NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31197, 22 October 1966, Page 4

NEW FICTION

A Terrible Freedom. By Eric Linklater. Macmillan. 226 pp. Eric Linklater's versatility as an author has embraced every type of writing from novels and verse to children’s books and biography, but so far he has kept out of science fiction. Now his publisher claims that he has made an “idiosyncratic venture” into this field. The theme concerns dreams, and a man's power to escape into a world of fantasy of his own making. Evan Gaffikin is an ageing millionaire with a wife who bores him, and two sons, one of whorp he actively dislikes. For his second son, Wiliam, he has a wayward affection. though William is an expert forger, and a remorseless blackmailer of his rich brother. In alternate chapters Evan Gaffikin narrates the story of his past life, and its dream associations, and in doing so apprises the reader of his own brand of freakish philosophy. Running through these revelations is an unmistakable death-wish, combined with a sexual salacity which finds expression in irreproachably clinical phraseology. Reminiscences of the first war in which he had been badly wounded, and the second during which his mistress had been killed in a bombing raid are related with sober realism. The final chapters describe a yachting trip in the Outer Hebrides and are enriched by a sketch of the two Scottish brothers who own the yacht, and ol William’s American girlfriend who is happily compiling material for a book on the imminent death of Great Britain as a nation. There is nothing new in the theories of Malthus, which are justified in our own day by the choking effects on human progress of over-population but the lively exchanges be tween the Calvinistic brothers and the girl Lindy on this subject give an exposition ol the problem in which, it must be admitted the young American strikes the shrewder i blows. The end of the book is inconclusive, and takes the form of a postscript written by William which rounds off an intriguing literary tour-de-force.

No Other Hunger. Frederic Mullally. Arthur Barker. 296 pp.

This is a fast-moving story set in an imaginary Southeast Asian island, formerly ruled by the Dutch, calle 1 Baram. The membership sub committee of a whites-only club refuses to allow a group of Baramese Army officers to join. The manager, an American named John Schaffer, signs the letter informing the officers of the committee’s decision. In consequence he is arrested and charged with a list of fantastic crimes, including conspiring to assassinate the President of Baram. The prosecution witnesses lie their way through the farcical trial, twisting innocent situations to suit the political ends of the ruling nationalist junta. Schaffer is defended by an elderly Baramese lawyer who regards this trial as not merely that of the American, but of justice itself in his country. Public opinion is roused artificially and the crowds outside the court, angered by his defence of the foreign interloper and would-be assassin, murder him as he leaves the building. The American Consul has difficulty in finding another defence counsel. Eventually an English barrister, Christine Webb, takes over the defence. Schaffer’s restrained, almost understated relationship with this woman of intellect and integrity is in direct contrast with his entirely sensual association with his charming Baramese mistress, Sa-laki, in whom is portrayed something of the grace and dignity of pre-nationalist Baram. The nightmare situation in which Schaffer, leading a normal, even hum-drum life as a club manager, suddenly finds himself undergoing torture by thirst in a Baramese prison and then appearing as the central figure in a faked trial is compellingly written. The

• book is a vivid commentary’ ion the corruption at many levels which frequently goes hand in hand with newlyacquired power.

A Horseman Riding By. By R. F. Delderfleld. Hodder

and Stoughton. 1151 p.p. A book of formidable length but lively content, written by a man with a feeling for his country’’s history, this is a tale of a rural dynasty, which begins during the Boer War with Victoria's reign just over, and her son Edward VII about to ascend the throne of England, and ends with Dunkirk. The dynasty is founded by Paul Craddock, well-schooled Step-ney-born son of a wealthy scrap-metal merchant, who at his father’s death finds himself a rich man, and buys the 1300 acre West country estate of Shallowford. Perhaps the most satisfying pages are those that deal with his first tour of the holding, with its farms and forests, and his meetings with his tenantfarmers. The story is told in restrained and leisurely prose that is peculiarly suited to its subject—the slow fruitful growth of a close country community, little affected, in essence, by the clamour of the world beyond the valley. Wars are fought and won and women's suffrage sweeps the country, but life on the Shallowford estate remains much the same. At times perhaps there is an excess of sentimentality. and perhaps the characters are a little too black and white—(lkey, the Cockney stable-boy, just had to make good and be put through school by Squire Craddock), but Mr Delderfleld evokes with pleasing authenticity the langorous English countryside and the stalwart yeomen who people it.

The Hour-Glass Girl. By Frank Neatc. Paul. 187 PPWritten as a novella this slender story might have passed muster, but the theme is altogether too thin for even a short novel. It consists of a study of New Zealand suburban life, and the consequences of a man’s minor indiscretion for those involved in it. Donald Vine, a successful middle-aged business man is a leader of local society, and when he and his wife give a party they seem to rely on a well-stocked cellar for its success. This festive occasion creates an impression of alcoholic dreariness unrelieved by wit or humour, though this may not have been the author’s intention when portraying it. At the end of the party Donald offers to drive home a girl of 17, and drops her boy friend who has a train to catch, en route. He then makes a mild pass at the girl, Sandra Redmond, which, in her slightly inebriated state she believes to portend danger. She therefore jumps out of the car into pouring rain, and makes her way home on foot. The rest of the book revolves round the reactions of Sandra’s father (a belligerent watersider) to her perfectly true account of the episode. His hatred of his daughter’s potential “seducer” is such that he resolves to expose Donald’s infamous conduct on grounds which appear suspiciously like class-hatred, though loftier motives are advanced for his behaviour. At one stage a character wearily describes all this noise and fury as “A storm in a tea-cup.” Actually it amounts to a typhoon in a salt-cellar. The best portrait in the book is of Vine’s secretary, a starchy, incorruptible spinster, who is made drunk at the party by her hostess, with predictable results. This is a first novel, and the author's experience in a variety of jobs from journalist to male nurse should fit him to write something better next time.

Oclopussy and The Living Daylights. By lan Fleming. Jonathan Cape. 95 p.p.

The two stories which comprise this small book, were part of a collection begun by the late lan Fleming in 1960, which he planned to publish but never completed. Although the first, “Octopussy,” is a James Bond story, the celebrated Secret Service

agent makes only a token appearance, when he goes to Jamaica. representing the forces of law and order, to claim corrupt ageing Major Dexter Smythe. ex-Secret Service agent and sometime member of an Anglo-American army team In the Austrian Tyrol. In an adroit flashback which forms the bulk of the story, we learn of the crime for which Smythe is wanted, and somewhere along the line conceive a great sympathy for this cornered man. The ending is one of perfect convoluted Fleming drama. In the accompanying story, “The Living Daylights." Bond is well to the fore in a neat plot with a sad twist, that includes a cello-playing blonde, the Berlin Wall and a Winchester with an “infra-red Sniperscope.” Here our hero is at his suavest. complemented by trite, efficient Captain Sender, his logistics man. The Unicorn Girl. By Caroline Glyn. Gollancz. 192 pp. This is hardly adult fare. Nor is it easy to imagine younger readers finding anything of worth in it. This third novel by eighteen-year-old Miss Glyn is described in the jacket blurb as a work about "the magic of nature.” The heroine is podgy unpopular Fullie, schoolgirl and Girl Guide, whose prosaic life is dotted with Mystic Experiences—visions of giants, unicorns. “bright spiralling slits" and “beastly images.” On Midsummer Eve she lights a ritualistic bonfire and is rewarded by the temp'tation to become a tree—"A little longer and it would have been too late. Thank God I saw in time that I was born to be a human being, not a tree. Thank God 1 remembered. . . And so it goes on, an unconsidered flow of artless soul-searching which becomes more irritating with each page. Although the literary impact of this book is negligible, one feels there is potential talent which could achieve a happier result in time.