MISCELLANY

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28322, 6 July 1957, Page 3

MISCELLANY

The Cat with Two Faces. By Gordon Young. Putnam. 223 PPThis is one of the most extraordinary spy stories to have come out of the last war. It concerns the* activities of a French woman named Mathilde Carre who played a prominent part iri the development of the original organisation of resistance to the Germans in France. When this immature effort at underground activity broke up Madame Carre changed sides and denounced most of her former colleagues, even being present at their arrests. Moving in German security circles she used her talents on their behalf until she again changed sides, being smuggled to England, this time with the connivance of both sides. Quite a feat even for one as practised at influencing people as was this little French woman. After a short period under guard she ended her wartime career in an English prison. Told by an able journalist, this strange story combines adventure in underground activity with an impartial and penetrating analysis of a very puzzling female character. To those who do not tire of war time stories it can be well recommended.

Cape Cold to Cape Hot. By Richard Pape. Odhams Press. 256 pages. *

This is a story of a journey by motor-car from North Cape in Norway to Cape Town in South Africa, a journey which had never been undertaken before. Richard Pape, author of “Boldness be my Friend” thought of the idea and drove the car with the intention of proving to the world that a standard model of an English car could undertake such a journey. By quarrelling with the first volunteer to accompany him Pape created t rival team to see who could reach Cape Town first. The book suffers because of this. Caught between the conception of a race and the personal problem of Pape, who is apparently only at home overcoming difficulties, material that should have been there, to make an interesting travel book, has been squeezed out. Nevertheless to give the author his due he shows an unusual determination, though he has little regard for the havoc he might cause in getting his own way. Later in the journey a more mature approach permits the reader to learn something of the country across which the mad rush takes place. The book is well illustrated with photographs.

Thirty Years Travelling Round the World. By Hans Grieshaber. Robt. Hale. 339 pp. The author is a Swiss reinsurance agent, and in the last thirty years his business has taken him on thirteen long voyages—five of them right round the world. On all his travels he kept diaries and these have served as a basis for this book. He has visited nearly every country on the earth, though he has not written about any part of either Europe or Russia. Throughout he has been careful to avoid talking politics or mentioning topics which are taboo to various nationalities. Whilst this redoubtable traveller is an unaffei ted and "/inquisitive explorer blessed with a sense of humour his interest is in glancing at places and in looking at people as parts of the local scenery rather than in history or politics or economics. He has obviously relied a good deal on travel guides in writing up what he has seen and done. The result of all this is an entertaining yet superficial picture of the hundreds of places visited. Exactly 259 numbered and clearly produced photographs help to sustain interest in the text.

Some 3£ pages are devoted to New Zealand. The author spent a week here, and although he did not visit the South Island at all, he travelled from Wellington to Auckland by a “land-liner ’ through Rotorua. His main impressions are of “the red snapper (a fish) which were served without exception at every midday and evening meal” and of the “bush scenery near Wellington.’’ He records: “The outskirts of Wellington pleased us most—the ‘Ninety-Mile Scenic Drive’ through dense virgin- forest, bordered by ferns and stately trees. We heard the song birds and the bell birds and saw curious flightless birds like the kiwi. Here one can see also the harmless tuatara, that most extraordinary reptile with a third rudimentary eye, a survival from some prehistoric age.” This sort of thing of course makes one want to spit tacks. Nevertheless, the book as a, whole can be recommended to all those who are looking for some light, chatty reading. The photographs are really excellent Collector’s Progress. By Stanley W. Fisher. Michael Joseph. 207 PP.

Mr Fisher is an authority on English pottery and porcelain. In book he describes how he became interested in his hobby and how he developed it through persistent attention, interest, and above all frequent handling of pieces. The account of his progress contains many illuminating incidents on the human side, for wherever goods change hands there is usually a story to relate. The book has a light touch passing on something as it were from the delicate pottery and porcelain it describe!.