New Volumes Of Short Stories

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31143, 20 August 1966, Page 4

New Volumes Of Short Stories

The Gold In The Sea. By Brian Friel. Gollancz. 189 pp.

These Irish short stories have the piquancy and freshness that anyone who had read the author’s previous collection “A Saucer of Larks” would expect. The subjects range from pigeon racing to matrimonial problems: from the hardships of illicit salmonfishing to the baiting of a village constable. For personal preference this reviewer would choose “Death of a Scientific Humanist,” and “The First of My Sins” both of which explain something of the influence of the Roman Catholic church on the Irish people. The first describes the dilemma posed by the death of an avowed apostate. The family of the deceased are in a great taking, because the priest has firmly refused him Roman Catholic burial. An English colonel comes to their rescue, donat--ing graveyard space on his land, and reading chunks of Shelley at the graveside. The dead man is reinstated in the church’s favour when it buys the land in which he is interred. “The First of My Sins” is about the first Confession of an eight-year-old boy, who, when offered three causes for absolution by his mother for juvenile misdemeanours rejects them for a fourth in which he had betrayed the confidence of someone who had been kind to him, and consequently is full of guilty remorse. “Ginger Hero” is a tribute to a gallant fighting cock which earned its owners £2OO in a fight to the death, but turned this welcome windfall into dust and ashes in their mouths by dying of its wounds. Eleven of the thirteen stories have been published in American periodicals, and all of them make excellent bedside literature. An End to Chivalry. By Tom Cole. Bodley Head 210 PPHere is a collection of short stories that comes very close to being first-rate—a novella and five short stories written in prose that crackles with life. The author, a lecturer in humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has gained three literary awards for two of the stories in this, his first fictional work. More than mere entertainments, the stories are a thoughtful treatise on man and his state. All the plots, (perhaps there is a certain sameness here), are built around Americans visiting a foreign country, their sensuous reaction to a new landscape and a new people, and the longing of both locals and visitors to he in the others’ shoes. The young American couple in the title story, ache to live forever among the “time-twisted olive trees” under “an unblemished sky.” The two Sicilian artisans who befriend them, can dream only of one day seeing “the terrestrial paradise of America,” of paying attention to a woman without being required to marry her. This theme of discon-

( tent is a recurring one I throughout the book. We see (it again in the mercenary old man selling rugs by the roadside, in the clevefly contrived, “On The Edge of Arcadia.” At times the stories seem to be spread rather thinly over an autobiographical framework —we read “Out of Moscow!” and remember that the author in common with the central figure in this story, and also in “Familiar Usage in Leningrad,” was a guide at the 1959 American Exhibition in Moscow. Such extensive use of real-life data —there are other instances, is somehow very deflating. Perhaps the most successful story in the collection is the exquisitelypresented “Familiar Usage in Leningrad,” a gentle tale of transitory love in this most beautiful of Russian cities. In spite then, of these minor flaws, the book comes across as powerful evidence of an emergent talent. The Big Burn. By Brian James. Short Stories selected by Norman Lindsay. Angus and Robertson. 231 pp. One does not have to read far among this collection of 29 stories to feel instinctively that the author knows his subjects well and is therefore interpreting with graphic clarity the truth concerning a particular section of Australian life. Mainly, the stories, some of which are more in the nature of character sketches, deal with the earth earthy. In general it is in an unforthcoming earth. It has to be diligently coaxed from among the rocks and “floaters” and obstinate scrub. And even then it is sun-scorched and reluctant to produce citrus fruits, grapes, grain and dairy produce unless it is watered and laboriously tended. The Drought is always round the corner with the dust, and ■ the rainfall is stingy in this part of eastern Australia. These conditions affect the people. Their outlook and intelligence are shaped and limited by their environment, and ignorance obtrudes. Such is the material used in moulding these stories by Brian James (real name, John Tierney), by profession a teacher specialising in English. There is a strong streak of humour in most of them, but some portray the poignancy and cruelties of an under-privileged life with a sympathy that draws the reader. Among ' the latter “The Pise House.” “Gant and his Horses” and the bush fire calamity called “The Big Burn” particularly appealed to this reviewer. Norman Lindsay, who has selected these tales for republication and contributed an article on Mr James’s writings, brackets him with Lawson and claims they are the two best short story writers Australia has produced, but he favours James for having developed the art to a greater extent. James is a writer born. He has the gift of making a

character loom lifelike out of a paragraph. And he can be satirical and biting too, as when he exposes the selfish or thoughtless cruelties of men and boys in “Skids" and “Untimely Aid,” two sadly human stories set in city schools. The Cats of Venice. By Hal Porter. Angus and Robertson. 232 pp.

Mr Porter is a sophisticated writer of professional assurance. He is a master of precisely evocative word and phrase, and in the best of these stories shows himself to be a shrewd observer of human behaviour. He is particularly good when writing in a satirical vein: “Great Aunt Fanny’s Picnic,” for example which describes the efforts of the Otterwell family to restore the legendary Fanny to her rightful place in the family graveyard, is a delightfully ironical comment on all such family rituals. A recurring theme is that moment of disenchantment when the romantic illusions of youth are shattered by experience. In “First Love,” a boy discovers an old photograph of a beautiful girl in fancy dress and immediately falls in love with her. All his romantic notions about feminine loveliness are embodied in her, until the moment he discovers the identity of his shepherdess: an elderly and rather vulgar aunt. In “Gretel,” another young man falls briefly in love with a girl who lives in princess-like seclusion in a locked upstairs room. Once again the fairy-tale spell is broken by the discovery that Gretel’s beauty is flawed by a retarded mind. And in another story, “The Followers,” a blonde beach goddess is revealed suddenly to her teenage worshippers as a shrew and "blackfellow’s slut.” It is all expertly done, and yet. here and there, one begins to have reservations. There is a facility in some of these stories which suggests writing to a recipe. Situations sometimes appear to be too selfconsciously exploited, and repetitive tricks of style become cloying. This is a pity, the more so since the best stories in this book are very good indeed.