A Stunt

And literary novelties

The Slant Book by Peter Newell

More than it is anything else, this book is charming. It’s witty. But I suppose first I have to tell you what it is. Peter Newell was mostly an artist, and it is as an artist that he made his boldest effects in this book of poetry and illustration. Because Newell also cared about book design. The shape of the book. Its form. And this book is perhaps one of the first (at least of our own modern age) to use its shape as the central conceit in its story.

The story is simple. Like this. But first, of course, I have to tell you the shape of the book. It’s not hard to get. It’s right there, in the title. The book is on a slant. It’s more like a diamond shape than a cube. Does that make sense? It’s not perfectly horizontal. Not standing up straight.

I do hope I’ve explained it well.

Because the book itself is on a slant (at a daring forty-five or so degrees), the action in the story can commence. And that action is as follows: a baby, in a pram (a likely place for a baby to be) goes on an adventure. He does not escape the pram and contrive his way around New York city. He does not end up the chairman of a major company. He does not become president. Instead, the baby’s pram runs away; runs away with him in it.

This is the extent to the story’s plot.

But it is not the extent of the story’s humour.

Now, we have all, ladies and gentlemen, seen things run away before. Pets sometimes run away. Misunderstood children sometimes run away. I’ve heard stories of children (they were generally adults when they told me their stories, but they were children once) who considered running away but generally thought better of it.

Liquids can run away, possibly down drains, if the vessel they’re in gets overturned or starts to leak.

As we’ve established, therefore, things can run away. And in this story a pram runs away, with a baby inside, because the street featuring pram and baby is not straight but is instead at a rakish angle. That’s the situation, the set up.

You can imagine what happens next. Think of twenty scenarios. Twenty or so things that might be going on in a city. What would be funniest for a baby in a runaway pram to speed through? Would it be funny for the baby to interrupt a marching band, and to crash through the skin of the biggest drum? It’s possible. Would it be funny for an angler to nod off awaiting his catch, only to find out, in mid-air, that he has been walloped by baby and pram and is now sent off the jetty into the water below? It’s just possible that might be funny.

And think of all the other people apt to be disturbed by the baby and pram equivalent of a runaway train. The people enjoying a quiet, decorous picnic in the park. The artist, lining up a new canvas to be splattered with oils. The chubby woman of refinement and breeding who might find herself unwittingly scooped up into this little drama. Think of them all, why don’t you? Think of them all.

A dog chases the pram and leaps, snarling, to get at the baby, only to find itself carried along as the pram’s handle gets in the way and the dog hangs on to the conveyance. Undeterred, the baby reaches out to stroke the dog’s fur.

And think of the woman who finds herself caught up by the pram (perhaps she was waiting for a bus), to which the baby reacts by reaching out a hand, causal as you like, and asking for her fare, please.

Newell was an artist though the pictures here are not likely to be to everyone’s taste. It is a little chocolate box, a little sub-sub-sub Saturday Evening Post. Initially, I must say, I wasn’t so clearly a fan of his compositions. They seemed so obvious, so ordinary. The baby is more or less in the same place in the frame, more or less with the same expression on his face: enjoyment and glee, if you’d credit it. Babies rather liking it when things go wrong chaotically: it’s not much of a surprise.

But over time, over the pages, I must say it started to get funny. Funnier as time went on. The same expression of crazy delight at madness and destruction can get more amusing each time you see it. Or at least it may do for me. Whether you like it or not, of course, if your own business. And I won’t interfere.

I ought to say a little about the poetry that accompanies these pictures. I can’t tell you much more than that it is serviceable. It gives us the little extra that makes the jokes land (like the baby’s demanding a fare from his unwilling passenger, for instance). But the poetry is not all that excellent. It’s just padding, necessary to keep the pictures congruent and working together.

This book is a stunt, a gimmick. A slanted book for a look at life at a Dutch angle. But it’s quite a gimmick. Quite a stunt from an artist.