NEW FICTION

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29384, 10 December 1960, Page 3

NEW FICTION

A Lion in the Sun. By G. M. Glaskin. Barrie and Rockliff. pp. The title comes from the early Portuguese name for Singapore, which makes a vivid setting for the latest novel of Mr Glaskin, a successful Australian writer. Indeed, until the characters move from Western Australia to Singapore the atmosphere is dull and the author too obviously straining to make something more than puppets of his people. The story comes to life in Singapore chiefly because of the author’s remarkable, knowledge of the island’s man? social and racial groups. Mr Glaskin does tend to depict his European businessmen as wooden-headed and very readily given to dissipation, and their womenfolk as vain and silly; by contrast, his Chinese wear halos. But there, every melodrama must have its heroes and villains—and the story of crowded, colourful, vibrating Singapore in the age of transition from colonialism to independence is sheer melodrama. Mr Glaskin’s chief character is an Australian writer whose story is told by a friend possessing a fervent belief in the writer’s talent. Unfortunately, the friend’s enthusiasm for the writer as a person of consequence does not reach the reader, and without this the writer fails to fill the heroic mould Mr Glaskin has cast for him. His nymphomaniac wife is worth ten of him as a person. But Singapore makes up for Mr Glaskin’s failure to place sympathy and contempt where he intends to. Mr Glaskin’s broad picture, splashed with vivid colour, depicts Singapore as indeed a Lion in the Sun. Th® Hosts of Rebecca. By Alexander Cordell. Golla'ncz. 240 PPAlexander Cordell has written a robust historical novel set in South Wales 120 years ago. Life is hard there. The upland farms afford the barest sustenance; and men and women alike work a 16hour shift in the coal mines for a shilling a day. The added grievance which sets the countryside aflame is the building of tollgates. In no time the Rebeccaites are on the move burning the tollgates. ambushing the constables and fighting pitched battles with the yeomanry. The penalties are grim—hanging or transportation to Botany Bay. The hero of this story is Jethro Mortymer, whose elder brother has already been transported. Jethro is heart and soul with the Rebeccaites: but he is prudent, too, and he is the main support of his family. His adventures and fights by moonlight are many, and his troubles are increased w’hen he falls in love with his brother’s wife. In the finish, in peril of his life, he has to give up both his law and his love and flee like a criminal to America. ’‘The Hosts of Rebecca" is a fascinating novel; but if Wales was ever like this, it was indeed “Wild Wales." A Number of Things. By Honor Tracy. Methuen. 254 pp. There is some grand fooling, and only a soupcon of malice in this skit on race relations in the modern world. Young Henry Lamb has written a novel with the slightly ambiguous title of “Gentlemen Prefer Gentlemen,” and though purely light-hearted in intention it is treated by puzzled reviewers as a work of deep social significance. As a result of this misconception, Henry is offered the post of special correspondent in the Caribbean by the serious-minded weekly “Torch.” the editor of which confidently banks on his progressive approach to ethnic problems. Unfortunately Henry’s Outlook proves, to be purely ob-

jective, and his dispatches, while reflecting much personal enjoyment in the society of some highly diverting characters, white and 1 coloured, have to be suppressed in the interests of the paper’s policy. Penniless, he returns home in disgrace with the government, with Public Relations, and with Big Business which controls the fortunes of “Torch.” Characters and events invest the book with a peculiar lunatic chartn.

Incense to Idols. By Sylvia Ash-ton-Warner. Seeker and Warburg, 283 pp. ■* . * Miss Ashton-Warnet-’s second novel may perplex some of who admired “Spinster.” The setting is again New Zealand; but this is not the familiar haunt of Aunt Daisy, or Don Clarke, or Mr Holyoake. Seen through the eyes of Germaine de Beauvais, these prim provincial places are made to suggest a dissolving view of a season in the underworld. Madame is French; but for all that she is a rather old-fashioned girl. Of course she has her diabolical moments; but these pass, and then she finds a nervous thrill in vibrating between sin and sanctity. This meant a great deal 100 years ago, when Baudelaire was followed by Huysmans and Oscar Wilde; but now, since Mario Praz’s “Romantic Agony,” Satanism is rather a matter of literary history. Germaine is, in fact, a femme fatale, “priestess of Baal.” (“My arms change to serpents. Glistening scented screws turn in those places of the body that were formed only for men.”) .Like “the gay Parisienne” she is, she fascinates the men—“ Doctor John,” Hugh Clan William, Gordon Hood, Leon Montigny. Her major interest, however, is a clergyman, quaintly referred to as the Rev. Guymer. Mr Guymer is powerfully influenced by the minor prophets, and preaches against beer-drinking, horseracing and other running sores typical of the New Zealand way of life. It is an unrewarding duty. “An honest preacher must end a hermit in this country.” This, as it happens, is where Germaine comes in. “‘A man looks for inspiration in his congregation when it is missing in himself. And sometimes I receive it. There are times when I believe there is someone in my congregation who gives it whom I have not yet recognised.’ “ ‘One of your holy saints?’

“ ‘No. It has come only since this influx of newcomers. Some proud sinner, I feel, with a native sensibility and a strength of feeling God would rather use than mine’.”

Once brought within the walls of this church, Germaine’s pilgrimage begins. “My whole life I’ve burnt incense to idols when I could have burnt incense to love.” But whether this book could really be called a spiritual pilgrimage each reader must decide for himself. Germaine is a worldly creature; the author delights to present her entirely taken up with feminine preoccupations, and these have hardly diminished in the final section of the book. In relation to this, Miss AshtonWarner’s style demands some comment. It is impressionistic, sometimes vividly so. On other pages the prose is spasmodic and mannered to the point of affectation. “Up the carpeted steps, more crunching glass . . . ooh! look at your steps now. What am I doing up here . . . the-temple-of-the-Lord-the-temple-of-the . . . ooh! here’s your Bible.” Germaine is fond of exclamations. She even cries “Oooh!” on page 136, when she examines the foetus in the wine-glass. No doubt this is part of her chic, her wicked charm.