IF "The Old Gang and the New Gang" were actually addressed to the Mr. and Mrs. Everybody of the first three chapters, the book would have little worth; for to them, to all but the few, its tone of complete scorn and sophisticated humor would be meaningless. To be sure, Mr. Lewis uses an imitation of Everybody's "langwidge," rich in "the missis" and "guys," and other expressions of the "Capone era," but his clever turns of phrase his pungent sarcasm are his own. It is to the intellectuals, to readers able to appreciate Lewis' habitual esoterica, that he writes, and his remarks to Mr. and Mrs. Everybody are biting, derisive.

In the fourth chapter, he deserts them and goes on to tell of Trotsky who "might almost have been one of those Society of Jesus guys"; and Hitler ("Funny name too! . . .ha, ha, ha!"); as well as good "old Mussolini" snatch babies, "youthies," "giovanni." the outcome is that Trotsky has "the big hips of a buxom nanny and the frowning mask of an emotional Polish pianist," an immense advantage over Mussolini and Hitler ("ha, ha, ha again") who can only shout the magic word "Giovenezza!"

All this discussion is but a prelude of obvious examples to the more subtle English "youthy" movement. This consists of a lot of by-election talk about new men to take the place of the old (the average man in Mr. MacDonald's Government is sixty-three years of age). What has happened to youth? Where are the Gladstones of a hundred years ago? What is the matter with the Oxford Union? some say all young men are under Flanders' Field; but in reality, according to Mr. Lewis, they have merely realised that politics is not a profitable business. This is not the case in America, however, where he finds a little healthy graft keeps the government from "stupidity"!

Having used the term "Lost Generation," Lewis thinks himself sufficiently justified to start a discussion of post war literature. This is him seems to have been fired by Mr. Sigfried Sassoon "in full Tallyho" mood. Somehow "the fox hunting man" suggests Eric Maria Remarque; and after some preliminary remarks about "All Quiet on the Western Front," Mr. Lewis pitches into the real interest of the modern critic, the author's life and personality. Investigation has shown him that in 1919 Remarque wore a uniform of a Lieutenant of the 91st Infantry Regiment, whereas the President of the Reichs-archiv has officially denied that his name appears on record. And ten years later he was calling himself Frieherr von Buchwald, known as Remark, and had a coronet on his visiting card. He then compares Remarque's account of the World War to Uncle Toby on the siege of Namur.

"The Old Gang and the New Gang" has the framework of one of Thackeray's Roundabout papers. Mr. Lewis refers to his clever title several times in the first half of the essay, and then forgets about it. His analysis of American politics is an incorrect as his remarks on Leon Trotsky. He tries to be a little too smart, to be sound. He siezes on a few irrelevancies, and builds on them a general philosophy.

Yet Wyndham Lewis is brilliant. He has a pointed, a trenchant style; and he has written one novel, which does not fall short of greatness. "Tarr." And with his equipment, he should not waste his time flying Remarque or Sassoon, if they are really as insignificant as he claims.