Fiction
Transmappamondia
The Emperor's Tigers. By Valentine Dobree. (Faber and Faber. 6s.).
THE publishers describe Mrs. Dobree's book as an allegory, but there are several minor allegories woven around the main theme of the story. The spiritual adventures of an emperor are described, of an emperor imprisoned by his name (supposed in this land to determine his attributes and character), and by the elaborate etiquette prescribed for his family. In the despairing condition induced by his situation he seizes the precedent of an eccentric ancestor to make a hobby of tigers, for which he sends his most trusted counsellor. On his return, however, with the tigers, the tradition and the pictures which survive in this tigerless country from the time of the ancestor referred to cause doubt to be thrown on the genuineness of the real tigers and the probity of the counsellor, which then become the subject of a State trial. Everybody, of course, forgets both the Emperor and the accused, and the court is only brought to cease its argument by the introduction of the tigers themselves, but not before it has managed to pronounce against John (the counsellor). Alone with him on the tower of execution, however, the Emperor realizes that John is his only sincere friend, and the two depart from the country on a voyage of adventure, from which the Emperor only returns. We leave him sitting, a contented beggar, at his palace gates, with urchins stealing the gold which his unconscious son drops into his bowl.
Mrs. Dohree has chosen a fertile theme, which she handles with dignity and feeling. In addition, she has given us a wealth of embellishment in her description of the habits and religion of the Transmappamondians, to all of which we can find parallels in those of our own day. The elevation of the pathetically human Empress, before the birth of a child, upon nine cushions, from which she is never allowed to descend : the arrangements for ensuring both the Emperor's virtue and the birth of an heir : the gardens of artificial flowers, perfumed with fashionable scents : these, and others, are details in which the reader will delight. The description of a unicorn hunt, and that of the State trial arc complete satires in themselves. Transmappamondia is in the same quarter of the world as Lilliput. It is interesting to compare the nature of the foibles satirized in the descriptions of the two countries. We think that Mrs. Dobree's book will survive even such a comparison.
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