Old Valentines

• Old Valentines is full of publishing industry in-jokiness, so I assumed the author worked in publishing. He did not.
• I also assumed he was English and didn’t understand why The Bookman was trying to explain British marriage licenses to him. He was not.

• Still, was that really necessary, Bookman? After he name-dropped your magazine, too.
• This is what I meant about publishing industry in-jokiness.
• Anyway, it turns out that Munson Havens was actually, for many years, the Secretary of the Cleveland, Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
• This isn’t particularly important, but the book-world flavor of Old Valentines is the best thing about the book.
• Which is not to say there’s anything wrong with the rest of it. I liked it a lot. The story is just very, very slight.
• Phyllis Oglebay lives with her uncle, Sir Peter Oglebay. Her parents died when she was a kid. As a young woman, she meets and falls in love at first sight with an unpublished poet, John Landless.
• Yeah, I don’t like it when people fall in love at first sight, mostly because it’s super, super boring. I found it difficult to like either Phyllis or John during the courting stage.
• I liked them more after they ran away to get married.
• Havens’s characters are pleasant, and occasionally fun, to watch interacting with each other.
• The story, such as it is, is over sooner than you think it will be. Then it keeps going for a while, for no apparent reason.
• Phyllis’s friend Peggy likes Stalky & Co. better than Kim, and I want to say so do I, but…Look. If you ask me if Stalky is my favorite Kipling, I will say yes, but if you ask me if I like Stalky better than Kim I will have no answer.