New Fiction

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29146, 5 March 1960, Page 3

New Fiction

End of a War. By Edward Loomis. * Heinemann. 224 pp. Here, in contrast to the subjective pitifulness of “The Naked and the Dead,” we have a first novel describing the spiritual wickedness of war. George Leggett, very young, innocent and soft, a sensitive soul in fact, lands on the Normandy beaches and follows the campaign to its conclusion in the occupation of Germany. On the way, apart from physical discomforts and distresses of being in the front line, he witnesses and participates in the corruption of an army by the process of conquest. He fights, kills, sees the death of his friends, gets wounded, and faces the painful necessity of returning to the front, and then has to accommodate himself to the degregation of the conquered enemy through poverty, ruin and fear, and the consequent degradation of the conquering army. Maintaining his indoctrinated belief in the righteousness of America’s cause in the war, he has to grow to accept responsibility for the incidentally inevitable cruelties of fighting it: .the dissolution of morale among refugees and the collapse of selfrespect in the fearful German civilian population. This is no facile pacifist tract but a serious and responsible judgment, uncommonly well written.

The Great Prince Died. By Bernard Wolfe. Cape. 398 pp.

This unusual political novel is written round the period covering the last few weeks of Leon Trotsky’s life in Mexico and his murder by one of Stalin’s agents. In an epilogue the author explains that in 1937 he spent eight months as a member of the secretarial staff of Trotsky whilst he was living in exile in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City, guarded by his household and by the Mexican police, and he explains how and why he has adapted the facts to make a work of fiction. With first-hand knowledge of the background and by telling his story from various points of view—inside the household, the peon living across the street, and men planning the assassination —Bernard Wolfe gives the reader the tension of an impending murder and also the living terror of a man in his last days. The story is vividly realistic, almost doewmentary in form, and the characters are intensely alive. The picture of Trotsky himself dominates the whole —a man gentle and kind in his private life, yet tortured by his conscience, at one moment believing that he could have ruled Russia without Stalin’s resort to slave camps and violence, at the next stricken with his own guilt in connexion with the massacre of sailors in the 1921 Kronstadt naval mutiny. The book is not easy to get into, and perseverance is necessary before I the story finally compels the j reader’s interest. There is too I much political moralising, and unnecessarily the reader has to {put up with repulsive descriptions of the filthy experience of {certain minor characters in low Mexican brothels Despite these drawbacks, this is a novel of {convincing and unusual interest. lof historical as well as literary '■ importance-

Time. Flow Softly. My Nancy Cato. Heinemann. 296 pp.

{{ Those who first met Delie Gor- . don, the central character in J Nancy Cato’s previous novel, "All {{the Rivers Run,” will especially j enjoy this second romance of Aus- . jtralia at the beginning of the cenItury. Delie, now a grown woman, beautiful and adventurous, purchases a share in a cargo-boat (bearing her name, plying on the Murray-Darling rivers She finds that, the new skipper and other i part-owner, Brenton Edwards, is a good-looking young man whose lazy insolence both affronts and {attracts her. Eventually Delie decides to give up her ambitions {as an artist to marry him. Life on the river is exciting; but it is not easy, and this novel describes how, as she brings up her family on the ship, Delie faces up to the tough realities of life with a man who ceases to remain the handsome gallant of his.courting days. Eventually Brenton Edwards dies, and Delie finds herself the owner-captain of the vessel herself. The story is packed full of incident and flows as smoothly as its title. It is particularly interesting for its authentic background, the out{back Australian scene before {roads were made, when a busy {fleet of tiny steamers on the Hvers provided transport for isolated settlers.

Inspired Information. By Mordaunt Milne. Hammond, Hammond. 222 pp.

This pleasantly farcical picture of life in a remote Irish village is {(intended to promote easy laughter and achieves its purpose. Father Prestage, realising that nothing but a miracle can save St. Tre{genna, the parish church of Bogspavin from imminent disintegration sets about helping Providence to preserve, its structure iby becoming a racing tipster. I With the help of his mathematic-ally-minded friend, Dr. Shelley, and under the pseudonym of ’ “Major Tregenna,” the good 1 father soon builds up a reputation for picking winners, which disconcerts those of his flock who ; carry a little’profitable work in ■ the bookmaking and tipster world : ■ themselves. “Major Tregenna's” advertisements in the English papers also attract the unfavourable notice of Miss Anna Sugden, {whose non-conformist zeal, coupled with vast wealth, is employed in the discouragement of I gambling, and who invades Bogspavn full of crusading enthusiJasm, to convert the erring I “major” wherever she may find . him. This proves no easy task, as he has covered his tracks, albeit (somewhat precariously but in his {priestly capacity Father Prestage . gives Miss Sugden an unique opportunity for putting over another favourite form of proseletyjsing. The machinations of a ripe candidate for Borstal, in association with sundry local characters anxious to discredit “Major Tregenna” result in implanting in the priest a firm conviction that a virtual outsider is going to win ’ the Grand National, and he makes his personal wager on the horse with all his accrued profits. The {book winds up "'ith A vivid description of the Grand National, and its exciting finish.