Looking for a Bluebird. By Joseph Wechsberg. (Michael Joseph. 9s.
6d.) MR. JOSEPH WECHSBERG writes for the New Yorker. He is therefore at the top of his profession. This collection of autobiographical stories by a Czech musician who became a reporter and finally a citizen of the United States has the authentic blend of detachment and scepticism with a sort of shamefaced humanity and good sense which is the hall-mark of the best humorous writing in the best comic weekly in the world. The stories have also a simple charm and directness which may well be the envy of many British journa- lists. Perhaps Mr. Wechsberg is an 'unconscious product of an American tradition of light literature which is now so strong a growth that its seeds are taking root everywhere. However that may be, he writes stories full of bitter-sweet nostalgia for such unlikely past experiences as those of a second fiddle in a ship's orchestra, a member of the claque at the Vienna opera, and of a hungry client at the cafés near Place Pigalle which act as unofficial employment exchanges for dance-band musicians. There is no snatching at the cheap effects of New York's argot. These stories are simple and funny. Sometimes they are almost poetic.
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