Words Through a Windowpane: A Life in London's Literary and Theatrical Scenes

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.)