SOURCE: "Down to the Sea," in Times Literary Supplement, No. 3659, April 14, 1972, p. 408.

The following is a mixed review of the translation of Planus, providing some description of the structure of the novel.

An "edited" version of Blaise Cendrars such as this poses many problems. The original of Planus was Bourlinguer, the third volume of the four "autobiographies" which Cendrars—poet, adventurer, business man and marvellous writer—published between 1945 and 1949. Bourlinguer is the one that combines real or fantasied autobiography with travelogue. The titles of its eleven sections are all great sea or river-ports: Naples, Antwerp, Rotterdam, etc, and finally Paris—"Port-de-Mer." Nina Rootes's editing has, at her publishers' request, reduced Bourlinguer from the 440 pages of its French (paperback) edition to a mere 220 pages in English. Is this wise? Is it justified? In a frank and useful "Translator's Note" she tells us the principles on which she did this...