Talk:The Swinging Caravan

Reviews

 * The Bookman, 1926 January: "Tales of the East and its people which rival Kipling’s best."


 * The Independent, 1925 Nov 26: Short stories of uneven quality in Levantine settings, where sheiks and sheikesses abound. The worst story is, for some unaccountable reason, placed first. M’sieu Abdullah may be Levantwise, for all we know, but he is not Bostonwise in the least. Else he would not dot the Back Bay with antimacassars. Antimacassars happened ever so long ago, and the Back Bay now contains at least eight ton sailing ships to one antimacassar. Some of the other stories are fascinating slices of Eastern life, and good yarns to boot.


 * The New Republic, Dec 30, 1925: His collection of “short stories” is a dazzling succession of scenic effects and a startling confusion of tongues rather than a literary creation. Mr. Abdullah's extraordinary fluency in lingual, racial and social catch phrases—a dragomanic gift of tongues—distracts attention from plots that against another background would seem creakingly artificial. But who can challenge verisimilitude of emotion and conduct—even “European” conduct—staged in Samarkand? Most of the stories are brilliantly plausible; all are spectacular; but to this reader only one—The Great Wife—went below the surface glitter to emotional verities. One wishes Mr. Abdullah would leave off startling the bourgeoisie and be content to touch them.