SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30901, 6 November 1965, Page 4

SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

Rata: a novel about childhood. By Anne Holden. Whitcombe and Tombs. 177 pp. It is surprising to learn that this is Mrs Holden's first novel: because it suggests the work of a practised writer able, without artifice, to give reality to her plot. It is a moving story that makes one feel it is dealing with truth as it applies to the difference between the Maori outlook and the European. The centrepiece is Rata Lovell, aged 11, whose European father and Maori mother are both dead. A sensitive child wanting to be loved and understood, she comes within the orbit of "Welfare” and passes through a number of foster homes, ? mostly indifferent, all of which have to relinquish her care for some family reason. It is after this tossing about that Rata is accepted by Miss Carter. Miss Carter has worked in Maori communities in her earlier years. She is a religious person inclined to be Calvanistically strait-laced, and she is under daily commitment to religious works. She Is kind, but one feels that she, too, lacks the warm motherly understanding this child needs. So Rata finds her innocent pleasures roundabout, in particular in the friendship of a pensioner Mr Blow, and his two midget dogs. Disliking an unfriendly bible class, she simply stops going and is led into lies to maintain the deception. The lies are about to eatch up with her when, in fright and desperation, she decamps and hitch-hikes north from the vicinity of Wellington to a pa in the Taupo district where her mother had lived. In a whare there, in spite of the drab and often hungry poverty, she finds acceptance without question and a carefree happiness she had not known among the sophisticated comforts of urban dwellings. But after a time the inevitable in the form of a ~ policeman catches up: the little partMaori (who had found there were some old-time Maoris who did not approve of her) is taken back fearfully to European environment and the need to adjust herself to old-maidish non-understand-ing. This is a sad, appealing story based on what one suspects is a fundamental truth that must have touched more than one part-Maori orphan child. Airs Above the Ground. By Mary Stewart. Hodder and Stoughton. 254 pp. The mystifying title of this book is taken from the specialised routine by which the famous white stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna go through their paces. The story centres on one of these fine animals which has been stolen by a circus hand—whose death, with that of another man, in a fire, alerts the attention of Interpol. Involved in the affair is Lewis March, an employee of both a chemical firm and a less-publicised body, and his wife, Vanessa, who chances to see him on a newsreel in London at the scene of the Austrian circus fire when she believes him to be in Sweden. The fact that he is shown in the company of an attractive blonde quickens her decision to investigate the situation on the spot, which she proceeds to do in the company of an English schoolboy who also has pressing reasons for going to Austria. After this promising beginning the book moves to an exciting climax. Reunited—after some necessary explanations—with her husband, Vanessa and the boy, Tim, become acquainted with the circus people, while Lewis, under an assumed identity, tries to solve the mystery of the fire. Vanessa’s discovery that an old circus piebald horse is not what he seems, and her being entrusted with the animal to return him to his rightful owners, leads to a startling denouement in which the significance of the horse’s saddle plays a prominent part. The author modestly disclaims any association with the Snanish Riding School, though she has mastered the special phraseology connected with the white stallions, and has received friendly permission to build her story round a fictitious episode in their history. Such an unusual background makes this a more than usually interesting thriller, and the tale is told with the vivacity and wit we have learned to expect from the author. A Thousand Thousand Mornings. By John Bart Gerald. Anthony Blond. 245 ' PPTwo young men, one of ; them with a highly developed death wish, the other prev i to a guilty conscience, seek refuge from their emotional : difficulties in an African leper i hospital. Fordham Becker, and Harold Cortland had I always been friends, and in 1 this remote African world : each confides his secret to the :

other; but “Cort” cannot be happy in the hospital and goes away to work for a Swiss Protestant mission. He gets on terms with the natives, one of whom becomes his boon companion. Yhone is also a procurer; he locks Cort into iris hut with an African girl and leaves them there all night. After hearing of Becker’s hideous death iat the hands of an inland tribe, Cort revolts violently against the local atmosphere, and during an acute attack of amoebic dysentery combined with malaria, through which the Swiss missionary couple nurse him devotedly—though they know he has offended against the conception of the white man’s duty in the country—he prepares to go back to America. But his destiny has another direction. Much of the book, especially where it stresses the absence of any real communication between black and white thinking, is very good. The author’s compulsion to leave nothing out—both of his sexual experiences and the rather revolting details of his illness—is no doubt intended to contribute to a general realism, but the interest of the book lies outside these manifestations of human weakness. It is the descriptions of the leper, Marcel, the black playboy, Yhone, Eschar, a sexually erring missionary, and Cort’s devoted Swiss couple, the Dutels, which constitute the substance of literary achievement in this promising first novel. The Willow Pattern. By Robert van Gulik. Heinemann. 183 pp. The scene of this story is laid in the capital of the Tang Empire of ancient China. The heat is intense; no rain has fallen for many months; most of the population have fled the stricken city where the black death stalks the dry, stinking streets and almost the only people about are the hooded scavengers collecting the dead. Judge Dee, appointed emergency Governor, has to see the city through the crisis. Against this background the Judge investigates three mysterious murders—the first of long ago with its roots entwined in the delicate motif of the Willow Pattern. The second death, that of Mr Mei, a wealthy merchant and the last of his family, is not at first sight murder, although the Judge had a feeling that all was not as it seemed. There was no doubt at all about the third death, that of Mr Yu; he had died from a savage blow that had crushed his skull and destroyed half his face. The Judge and two of his faithful lieutenants spend nearly every hour of two tense days and nights unravelling the curious tangle that had its roots deep in the long ago tragedy. This story is well up to Mr van Gulik’s excellent standard and the drawings, by the author in Chinese style, add considerably to the atmosphere. Kingdom of Illusion. By Edward R. F. Sheehan. Chapman and Hall. 277 PPThis is a political novel, international in scope. A surprising thing about it, perhaps the most surprising, is that it is the author’s first novel; for it is distinguished for its colour, perceptiveness and its characterisation—even if one has to wait overlong (half way or more through the book) before the full personalities of the chief actors are developed by “flashbacks” through diary extracts and other devices. Nevertheless, it is a novel of stature, with much promise of things to come from an imaginative, ironical writer. The plot is centred in the Arab kingdom of Al Khadra, an erstwhile gem of British influence, but now seething under the stimulus of Arab nationalism. Britain is quiet, seemingly having withdrawn from the race, but the United States, flaunting the anti-Communist banner, floods the country with propaganda and people, goods and gadgets, especially a drink called “Pepsi.” The United States is particularly alarmed by a flirtation with Russia that threatens to become an engagement. But the Americans, naively believing they have the ready remedy for everything, find themselves up against the guile of the prescient Arab, long practised in the subtleties of intrigue and habituated to getting what he wants no matter how questionable the means. Thus we have the conflict: between the ambitious Mustafa ibn Mabrouk, : once a Bedouin goat-herd Sandhurst - educated, now Prime Minister infected by envious admiration for things British, but first and foremost an Arab, and the silver- : spooned Harvard - educated ' United States Secretary of ’ State, Calvin Hampshire, and ; his peripatic representative Paul Pulmotor (also ex- ! Harvard, suave anti-Commu- i

Ist, pro-Pulmotor), who roves in unexpected places, pulls Invisible strings, gambles with fate, and settles troubles in favour of himself and the United States. Others on the near sidelines are the tragic king Mahommed, who dreams of his golden days at Harvard and Boston, and blindly trusts the ruthless ibn Mabrouk whom he befriended as a goat-herd, refusing to believe he is an incipient dictator; Sean Sebastian Fitzgibbon, United States Ambassador, who loves the Arabs and has no influence in Washington; and numerous others, male and female, especially Chuckles Vespucci, entertainer, linguist, sinister secret agent who, with Pulmotor, is for once outwitted by Arab guile. Mr Sheehan clearly knows his Arabs and Bedouins. There are vivid descripitions of places, deserts and practices, and a grand climax of excitement. A foreword warns the reader against identifying the characters with known world figures, present and past, but it is inevitable that he will try to do so. One can only hope that Mr Sheehan’s account of the machinations of international statesmanship are too exaggerated to be true to life. Ashley Morden. By Fred Backworth. Longmans. 468 pp. Ashley Morden, a Canadian scientist is being flown by jet aircraft to conduct vitally important experiments in the uninhabited north. The plane crashes and Ashley parachutes alone into the snow-covered lake country. He is rescued and cared for by a German girl who has been brought up by her doctor father, a victim of Nazi concentration camps, to lead the life of a recluse in the wild and mountainous country in the far north of Canada. In his pain and delirium Ashley thinks she is Margo, the girl he had loved years before, and his mind goes back to the war years, to Ron Dorkett, who had been his pilot in the Air Force and who caused such ruin in his life: to the years of struggle as a medical student; to the years of research and to his eventual discovery which, in the event of bacteriological warfare could be put to annihilating use; and finally Ron Dorkett again and the plane crash. This powerful story is composed of many facets all clearly cut: the war scenes of stark violence: the drama of scientific discovery: the episodes of love and hate, and the splendid descriptions of the magnificient country. The Red Dust. By Bee Baldwin. Whitcombe and Tombs. 190 pp. “The Red Dust” is a first ; novel. It tells the story of a scientific experiment in the Antarctic which leads to an explosion, the result of which scatters lethal dust all over the world. A few people are immune from its effects, and four of these—two men and two women—are all that remain alive in a passenger ship bound for New Zealand. After landing in Wellington they fall in with a few other survivors, and learn that the evil personality responsible for the Antarctic experiment is proposing to hold the remnants of the victims of the dust to ransom with a drug which alone counteracts the effects. The circumvention of this plan by the “Immunes” is neatly worked out, and sundry rather scrappy love affairs are enacted as a necessary embellishment to the plot, but it is to be hoped that in her next book the author will not confine the greater part of the dialogue to a tedious mixture of English and American slang.

The Explorer. By Frances

Parkinson Keyes, Eyre and Spottiswoode. 502 pp. Nicholas Hale, a young famous explorer, inspired by Hiram Bingham’s discovery of the lost city of Machu Picchu, has devoted his life to the exploration of Peru. His main objective is the search for a submerged city in the Andes, the discovery of which would bring him lasting fame and fortune. For years he has avoided marriage though he is very attractive to women. But now his desire for a son to carry on his work and inherit his name has become of paramount importance. At the society wedding of a mutual friend he meets again a beautiful and aristocratic young Virginian. Margaret Porterfield, whom he had known some years before when she had been a popular debutante. Since her mother’s death Margaret had restricted her life to her church and her books. To Nicholas she is the embodiment of all the virtues he wanted in the woman he would choose to be his wife and the mother of his son. Margaret agrees to marry him although he is due to leave for Peru in a few days’

time. When he proposed to her he made it dear that under no circumstances could she share his work and his travels. For five years he is seldom at Hills End, Margaret’s beautiful home, and his continual separation from her has more serious consequences for him than the series of disasters that dog his explorations. The story is well written with Mrs Keyes's usual flair for description and characterisation. Bevulsion. By Laszlo Nemeth. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 542 pp. This remarkable novel, set in Hungary between the wars, scores very highly on characterisation, background and style. It is not, withal cheerful reading. Nelli Karasz, an only child, lives with her parents on a small farm which her father leases, he having resigned from the post of agent to a nobleman. At a village dance Nelli’s good looks, aloofness and superior status attract Sanyi Takaro, a lively self-satisfied young man much sought after by the local girls. Sanyi determines to marry Nelli, never supposing that any woman could genuinely dislike him, and she is impelled into marriage by the very circumstances that have made her what she is—her affection for her hardworking, sensitive father who longs to see her settled safely, her lack of other friends, and her mother’s religious preoccupation that prevents any understanding between them. The match is made, and its uneasy peace is finally shattered when, on the death of Sanyi’s father, they move into the village to take over the family farm. Once the relationship is subjected to the stresses of social contact Nelli’s small control is lost, and events march with tragic power to the doom that was inevitable from the night that Sanyi took Nelli home in his coach and urged his suit while ' her father’s dead body sat beside them.