NEW FICTION

Press, Volume C, Issue 29436, 11 February 1961, Page 3

NEW FICTION

The Irishman. By Elizabeth O’Connor. Angus and Robertson. 318 pp.

For a woman to have written this book is a remarkable achievement. Set in a remote part of Queensland it is a story about men, their rivalries, fights and friendships. There is virtually no love interest except of a perfunctory kind. The principle character is a boy who, by the last chapter, has just grown to early manhood. Paddy Doolan, that blackavised Irishman, given to fighting in his cups, is the boy’s father and the object of the young Michael’s deep devotion. With the coming of motor transport to a goldmining district already in decline Paddy sees his work as a teamster disappearing for ever, apd after an unusually fierce bout of fisticuffs with one of the young men who has brought the hated mechanical transport to the town he heads away for an unknown destination. Thereafter, Michael’s chief object in life is to trace him, and we follow the boy’s career during the ensuing six years, first as a jackeroo with the harsh Scot, Robert Dalgliesh, whose evil half-caste mistress has such a baneful influence over the household, and afterwards in his successive jobs as a stockman and drover, until he meets With an accident which nearly kills him. On his recovery he sets out in earnest to find his father, and succeeds in being reunited with him, The book is packed with incident, and the author conveys her knowledge of the country and its ways with convincing authority. Every character is a complete and satisfying portrait, and the work can be confidently recommended as a comprehensive picture of life in the Australian far North.

Musa. By Louise Stinetorf. Gollancz. 183 pp.

Musa is a 14-year-old shoemaker's apprentice from the North African village of Villepres where the social and economic structure is based on the fact that the village boys always train as acrobats and eventually leave home to spend most of their lives travelling and entertaining. Musa has a lame foot and this story tells how, in an eventful caravan trip from his home in the Atlas Mountains across the desert to the city of Oran he loses the attitude that one can only be a real man if one is an acrobat. As his master. Babu. puts it: “Few men excel in more than one occupation. It is far better to be an excellent shoemaker than a poor acrobat." Louise Stinetorf very sensitively describes this widening of outlook as Musa meets new people and copes with fresh situations on the journey. Not only does he learn to solve his personal problem, but also to lose the narrow and frequently intolerant views he has taken from his village. The author has lived in Palestine as a Quaker missionary and visited. Africa several times. Her simple, vivid details of the life of the North African add greatly to the interest and delight of the book.

The Real Silvestri. Bv Mario Soldati. Deutsch. 188 pp.

This is one of those acid, worldly-wise Italian novels, in which nothing very much happens. but which will be appreciated by readers capable of picking up the overtones of apparently insignificant events. Silvestri had long since died when Mr Soldati’s story opens. He was loved by everyone. and his friends cheristed his memory. All except Aurora, the French woman, whom Silvestri had loved with a hopeless, boyish passion. But it transpires that the passion had not been so disinterested, after all. “The Real Silvestri” is an obsorbing novel for the right reader The brevity which marks the narrative seems to emphasise the rather cruel irony with which the author regards his characters.

Geisha. By Stephen and Ethel, Longstreet. Arthur Baker. 279 pp.

The theme, treatment and dialogue of this book are of such patent cinematic possibilities, that the reader is apt to underrate the knowledge of Japan and its customs which the authors could justly claim. The period is late 18th century, and the story one of love and intrigue in higher places. Daniel Heacock, an American doctor, living temporarily on a small island which a xenophobic nation has grudgingly conceded to some Dutch traders, is pressed /by a Japanese aristocrat of his acquaintance to travel with great secrecy to Edo where the Shogun lies seriously ill, His safe conduct is guaranteed, and his reward if he effects a cure will be munificent. Heacock has his own troubles. He is an epileptic, and his medical work can be seriously disrupted by his seizures, but he is deeply curious to see the unknown country, and accepts the a-signment, to become almost immediately involved in a palace plot. O’Kita, the most beautiful geisha of her time, has been commanded to entertain the barbaric stranger, and the two fall in love at sight. Heacock performs a successful operation on the Shogun and asks as a reward to be allowed to practise medicine in Japan and marry O’Kita. Fate arranges a different end of their story, and they part for ever. The authors display much knowledge of the art of the pei'iod, and are at no loss for local colour; but such phrases as

"Damn it, darling, you’re a beautiful thing” or “Have Cat bring us two more pick-me-ups,” sound fatally anchromstic in a period romance.

The Death Makers. By Glen Sire. Muller. 320 pp.

The harshness of tone that is felt on every page of "The Death Makers” may repel some readers. It would be easy to dismiss the book as a document abouL-war, rather than a novel. Mr Sire gives the facts, no doubt. The story of the American tank division engaged in destroying the last vestiges of German resistance in 1945 is well told and probably authentic, although it is brutal and sordid. It will inevitably be compared with Nimier’s "Blue Hussar,” but is somewhat wanting in imaginative subtlety. What redeems it is the deep sympathy and Indignation the author feels. These honest qualities do finally build up to a sense of human values, in spite of the atrocious behaviour of sadists like Chico and Jeanne Barbier and of automatons, like the Colonel. The longrange antagonism of Captain Brandon and Lieutenant Raeder is maintained throughout the book with considerable skill; but the title of Mr Sire's novel describes it exactly. In certain moods it could be very painful reading.