MISCELLANY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27149, 19 September 1953, Page 3

MISCELLANY

Return to Goli. By Peter Abrahams. Faber. 224 pp.

Peter Abrahams is a well-known and gifted coloured South African novelist, author of “Wild Conquest” and “Path of Thunder.” For many years he has been living abroad on terms of equality with white men. His new book describes his often sadly humiliating return to his native Johannesburg (of which the African name is Goli) after an absence of 12 years. During his life abroad, Abrahams had been a Communist and he worked on the staff of the “Daily Worker” for a time; but he is a Communist no longer, though the attitudes of mind which impelled him toward communism largely remain. He is, however, a skilled and conscientious observer and . one capable of seeing social problems from many angles. His account of South Africa today presents in vivid terms the dilemmas of Africans, Indians and Whites as well ? s Coloureds. His sympathies are wide, if his indignations are understandably strong. His picture of the' present situation in Kenya, through which he returned on his way back to England, suffers more from an anti-white bias and insufficient information than his account of South Africa which he knows much more intimately. Flying Dutchmen. Narrative of an Expedition of Discovery from Australia to the Netherlands with the “Flying Dutchmen.” By Frank Clune. Illustrations by Bert Zimmerman. Angus and Robertson. 271 pp.

The refreshingly downright and outspoken opinions and prejudices of Mr rrank Clune, combined with his inexhaustible . curiosity and zest for travel and information, make him a deservedly popular author. In this book he describes a trip to Holland, by air via Biak Island. Manila, Bangkok, Karachi and Cairo. Mr Clune is full of admiration for the Dutch people; he is in favour of an Aus-tralian-Dutch pact, considers the new Dutch settlers a great asset to Australia, and makes no bones about stating baldly that it was a tragedy that the Dutch should have been driven from Indonesia by “fat-headed idealists” in England, the United States and other Western countries. He lays out for his readers in clear and vigorous style ail that they can want to know about Holland—its history, its scenery, its food, cities and architecture, its industry and art. bulbs and pottepr, dams and gin. His interviews with eminent Dutchmen are reported in lively style, his political comments are full of robust common sense, and the whole book gives as vivid a picture of Holland and the irrepressible Mr Clune inspecting it as could be desired.

Crockford’s or The Goddess of Chance in St. James’s Street, 1828-1844. By A. L. Humphreys. Hutchinson. 220 PP. Chock-full of anecdote and gossip, this account of the celebrated nine-teenth-century gambling house will attract many readers, in spite of its rather rambling and disconnected style. The story of Crockford himself, the uneducated ex-fishmonger, who made such rapid progress as a successful gambler and so cleverly established his club as the favourite haunt of the “beau monde,” is accompanied by many tales of the festive and luxurious atmosphere of the club and of the distinguished figures who patronised it. Among them were Disraeli. Talleyrand, the Duke of Wellington. Prince and Princess Lieven, Lord George Bentinck, Creevey, the diarist. Charles Greville and a host of dandies “muscular and otherwise.” Mr Humphreys makes very full use of contemporary reminiscences, letters and verses. . The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. f By Maria Augusta Trapp. Geoffrey Bles. 287 pp. The Trapp Family Singers are an Austrian family—until recently, 12 in number—who made their fame first in Austria and later in the United States, where they came as refugees in the late 1930’s after having refused to sing at a command performance for Hitler. Mrs Trapp, who tells her personal l story as well as that of the family, is a writer of charm and talent. As a young girl, ready to become a novitiate in the famous Convent of Nonnberg iff’ Salzburg, she was sent by the Abbess to be nurse-governess to the daughters of Baron von Trapp, a retired captain in the Austrian Navy and expert on submarine warfare, a widower. She later married the captain, and it was she who started the family on their career as singers, beginning with the many old Austrian folk-songs she bad learned on her wanderings through the Alps with a group of young people from the Austrian Catholic Youth Movement. She provides a delightful picture of family life in an old Austrian country-house and plenty of entertainment in her account of the family’s adjustment to American life. Daybreak in China. By Basil Davidson. Jonathan Cape. 191 pp.

It was only coincidence, says Mr Davidson, that his visit to Communist China among a group of people invited by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, took place at the same time as the Peking Peace Conference. But the observant reader, not missing a friendly reference to Russian culture on the first page and a broad .sneer at Americans on the second page, will quickly realise that Mr Davidson hardly went to China with an open mind. He did not speak Chinese, but had to obtain his information through official interpreters. However, he denies having any bias. “My bias,” he says, “is for China’s freedom.” He considers that “daybreak” has definitely come to China, and that the “new democracy” is forging ahead in spite of great difficulties. He notes, as all observers to Communist countries note, the remarkable puritan smugness of the young people. A conversation with his interpreter is reported: I asked her if she had come from a working-class family. “Oh no,” she said, “I wasn’t lucky enough for that.” “Does that matter?” “Of course it matters. It makes it much more difficult. Being bom in the middleclass, I mean.” "Did you suffer from that?” She thought for a moment, very serious, and said: “Perhaps the only thing I suffered is that I fall behind the others. I try to learn, but I’m slow. I still have selfish thoughts.” Mr Davidson believes that we in the West should see the revolution in China as inspired by ideals of “selfless personal service.” And he assures us that culture, religion and above all industrialisation are free to flourish in the Chinese People’s Republic. The Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs will not regret their invitation to Mr Davidson. Springtime at St. Hilaire. By Eric and Barbara Whelpton. Museum Press. 192 pp. In this pleasant book, with attractive illustrations in colour by Mrs Whelpton, an English couple describe the leisurely life in a French provincial town. The town of which they write is not really called St. Hilaire, but it does exist. Like hundreds of other towns and villages, it has its river where the inhabitants fish on Sundays, its Cafe Metropolitan, where they congregate each evening, its annual carnival, its narrow streets of grey stone houses, and its humorous and shrewd men and women. Mr and Mrs Whelpton provide little character-sketches and amusing anecdotes and succeed admirably in capturing the atmosphere of their peaceful, but never dull, representative French town.

Anyone thinking of taking up the sport of sailing will find the answers to all his questions in HOW TO SAIL, by John Fisher (Eyre and Spottiswoode). Whether he owns a sailing dinghy or something bigger, whether he races or cruises or just does a bit of day sailing, the yachtsman will find a wealth of information in this book, the latest addition to the “How to Play” series. The subjects range from building a boat to what to wear when sailing it, knotting and splicing, how to read charts and understand weather forecasts, hints for the racing helms-, man, and so on. It is a “must” for any sailing man’s shelves, be he tyro or