NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31047, 30 April 1966, Page 4

NEW FICTION

Bruno Santini. By Vasco Prato 1 ini. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. Chatto and Windus. 312 pp. This novel, by the Florentine author Vasco Pratolini, tells the story of Bruno Santini, a teen-age factory worker living in post-war Florence. Like most of his friends, Bruno is restless, arrogant, impatient of the conventions of the “old people” and their nostalgia for the past. He wants freedom: in his own words, “to be young, to have ideas, to get elbow room, to decide our future for ourselves.” He roars around on his motorcycle, picks up street-girls, brawls with his friends and has arguments with his mother, whose morbid clinging to the past and to the belief that her long-dead husband will one day return to her, is a source of tension between them. The turning-point of Bruno’s life, when, through “the destructive power of sorrow,” he matures to manhood, is his brief romance with a beautiful and intelligent girl called Lori. Shortly after an idyllic outing together in the countryside around Florence, Lori succumbs to a malady which, by her own admission, is less an illness than an evil infecting and destroying her body. She is, in fact, consumed by guilt for the sacrifice of her virginity at a very early age, to a man for whom she still feels an obscure attraction: and it is from this guilt, “this evil inside, in the soul,” that death provides the only release. Out of this harrowing experience, and the realisation that the love he had thought to be pure and beyond corruption, was, indeed, corruptible, Bruno emerges disenchanted, but with a greater tolerance, and a quiet determination to be guided henceforth by reason rather than passion. He is able, too, to understand better the nature of his mother’s obsession with the image of her dead husband, and to help her at last to overcome it. Despite a disproportionately long first half, “Bruno Santini” is a work of considerable skill and imaginative power. There is some penetrating observation of character and scene, and the crisis of Lori's sickness and death is described with compassionate insight. The Keys of Heaven. By Philip Grenville Mann. Heinemann. 307 pp. The author of this first novel is television drama editor of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and the book is the fictionalised version of his television serial “The Patriots.” It describes an incident in the early history of New South Wales which is based to some extent on fact Two English soldiers, bored with the idea of a long, term of service in an outlandish colony, steal some cloth with the express intention of getting caught and sentenced to a term of detention on Nolfolk Island, where they expect to lead the lives of lazy beachcombers. Everything turns out as they had expected, but the tyrannical Governor of New South Wales, Sir Frederic Petrie, alters the sentence without legal authority to do so, and has them clapped into irons, drummed out of their regiment, and sent to work with convicts on road making. The irons on one of the soldiers are so heavy that he dies of strangulation, and a local newspaper uses the incident to stir up trouble against the unpopular governor. The principal movers of this local vote of censure are Robert Armitage, e land-owning lawyer, and Hannibal Kirk the editor of

the paper, and after a series of skilful manoeuvres in a well-organised campaign they achieve their object of discrediting the governor and breaking military domination. The book has all the features of a serial, with couples predictably pairing off to provide romantic interest, and incident piled on incident to stimulate suspense. The author makes no concession to the period, in speech his characters often expressing themselves in mid-twentieth century idiom, but draws a credible picture of the lay-out of Sydney town in the 1820 s. As a dramatic presentation of a young colony trying to achieve independence the book is to be commended. The Pulse of Danger. By Jon Cleary. Collins. 288 pp. This is one of those grippingly exciting novels, which, properly directed, can make an equally good motion picture. It begins with the arrival of a party of botanists in Bhutan, a remote Himalayan kingdom, to look for rare flowers. Here they are unexpectedly joined by an Indian colonel and a Chinese general whom he has captured in a clash between Indian and Chinese troops on the Bhutanese border. With the fear of an impending Chinese invasion, the party hastily packs up to return to its base—several days march through mountain country. The Indian, Kumah Singh, the Oxford-educated son of a deposed maharajah, tries to take command, but the five white men and women—consisting of an Australian, an American an Englishman, and the wives of the first tworefuse to be subordinate to his orders. The Australian, Jack Marquis is elected leader, and Kumah Singh and his captive obediently join the party. The Chinese general, his arms bound, is amiably imperturbable, and it soon transpires that Kumah Singh has taken from the prisoner some vitally important papers, which, unluckily nobody can translate from the Chinese, and which Kumah Singh is determined to deliver to his command headquarters in India. As it is known that the Chinese are in pursuit the stage is set for the drama that follows. The party suffers severely from the effects of the high altitudes which have to be faced on their escape route, as well as other obstacles to their flight. There is a savage episode in a Bhuddist monastery, and ever-present is the fear in all their minds of the pursuing Chinese. The suspense is a little too long-drawn-out, but the characters are admirably realised, especially that of Kumah Singh, with his obsolete British slang and an Oxford veneer which only thinly covers his ruthlessness, and Marquis, whose wife’s unwavering faith in him gives him a strength which is not really in his nature. The Neutron Beam Murder. By Terry Johnston King. Abelard-Schuman. 190 pp. Edwin Crozier, a physics professor, is working on a machine that could wipe out the whole human race. He is also convinced he will be granted the Quatius Foundation which would place in his hands the enormous power that unlimited money could produce. Huston Rutherford, Crozier’s boss and chairman of the physics department, loathes Crozier and all he stands for and decides to murder him. With cold, calculating precision, Huston plans murder, and alibis for himself and the other pro-

lessors. His plan depends on perfect timing and on habit—the habits of his fellow workers. When the day arrives it is raining, unseasonable rain, which might cause Crozier to alter his routine, then other things go wrong, small things, a lecture cancelled, a bottle of pickles, and because of these things another murder to commit so that the plan may go ahead. It is ironical that Huston Rutherford should be caught because of his own habits. Although there is no mystery, there is no lack of suspense. Williver’s Quest. By Alice Mary Hadfield. Chatto and Windus. 175 pp. This 18 the second in a series in which the author plans to follow the adventures of the Williver family throughout the"’ nineteenth century. The time of this novel is 1818 and the sons of Tom Wiliiver, the hero of the first story set off for South Wales to investigate reports of trouble in the Shepherd Iron Works. In tracing the adventures they and their sister encounter, the author builds up a very accurate and interesting picture of England during the industrial revolution. Charlotte’s visit to an orphanage and her view of a balloon ascent, as well as the boys’ involvement in the industrial unrest with workmen who hate the new machines for taking away their jobs—all this is described well and intelligently and anyone reading this will absorb history in a very painless way. The characters are well drawn, the adventures interesting yet never incredible and if the dialogue is a trifle stilted this is a small fault which the reader will easily forgive for the interest of the story and the background.