Volume 4, Number 12 · July 15, 1965
Dangerous Acquaintances
By Richard Ellmann
Arthur Symons: A Critical Biography
by Roger Lhombreaud
Dufour, 333 pp., $7.50
Roger Lhombreaud disappoints the hope that this first biography of Symons might obviate the need for another. He is straightforward and affable, but Symons was affable too, and more rigor is required in his biographer. M. Lhombreaud has worked on Symons for over ten years, and he is the first to take advantage of the many unpublished papers and letters now scattered among several libraries. He sometimes summarizes these but rarely quotes from them, though his book would profit from detailed-evidence. Instead he prefers to quote at length from formal reminiscences of Symons by other writers; while correcting factual errors he fails to offer sufficient comment to bring this material within his own perspective. When problems of interpretation appear, as with Symons's insanity or his possible obsession with evil, M. Lhombreaud offers a few psychiatric words and otherwise declines responsibility for analysis. In four long and loosely organized chapters which make up the book, he moves uncertainly from topic to topic, underplaying his hand.
Review, 1188 words
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