Words Through a Windowpane

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The biographer and translator of Ibsen and Strindberg engagingly begins his memoirs with his Jewish childhood in Oxford during World War II. He describes adolescent meetings with Beerbohem and Shaw, his education at Wellington and Oxford, lecturing and writing in Sweden, friendships with Orwell, Koestler, Graham Greene and the poet Sidney Keyes, acquaintanceships with Gielgud, Olivier, Richardson, Tynan and other leaders of British literary and theatrical life. Meyer's fund of amusing anecdotes seems inexhaustible; the chapter about the mishaps during Ingmar Bergman's staging of Hedda Gabler for London's National Theatre is a highlight. Anyone even half-interested in postwar British culture will regard this as one of the most enjoyable books in recent years. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)

Library Journal

A scholar, translator, and biographer of Ibsen and Strindberg, Meyer has been associated with the London literary and theatrical scene for the past 40 years and has known many of the writers, directors, and actors of the time. In this memoir he offers humorous anecdotes about such notables as Ingmar Bergman, Ralph Richardson, Graham Greene, and George Orwell that should delight lovers of theater and literature alike. In addition, he manages to convey some of the difficulty inherent in translation, an often ignored and unappreciated art. Unfortunately, the appeal of this book is limited by the appearance throughout of film credit-like lists of who played in what play, interesting to avid theater history buffs but tedious to most readers.-- Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo