Scholars and Gypsies by Walter Starkie (review)

342 MODERN DRAMA December SCHOLARS AND GYPSIES, by Walter Starkie, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963. 324 pp. Price $5.95. This autobiography represents the first two volumes by Dr. Walter Starkie. one of the most u!bane and versatile of modem scholars, best known for his charming books on European gypsy life and lore. Now visiting professor at the University of California and a member of the Irish Academy of Letters, he formerly was one of the directors of the Abbey Theatre during its heyday and first director of the British Institute in Madrid. He divides his recollections into two parts. aptly titled Adagio and Allegro to match the changing tempo of his activities as he unfolds with increasing interest the fruitfully maturing experiences of his earlier life. The first section covers his childhood in Dublin, his youth and his educational training at an English public school and at Dublin University. It ranges in time from the tum of the century to the period of the Easter Rebellion in 1916 when a terrible beauty was born. Not surprisingly in view of the fact that he came from a distinguished academic family. his emphasis is on the sedate but pleasant calm of academic life in Dublin, especially of his days at Trinity College, where his famous godfather, the lisping, snobbish Mahaffy, was Provost. He, however, also captures the quite contrasting spirit of excitement arising from the Irish Literary Revival and the Nationalistic movement. In doing so, he provides informative first-hand impressions of such figures as Casement, Connolly, Yeats, and Stephens. The second and more appealing part of Dr. Starkie's memories treats of his adventures with a Y.M.C.A. troup in North Italy where he put to good use his earlier training as a violinist to entertain the British troops waiting to return home after the first World War. Indeed, his musical abilities and his sociable instincts, happily for him and his readers, also opened the doors to some fascinating friendships with gypsy guitarists. At the same time, he was able to satisfy his youthful desire to roam as a wandering musician down to the southern tip of Italy. Further, his vagabond life allowed him to observe the dynamic D'Annunzio arousing the nationalistic fervor of the Italians, and to visit Verga then in retirement in Sicily. He concludes by telling of his engagement to the Italian girl who eventually became his wife. All in all, the enjoyable qualities of Scholars and Gypsies augurs well for an equally worthwhile sequel. MICHAEL J. O'NEILL University of Ottawa, Canada EUGENE IONESCO, NOTES AND COUNTER NOTES, WRITINGS ON THE THEATRE, translated by Donald Watson, New York, Groves Press, 1964, 271 pp. Price $5.50. In 1958 Kenneth Tynan, writing in the Observer, claimed that Ionesco's theater did not belong in the mainstream of dramatic history and questioned his importance as a renovator of theater in the twentieth century. Ionesco answered him in a letter published the following month, which gave rise to a full-scale polemic in which Toynbee, Orson Welles, and others joined. One reader wrote to say that Ionesco's letter was a brilliant refutation of "social realism" and concluded, "if only M. Ionesco were able to put some of its clarity and wisdom into his own plays-he might yet become a great playwrightl" Whether we agree with this last judgment or not, a reading of Notes and Counter Notes (in which these letters appear), in its crisp translation by Donald Watson. can only lead us to share this ...