New Fiction

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30308, 7 December 1963, Page 3

New Fiction

The Girh of Slender Means. By Mnriel Spark. Macmillan. 183 pp.

A new book by Muriel Spark is a literary event, and in this one her delicate technique of blending comedy and tragedy is exploited to the full The .period is 1945, between V.E. and V.J. days, when Britain dazed, uncoordinated and with a political struggle for power still ahead was licking her wounds and trying to adjust herself to post-war conditions. Rationing of food and clothing remained in force, bombed buildings were an untidy mess of neglected rubble, and dangerous numbers of unexploded bombs lurked undiscovered in urban areas. The Princess May of Teck hostel, situated opposite the Albert Memorial, had originally been designed to guard the virtue of young ladies under 30. whose work lay among the temptations of the Metropolis and whose homes were elsewhere. Their successors as presented here were not unduly vigilant for their chastity, but presented a cross-section of intelligent young modern womanhood with assorted jobs. The daily round, beside the earning of their living, included fiddling with clothing coupons, the exchange of rations to suit individual taste, iHicit love affairs, and other components of the life of the period. Nicholas Faringdon, an unknown poet, was an effective tom-cat in toe feminine pigeon cote, exploiting toe affections of Jane, whose publisher-employer he hoped to interest in his work, while making a determined and successful pass at toe more promiscuous beauty, Selina. Much later, owing to a deep spiritual shock, he has to go to Haiti as a missionary, and was there murdered by his flock. References to his fate are woven into toe story in a typical Spark parenthesis. Tragedy, portrayed with a laconic lack of emphasis, dominates the final chapters when an unexploded bomb suddenly comes to destructive life and demolishes the building, and, true to type, Selina’s efforts are directed to saving her Schiaparell dance-frock, while one of her colleagues, a teacher of elocution, declaims familiar poetry in a dramatic swan-song. The author records all these happenings in the drily factual style which constitutes her own special genius.

A Place to Sleep. By Gerda Rhodes. Putnam. 157 pp.

Diane is the 17-year-old daughter of Daphne—one of the international set that haunt the play—grounds of the world. Her father is unknown and the child’s main concern has been to manage her mother’s love affairs so that they remain financially secure for as long as possible. She, with her background and upbringing, finds nothing distasteful in her life with its emphasis on sex, but is dismayed to find that her own increasing beauty interferes with the life she had been content to lead with her mother. Gradually she leaves Daphne behind, although she continues to acknowledge the bond between them and indeed helps maintain her mother whilst ably maintaining herself. Nevertheless she is ever conscious of a lack in her life and seeks fulfilment in her friendship with the Newmans—middle-class, respectable Americans —but finds in herself only something to pity for them with their well-ordered, well-planned healthy lives. She seeks fulfilment in her mother's new baby, Danielle, but loses her before she can be sure of her desires, and finally sets out with Jerry to the wellknown paths, curious about herself —yet confident. The subject of this book is not particularly pleasant; but the unpleasantness is unstressed and the author succeeds in arousing the reader’s sympathy for Diane, and interest in her calculated progress through life.

In Step With a Goat By Michael Baldwin. Hodder and Stoughton. 192 pp. This story of peace-time service in a British Army territorial unit has the merit of being realistic, and at the same time good-tempered. All the gefuffles of army life that make the Angry Young Men so much angrier, appear understandable, tolerable and often very funny when viewed by a benign spirit. The story begins with a young man called to a compulsory camp with a unit in which he knows no-one. An infantryman, he finds himself in the artillery, and servant of a Gun. Having become a passionate convert to artillery of impressive size, he experiences his unit’s shock and humiliation when it is converted to humble mortars. The reader quickly becomes fond of the gang of lurid characters marching behind the unit’s mascot, a goat, and ends up grateful for the sparkle with which Mr Baldwin records an unusual story of army life. The Scarecrow. By Ronald Hugh Morrison. Angus and Robertson. 211 pp. “The same week our fowls v-ere stolen. Daphne Moran had her throat cut.” With this sentence Mr Morrison begins his story of two crimes—“the lone so trivial. The other so j diabolical.’’ But this is not a murder or suspense story, although there is plenty of both in it. It is predominately the story of Freddy Poindexter, his friends and enemies and of his family, particularly Uncle Athol—"we had no ready cash to speak of, but we had stacks of Athol Claude Cudby.” It is the story of the Scarecrow, the sex-fiend, who stalks into the town one moonlit night, of Pa who collects junk and drunks, of Ma tvho suffers loudly, of Charlie Dabney, the local undertaker and many others. This novel, packed with humour and incident. is worthy to take its place with the good work of New Zealand writers.