NEW FICTION

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28992, 5 September 1959, Page 3

NEW FICTION

Solomon and Sheba. By Jay Williams. MacDonald. 240 pp.

We hear tfiat the story of Soloman and Sheba is the theme of a major film production, soon to be released. This novel will undoubtedly heighten appreciation of the film, for it is extremely well written and will have wide appeal. It is round the story of Solomon’s reign and in particular of Solomon’s love affair with the Queen of Sheba, that Jay Williams has built this novel. Taking the Bible story of the First Book of Kings for his foundation, the author has indeed most skilfully recreated a remote period of history and developed from it a lively novel of emotional conflict and political intrigue. He has not only painted the whole scene clearly and brightly but has vividly recaptured the atmosphere of the time. He has crammed his story with lively incident, so that many a reader will find himself running off to his Bible to check the facts. This is an historical novel of great narrative power, one which establishes Jay Williams as an historical novelist of high quality.

Beti. By Daphne Rooke. Gollancz. 199 pp.

“Beti” is Miss Rooke’s fourth novel, and it is as fresh in its theme and as complex in its development as any of its predecessors. The setting is India this time, and the story is told by a young 'girl, Larki, the daughter of a wealthy, harmonious family. Larki’s happiness, however, is shadowed by a tragedy; for, many years before, her baby cousin was stolen away and no trace of her was ever found. “Beti” tells the story of her recovery after many

novel adventures. It would not be wise to comment on Miss Rooke’s understanding of the mind of a high-born Hindu girl. No doubt her knowledge is as deep as her sympathy is wide. What is surprising, however, is the strangeness of the mental world Miss Rooke reveals or creates. Hf"- e . a t least, is a most original writer.

Return. By Katharine Talbot. Faber and Faber. 192 pp.

The charm of this book lies in its unusual method of construction. The narrator, an Englishwoman recently widowed and living in New York mets Bob Middlebrook, a young American businessman not long returned from England, and hears from him by degrees the complicated story of his relations with an English family during his nine months sojourn in London. Mark Blessley, a prominent literary and political figure of his day, had been dead for some years but his widow, to whom Bob is given an introduction lives in a somewhat shabby house in Brunswick square. With her live her son Mark, her daughter. Nan, and a couple—Sidonie and Rupert Buckenham—whose relationship to each other and the family are not explained to him. He is accepted by the household with a casual friendliness which at times gives place to a wounding indifference. As he unfolds the story of his English adventure to the narrator (who remains anonymous) they are drawn insensibly to one another. Slowly he unravels to his hearer a tangled web of relationships. A sudden summons to return to America saves him from possible disaster in a world in which he could never be wholly at home. The story is well told, and the basic misunderstandings which so often underlie Anglo-American associations are stressed without prejudice. or malice.

The Tangerine. By Christine de Rivoyre. Rupert Hart-Davis. 185 pages.

The Boulard family run a hotel in Paris—Meme Boul, a relict of our Edwardian ear, with a weakness for dukes, her granddaughter Severiene married conveniently to a Boulard cousin, and Severeine's colourless sistet Baba and delicate brother Laurent. Into this family circle bursts, with an emotionally disruptive force, a Spanish duke. Antonio Barbarillo, a bald but irresistible Casanova. He revives Meme’s memories of her days of romance, reduces Severeine to a state of trembling desire, and (almost inadvertently) seduces Baba because she reminds him of a favourite servant in his household. Severeine is all set, with Meme's approval, to take him as a lover when Fate intervenes in the shape of Laurent, who informs Toni that Baba is going to bear his child, and that to legitimise it a temporary marriage should be arranged. Toni’s reaction to putative fatherhood are surprising in an avowed hedonist; he accepts his responsibility and takes his prospective bride ana her devoted brother back to Spam. Four months later they return for a family reunion ana Severeine happily seizes the opportunity to consummate her interrupted liaison with her brother-in-law. If the antics of these characters are sketched as a satire the book fails in its effect, Severeine’s erotic and egocentric confessions being far too long drawn out.