The Letters of Noel Coward by Noel Coward
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Book Reviews of The Letters of Noel Coward
Book Review: NOEL COWARD UP & PERSONAL, BUT NOT LETTER-PERFECT
Summary: 1 Stars
The sheer output of the late Coward---plays, musicals, operettas, revues, movies, television and radio shows, verses, poems, short stories, autobiographies, diaries and a novel---might suggest to future generations that he was actually a brigade of bright young things banded together to bring wit, sophistication and a touch of class to the twentieth century. To this vast mountain of popular writings has been added a new book; at almost 800 pages, it is a massive volume, packed with a seemingly unending pile of trivia and minutia. There is actually painfully little of any worthwhile information not more readily available in the diaries and autobiographies, and the new information frequently falls into gossip, treacle or not really pertinent to a study of either the artist or his time. Purporting to tell the entire story, finally, of Coward as sort of an effete James Bond-type during World War II, there are letters which state that Coward was a spy for England. This has been said many times before, and the tome offers no new exciting anecdotes, breathless chases or heroic escapes. The backstage gossip is ephemeral to the point of absurdity: Marlene Dietrich had an unrequited crush on Yul Brynner; former Dennis resident Gertrude Lawrence may have had a lesbian relationship with Daphne du Maurier. And the weekly letters to his mother are downright embarrassing. Edited and arranged by Barry Day in a very clever manner including letters to Coward from his famous friends (along with Coward's replies) it's important to remember that these pieces were never really meant for publication. The wittier lines were always recycled into the public writings, and, unfortunately, there really isn't enough new material here to warrant the price or the girth of the work. Day has done yeomen work in turning Coward into his own cottage industry---this is the seventh book he's done on Coward's life and work, yet Coward's own dictum of responsibilities to an audience---shock them, amuse them, entertain them but never bore them---has been sadly ignored in this book. For greater fun, grab The Noel Coward Collection (BBC Video).