Oscar Wilde said of Hall Caine that the latter always wrote at the top of his voice. This is a charge which can never be made against K.P.S. Menon. He does not create any problems of decibel tolerance to his readers. His own style of writing is perfectly modulated, controlled and decorous, the naughty bits being introduced in the most dead pan fashion. This latest collection of K.P.S.’s articles leaves the reader grateful that there is someone so civilized, so articulate and so readable still around. Yesterday and Today contains several gems of the elegant, deliberately austere style to which we have been accustomed during the last thirty years from K.P.S.’s facile pen. There is always a little nugget of wisdom carefully cocooned in the smooth, civilized prose which is worth searching for. In several of the articles, apparently occasional, there is a toughness beneath the slight lyric grace which is at variance with our general picture of K.P.S. the writer, easy, self-assured, fluent and carefully avoiding knotty problOscar Wilde said of Hall Caine that the latter always wrote…ems and controversies.
October 1976, volume 1, No 4