NEW FICTION

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28128, 17 November 1956, Page 3

NEW FICTION

The True Cross. By Carlo Scarf oglio. Translated by Frances Frenaye. Gollancz. 330 pp. English-speaking readers of the *True Cross’ will be reminded of gcotfs “Ivanhoe,” a book which is concerned with the same period of history, viz that of the Third Crusade But Scott’s novel is a romantic tale, while Mr Scarfoglio’s is one of grim realism. The hero of the book is a voung Italian full of pious simplicity who is taken by his father to Palestine to join the Knights of the Temple in the war against the famous Saracen leader Saladin. The young man is called Guido and after his father has returned, he finds himself progressively disillusioned and soon leaves the Templars who are sunk in vice. While King Baldwin IV, who is a leper, is king of Jerusalem, the struggle against the Saracens is successful. But when he dies, the crown passes to a child, and all the jealousies and hatreds of the crusade leaders end. in a disintegration of the Christian armies. The author paints a vidid picture of the strange chivalry that existed between the Christian an Saracen forces, a chivalry that was offset by the scenes of degradation and horror which accompany it. At the end of 15 years the final blow is given to Guido’s faith in the fight for the Holy Sepulchre and the True Cross when King Richard I of England comes, with his army, to within 15 miles of Jerusalem and when Saladin is in hopeless position. The king retires from the Crusade, and leaves the city to the Moslems. Guido on board ship to return to Italy. While on the voyage he reflects in 'the ruin of Feudalism and the decay of Europe's faith, and comes to realise that the True Cross is not of word, but is the ever present Christ. During a storm in which the ship is presumably lost, he dies. This is a melancholy story told with a great knowledge of thirteenth century Palestine. The Sponge Divers. By Charmian Clift and George Johnston. Collins. 318 pp. This novel, by the authors of “The Big Chariot” and “High Valley,” tells the story of a courageous people struggling for survival. Kalymnos, a small barren Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean, has for 3000 years relied for its livelihood on the abundant but elusive riches of the sea. Untouched by industrial and social progress, the island and its people have retained a primitive and unsophisticated charm rarely found in the world today. Its way of life—almost unchanged through the centuries—has always been linked with the sea and with hardship and uncertainty often imposed by that cruel master. In recent years Kalymnians have been pponge divers, but are now faced with economic extinction by the genius of an age that can produce sponges—and other commodities—more cheaply in the laboratory. The authors, both Australians, have through living on the island acquired an intimate and sympathetic understanding of its problems. In spite of this no attempt is made to romanticise the inhabitants: the characters are drawn with brutal honesty and the stark beauty of people and the island is described in a series of convincingly significant incidents. Al! Honorable Men. By David Karp. Gollancz. 311 pp. David Karp’s two earlier novels “One” and “The Day of the Monkey” have been enthusiastically hailed as American counterparts of the prophetic satires of Orwell and Huxley That such clafms are exaggerated, in. spite of his undoubted gifts a's a storyteller, Mr Karp’s third novel amply demonstrates. It is a tale of American political life and the by now rather hackneyed subject of the “witch hunt.” The central figure. Dr. Milo Dexter Burney, who is a “creative administrator” of national reputation and liberal opinions, accepts—somewhat against his better judgment, and certainly not very plausibly—the position of head of an Institute for advancing and disseminating know Tledge of “the Conservative rationale.” The Institute is directed and financed by a small group of exceedingly rich and apparently sincere capitalists. But the capitalists soon start to McCarthyise an unfortunate professor who is a candidate for a post in the Institute. Burney fails to save him or his family. And the end of the book sees him resigning from the Institute tn go out and join an independent Committee for Justice dedicated *o the fight against McCarthyism. The story is quite a gripping one, even if the quality of the writing is not high and the quality of the thinking far from subtle. But such simpleminded melodramas can cast no real illumination upon the American, or any other, political scene. GENTLEMEN AT GYANG GYANG. by Brent of Bin Bin (Angus and Robertson. 220 pp.) will be enjoyed by those who like the Australian outback. Gyang Gyang is a high-country station used only for summer grazing. Into this setting comes a young artist, ostensibly in search of health —the owner is her godfather. Every man on the place falls in love with her. of course. The inevitable % villain, who uncovers her past life in Europe, and the hero, soon emerge and finally fight, almost to death.

The >- D , a I rl s of Summer. By Eric Linklater. Cape. 303 pp. _ JP 1 ? setting of Eric Linklater’s new R? ve L ls ° n , ce again his favourite one, * , Highlands. The story is a skilful linking of contemporary and Historical themes, a gripping narrative Ox modern wars entangled with the older conflicts of the Jacobite Rejn’ pauses in the narrative nlled as usual with Mr Linklater’s eloquent prose, lively wit, and characteristically strong opinions. On a personal plane, he snows his hero successfully struggling to free himself trom the hampering oppression of past guilt; on the public plane, he asserts the importance of tradition but of a tradition that, without being unduly hampered by memories of the past, can be forward-looking.

The Five Fathers of Pepi By Ira Avery. Gollancz. 189 pp. The warmth and colour of the little Italian beach town of Finale Ligure cannot help but reflect in the five ?V?}ple characters who take responsiX or a fetching little orphan called Pepi. They are loveable men, ?il ho , e hearts have been touched by tne loneliness of the young foundling lhe cabina proprietor, the cheesemaker, the hotel porter, the restaurateur and the philosopher pool their resources to provide for the child, and somehow manage not to spoil his naivety. Complications arise in the upbringing, but the beautiful Maria in love with the youngest and most handsome of the “fathers.” solves all the problems with the full approval of Pepi. Mellow as the old wine of r male Ligure, the story is rich in humour and humanity, and is short enough to read in a quiet week-end. A Room ,in Paris. By Peggy Mann. Longmans Green. 343 pp.

Stanley Kagen, an American G.I. art student wi£h very little talent and even less gumption, does not make an exciting hero. It is with Janet, the girl friend ■who represents everything he had left home to escape, that the real interest comes into the story. The author’s handling of life on the Left Bank, through the adventures of minor characters, is amusing and sympathetically told. The novel’s main virtue is its honesty of intent. The Angry Hills. By Leon Uris. Wingate. 229 pp. According to the dust jacket on “The Angry Hills,” the author’s previous novel “Battle Cry” has been purchased and presumably read by 63,000 persons, but he can hardly expect the same lucrative results from this book which is at best a repetition of the old, old story of the American who saves the British Empire from the fate which so often seems to threaten it. The setting is in Greece at the time for the withdrawal of the British forces in 1941 during which the central figure, Mike Morrison, becomes involved m a desperate last-minute bid by the British Secret Seryice to have a message taken back to London. His subsequent adventures with the Greek patriot bands make entertaining reading for those who enjoy Uris’s style. Spoilt Children. By Philippe Heriat. Translated from the French by Gerard Hopkins. Putnam. 303 pp. The tyranny of a family is the subject of this interesting French novel. It is unusual in French fiction in that the setting moves out of France to America; and the American scene, drawn with considerable understanding, is presented sympathetically, and perhaps symbolically, as having a liberating effect on the life of a young French woman stifled by her outrageous family. The Boussardels are an old and rich Paris family for whom the accumulation of money and property, and its retention within the family group are the sole purpose of living. Marriages are arranged, the arrival of children hailed, and the departure of the aged mourned, only as these will affect the future disposal of the family fortunes. Ruthless, cold, hypocritical, philistine, they are almost Balzacian monsters; and their pitiless destruction of the young woman in their midst struggling to assert her will against theirs has something of the power of a Mauriac situation. But occasional touches of melodrama, the odd character rather shadowy or perfunctorily caricatured, and a certain clumsiness in the flashback-technique of the novel, exclude this novel from the very first rank of modern French fiction.