it is a mere static consciousness weaving words round
the creatures of his own imagination. The man who has it possesses a
future, because he is open to the teaching of experience. And among
the men with a future I number Mr. Baxter. Throughout the book his pictures of life are certainly arresting taken
impartially both in Great Britain and America. What could be better
than some of his descriptions? The speech of the American diplomat at a private dinner is the truest
defence and explanation of America's delay in coming into the war that
I remember to have read. The scene is set in the high light of
excitement, and the rhetorical phrasing of the speech would do credit
to a famous orator. But I fear that I may be giving the impression that The Parts Men
Play is merely a piece of propagandist fiction something from which
the natural man shrinks back with suspicion. Nothing could be farther
from the truth. Mr. Baxter's strength lies in the rapid flow and sweep
of his narrative. His characterisation is clear and firm in outline,
but it is never pursued into those quicksands of minute analysis which
too often impede the stream of good story telling. I am glad that a Canadian novelist should have given us a book which
supports the promise shown by the author in The Blower of Bubbles ,
and marks him out for a distinguished future. If in the course of a novel of action he has something to teach his
British readers about the American temperament, and his American public
about British mentality, so much the better.
BEAVERBROOK.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. LADY DURWENT DECIDES ON A DINNER
II. CONCERNING LADY DURWENT'S FAMILY
III. ABOUT A TOWN HOUSE
IV. PROLOGUE TO A DINNER PARTY
V. THE OLYMPIANS THUNDER
VI. A MORNING IN NOVEMBER
VII. THE CAFE ROUGE
VIII. INTERMEZZO
IX. A HOUSE PARTY AT ROSELAWN
X. GATHERING SHADOWS
XI. THE RENDING OF THE VEIL
XII. THE HONOURABLE MALCOLM DURWENT STARTS ON A JOURNEY
XIII. THE MAN OF SOLITUDE
XIV. STRANGE CRAFT
XV. DICK DURWENT
XVI. THE FEMININE TOUCH
XVII. MOONLIGHT
XVIII. ELISE
XIX. EN VOYAGE
XX. THE GREAT NEUTRAL
XXI. A NIGHT IN JANUARY
XXII. THE CHALLENGE
XXIII... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
War stories |
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