NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30064, 23 February 1963, Page 3

NEW FICTION

The Elephant. Slawomir Mrosek, translated by Konrad Syrop. Macdonald, 176 pp.

Poland has a vigorous cinema, a strong art movement, even modern jazz. That this should have occurred without any serious questioning of Marxist dogma is, perhaps, curious; but the results, on the evidence of that wildly funny little film, “Two. Men and a Wardrobe,” shown privately here last year, and this book, are even more curious. ‘The Elephant’ won the Polish State Cultural Reviews annual literary prize in 1957. The dust jacket describes it, accurately, as a "brilliant, razor-sharp, ironical satire of totalitarian practices. ’ * Mrozek’s targets are bureaucracy, conformity and pretension. He needles them within a fairly limited framework, since his Marxism is never seriously in doubt and his stories are incredibly brief (one is just six lines long). One of the best is about a peasant who leaves home to complain about a leaky roof; at a party meeting in the nearby town he is such a success the party makes him a star attraction of a lecture tour through the country. Years later, his hands white and well-mani-cured now, he returns home, to greet his wife with: "We smallholders. ..” The title story is about an ambitious zookeeper who “regarded his animals simply as stepping stones on the road of his own career.” When his requisition for an elephant is approved, he suggests that a beast might be constructed, more economically, from rubber and inflated with air. This would save on food. Unfortunately, the two men detailed to inflate the giant balloon found it beyond their lung-power and connected it to the gas main instead. In the morning, before a party of school-children, the elephant floated gently away across ’ the tree-tops. Mrozek does not tell what became of the zookeeper; the children neglected their studies, drank liquor and broke windows. The book has several macabre illustrations by Daniel Mroz.

Attic Summer. By Jane Gaskell. Hodder and Stoughton. 190 pp.

This third book of Jane Gaskell’s deals with teddy boys in Fulham—their lives and dreams—their haunts, their knives and their girls. Unity, at sixteen, is eager to try being free from parental control and at last suceeds in getting their consent to her sharing an attic room with three art students for the summer, before taking up a commercial course. She soon finds the hot stuffy room, invariably hung with drying stockings, less exciting than she had expected. But people become more and more exciting. Below her lives Paul, seeking his dead Julia in every girl he meets, and she fulfills his needs on occasion, but her heart really goes out to the tough “Ted” Shredder who in return

sincerely regards her, although he disapproves of her type, and his less-likeable friends regard her more as a specimen tx be studied than as a girl. During her erratic friendship with Shredder, Unity works in a supermarket and then as a cinema usherette and finally they become involved in a cinema riot and barely escape undetected. At the end of the summer Unity, rather surprised at herself returns to her home —not entirely satisfied with freedom. Jane Gaskell portrays the "teds” with eager sympathy and quiet humour. Her characters are no more crude than is youth itself and the story, despite its juvenile jargon is very readable and thought provoking.

The Well-Dressed Explorer. By Thea Astley. Angus and Robertson. 255 pp.

Thea Astley’s first book “Girl with a Monkey” had a moving quality which in her two subsequent ones she has never quite recaptured. Witty and astringent as it is, this study of a selfish, naively vain Casanova fails to arouse a real interest in its subject. George Brewster’s compulsion to attract women dates from his fourteenth year when the heartless and giggling little flirt Nita enslaves his boyish affections. Becoming with time a reasonably successful journalist George pursues a number of women while propping up successive bars in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne retreating from a sense of guilt by humble recourse to the Confessional. A genuine love for his wife Alice, whose maternal affection for him never wavers despite his peccadilloes, does not deter him though, being a poser and a bore, and not particularly good-looking it is difficult to understand the secret of his seductive charm. Middle-age finds him paunchy and pompous, a figure of pathos, but still questing after feminine admiration, which he finds for a time with a pen-friend in another country. All this makes diverting reading and Thea Astley’s gift for depicting a superficial sharp-tongued society is amply demonstrated. But it is impossible to like George.

Charles. By Victoria Lincoln. Gollancz. 438 pp.

The “Charles” who gives the title to Victoria Lincoln’s novel, is Charles Dickens; for, as the sub-title carefully indicates, this is a book "inspired by certain events” in the novelist’s life. In the main, it is the story of his marriage with Kate Hogarth, a situation that came near to tragedy at times. The author handles this theme with great sympathy, and her understanding is also apparent in her treatment of Mary Hogarth, Dickens’s sister-in-law, for whom he had such a high regard. Miss Lincoln discreetly avoids that part of her subject’s private life in later years which has been so diligently explored by students of Dickens in this generation. Most readers will agree that for the purposes of her novel she has been wise.

The Silent Cousin. By Eliaabetb Fanwiek. Gollancz. 192 pp. This ks a rubber disappointing thriller of the type that is built on a mounting suspense. The scene is laid in the Hudson River Valley tn which the Onderdonk family live perforce on their encumbered estate. Impoverished by the 1929 slump the Onderdonks have had to submit to the imposition of a Trust which administers the estate and keeps them imprisoned in their decaying mansion. The rather mysterious death of Humphrey Onderdonk in his own fishpond removes the main obstacle to the breaking up of the Trust, and the sudden appearance on the scene of a male cousin who legitimately claims half the proceeds of the sale of the property naturally enough betokens trouble. Millie Onderdonk who has been a virtual prisoner in the family home all her life bitterly resents him. Macdonald, the dour farm manager and his daughter and son-in-law are all affected in their interests by the interloper. A sense of menace broods over this community, segregated as it has been for so long, from the outer world. The looked-for climax is exciting but the book ends on a somewhat flat note.

Colleagues. By Vasili Aksenov. Putnam. 240 pp. Illustrated.

In this Russian novel three young doctors, just finished medical schol, choose where they will commence practice. Two settle at the naval dockyard with views of becoming ships’ doctors; the third goes to a village to take charge of a hospital where conditions are primitive. The work at the dockyard is described with liveliness and humour. The hospital where the third doctor works, and around whom the story revolves, is a challenge to the skill and ingenuity of a city-trained medical man. The descriptions of the villagers, their primitive ideas and tiieir reaction to anything new are drawn with insight and skill. Tragedy comes when the doctor on his way to an icebound ship for the confinement of a woman sailor is stabbed. There follows a tense and dramatic operation performed by his two friends who had recently arrived to stay a few days. The author is a 28-year-old Moscow doctor. The book is not only very interesting in itself but also because it introduces a new writing approach. This is a lively book showing the spirit of Soviet youth. It is the author’s second book to be published in English. A Time to Speak. By J. Drummond. Gollancz. 256

In Miss Drummond’s usual vein, this is a novel with a message. The message does not detract from the story; skilful writing blends the two intimately and inseparably. Set in South Africa, the story is set in Peace Drift, which is a "dorp; a small South African town, something between a dump and a torpor.” The main characters are Ben Nevis, the young doctor who spent his childhood in Peace Drift; Julius Kruger; the all powerful landowner: and Karl Ebenezer, a retired statistician and town councillor. Ben returns to Peace Drift to assist the local doctor, Strasser, in a poliomyelitis vaccination campaign. He quickly realises that the appearance of peaceful happiness which surrounds the town is only surface. Underneath is the raging conflict which exists In the rest of South Africa today. Kruger and Ebenezer, although the best of friends and both supporters of apartheid, are in conflict over the speed with which separate racial development is to be introduced. The effects of the controversy become apparent even in the immunisation campaign, and consequently Ben finds himself intimately associated with it. His association becomes even closer when he starts to fall in love with Nella, Ebenezer’s daughter. The storm reaches its climax when Ben decides to marry Nella but unfortunately the true to life ending is rather trite.

Operation Doctor. By Holly Roth. Hamish Hamilton. 200 pp.

Once again Holly Roth has been brilliantly successful in creating and sustaining an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The curiosity of Max Owings, the neuro surgeon was immediately aroused by the uneasy atmosphere be felt on board the Tilburg, a German ship outward bound from Hamburg to Japan, but he was unable to trace the source of the uneasiness. He deduced that the captain was cruel and lecherous, the purser sick with terror, Mr Pitkethly unpleasant and his Japanese wife cowed, but he found more pleasant companions in Miss Elkin, the plain but kindly Englishwoman with the phenomenal memory, and the apparently lustful Mr Clarkson who so unexpectedly turned out to be a missionary. Owings’ skill as a medical man was required when Miss Smith fell down the stairs causing concussion and amnesia, and so he came into close contact with the mysterious ship’s doctor, Swendstrom. Later, in spite of their care. Miss Smith suffered another attack and Max's anger was aroused when Miss Elkin became a second victim. At this point Scotland Yard sent to his aid Inspector Medford who had reason to believe that he could find on board the Tilburg the solution to two murders—one of a Harley Street doctor and the other of an unidentified man with a stethescope in his pocket The excitement which permeates this whole book rises to an amazingly high pitch in Miss Roth’s unexpected and breathtaking denouement Her writing is crisp, the plan extremely well thought out, and her characterisation and description, appealing, amusing and never over-drawn. “Operation Doctor” is to be most heartily recommended to all who enjoy a really good thriller.