NEW FICTION

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29052, 14 November 1959, Page 3

NEW FICTION

The Lopsider. By Leopold Louth. Gollancz. 264 pp. The narrator, and hero, of this ( story is Fortunatus (Nat) Cecil, a young man who is taken up by a fabulous swindler, Gustave Ap Jenkyn, whose life of fraud is not only his livelihood but his vocation. Nat is a young man in perpetual rebellion against the regimentation of the Welfare State, a crusade which drives him from job to job and from racket to racket. He, Gustave, and a precocious schoolboy named Jocelyn are appropriate associates, and they, are abetted by some "radiant females.” A rather involved plot concerns fake violins and a phoney Shakespearean manuscript; but the plot serves chiefly to string together a series of episodes that reveal Mr Louth’s great inventive power and resource, and his gift for uproarious comedy. Mr Louth is at his brilliant best in a sequence describing Nat’s experiences in the Civil Service, which he enters with a self-provided testimonial, and throiigh which he promotes himself to a sinecure job and a carpeted office.

Absolute Beginners. By Colin Maclnnes. Mac Gibbon and Kee. 256 pp.

This novel of modern London deals with that phenomenon of city life known to outsiders as the fraternity of bodgies. It is difficult for the uninitiated .always to “dig” the language of the set, but bodgie would appear to be a generic term that covers a host of sects. The narrator of this story calls himself and his kind, .simply, a “teenager.” This one is a nine-teen-year-old pornographic photographer, and his friends are perverts of both sexes, ponces, gossip-columnists, dope-addicts; and other habitues of smart coffee bars and jazz concerts. The teenager has deep contempt for anyone who has passed beyond the pale: i.e., has entered the twenties. “Youth,” he says, “has power, a kind of divine power straight from mother nature.” Age consists of the “old-tax-payers,” “elderly sordids,” “conscripts” and “pensioners.” Mr Maclnnes’s teenager is both hardboiled and a sentimentalist, and is most prone to sermonising; he is in fact a typical emotionallyimmature product. He is without moral sense, yet he is very hard indeed on the “England” that does not extend the heartiest of welcomes to the “Spades”—i.e., people of colour, many of whom live in the hero’s “manor.” So much sermonising from a position of false rectitude would become tiresome but for the novelty of the characters and their idiom. At the end, the story flashes into action an account of raceriots. in which the hero fights on the side of the Spades. For a good part, Mr Maclnnes uses a Ramonesque style to tell his hero’s story. One would not want to read many novels of the “Absolute Beginner” type; but this is an experience, and an experience this reviewer found most enjoyable.

Woman in a Room. By Robert F, Mirvish. Alvin Redman. 287 PP.

This is the story of Moira Frazier who from girlhood to womanhood was a victim of circumstances, at no point able to take a grip on her own life. Brought up by unsympathetic aunts, Moira passed into an unhappy marriage and an unsatisfactory motherhood. At the point the story begins, freedom comes to her as she finds what most women reject—a room of her own, free from ties. Mr Mirvish tells Moira’s story with keen perception, and his characters fit without jar or distraction into a cleverly-constructed story. The shrewish little 7 *rs Cameron, Moira’s mother-in-law, and the amoral American, Anders, are exceptionally well drawn. Mr Mirvish has a pleasant, practised style, but some bad proof-reading produces regrettable jars.

Bond Street Story. By Norman Collins. Collins. 447 pp.

This is a bright, entertaining story about a group of people who work in a great London store. Novels having their unity in a large establishment are often stronger in detailed description of the machinery of the establishment than when dealing with the people driving the machine. Mr Collins makes little of Rammel’s, except to insist that it is a large, fashionable, and first-class store. For Mr Collins, Rammel’s chief purpose is to link the stories of a dozen or so people who work there. In this field Mr Collins works expertly;, his people afe real, and are all men ana woinen with whom-the readef can find him Self 'in sympathy. Beaders will n6t qtflCkly forget Mr Collins's most notable creation, Augustus Bloot, the shop’s senior floor-walker. Mr Collins’s attempts to depict accents —especially affected accents — by phonetic spelling becomes a little trying, ’ and a habit of breaking an orthodoit sentence into groups of two or three words—presumably ,to obtain a staccato effect—is a stylistic device that becomes annoying. These faults apart, Mr Collins has written a full book that readers xyill enjoy.

The Horses of the Sun. By Oriel Malet, Gollancz. 285 pp.

The main characteristic of this novel is its charm; Miss Malet really does capture this elusive quality. The story is simple enough. Liz is an attractive child of nine who, together wtih her mother, forms part of the household of an eccentric Italian countess. Existence at the palazzo is aimless but idyllic, until visitors arrive. Then the pattern changes, and the summer ends disastrously. But in the meantime Liz has learned “always to live towards the future, and not back into the past.” Ihcidentally “The Horses of the Sun” paints a delightful picture of life in Italy.