Literary Views And Reviews SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31262, 7 January 1967, Page 4

Literary Views And Reviews SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

In Praise of Older Women. The amorous recollections of Andras Vajda. By Stephen Vizinczey. Barrie and Rockliff. 183 PP-

Tins is the story of the sexual exploits of a charming Hungarian youth, who decided at an early stage in his career that the coy teasing of young virgins was not for him. Far better, he found, were the friendly, motherly guiles of accommodating older woman. It is, of course, an erotic book, but it is not in the tradition of Henry .Miller, Frank Harris, John Updike or William Burroughs. The hero has far more in common with the robust joy of Tom Jones. Andras Vajda is thoroughly likeable— adorable, even—throughout, and sex to him is never dirty, salacious or tortured. He himself sums up his success with women in this way: ‘T’ve never thought of women as my enemies, as territories I have to conquer, but always as allies and fmnds—which I believe is the reason why they were friendly to me in turn.” Although he showed perhaps an excess of zeal in finding and replacing newsexual partners, Andras 1 learned very early that ex-1 ploits without affection were: sad and bitter. In fact, although all his many experiences were extra-marital, Andras Vajda found sex much as the majority of happily married couples must surely do: as a mixture of romance and prosaic practical problems, love and friendship, solace and amusement, habit and generosity and fun. His early years are described delightfully, with two Strong influences in his mother’s coterie of bosomy, adoring friends, and the equally kind and friendly Franciscan monks. He believes that because he was always loved and understood from his earliest days, it never occurred to him that all women would not welcome him in the same way. Hard times followed, however, and taught him a great deal about the seamy side of life. The background of Hungary under the Russians is most interestingly drawn. Much, of the irony of the book lies in the fact that when at last the poor, diffident young student emigrated to Canada and became a respected lecturer with money to indulge in all the traditional trimmings of a play-boy apartment, he found that the bunt had lost much of its savour. This book caused considerable controversy at first in Canada, where the author first published at his own expense. It is bard to understand what could possibly offend in this wryly irresistible piece ofl erotica, at a time when some 1 novelists feels compelled toi insert at least four pages of} unnatural filth into a book aimed at the best seller lists, j Stephen Vizinczey makes all | his rivals in the field look ■ sick, dull and dirty.

The Magus. By John Fowles. Cape. 617 pp.

One quality above all others marks John Fowles as a novelist. He always aims at originality. This originality he sometimes achieves with a startling effect At other times, however, the reader is mainly conscious of the feeling of strain. Like his earlier books, “The Magus,” his most recent novel sparkles with this sort of uncertain brilliance: and the reader is constantly asking, “Can the author really keep this up?” The opening of “The Magus” is superb. How many contemporary writers could suggest the supernatural with such a battery of convincing eerie effect? Here, of course, the review encounters the main difficulty in writing about the bonk; it would be wrong to reveal just what it is that Maurice Conchis, the Magus, is up to. Mr Fowles has taken such pains in constructing his elaborate plot that everything falls marvellously, if not quite convincingly, into place. Perhaps the theme could be hinted at in this way. The hero, Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman, has a part to play like that of the prince in the old mediaeval romances who has lost or thrown away his birthright Nicholas is hand-

[some and clever, but there is certainly one flaw in his character. His pursuit of women is callous and cruel. He must, it appears, be taken in hand. The Magus, who seems to stand for an overruling providence, bends all his mighty powers to the task. In a modern setting this process may strike the reader as odd; but if it can be accepted, the way in which this regeneration is accomplished makes a fascinating story. Most of the action takes place on a Greek island, where Nicholas, in his capacity as schoolmaster, occasionally takes a class or two. On the whole, however, he is too much involved with adventures that recall the more fanciful parts of the world of television to bother very much about English conversation or selections from Shakespeare. In contrast with Nicholas, who is so splendid in almost everyway, the heroine is a poor bedraggled Australian girl who talks badly and has her face slapped in the last chapter. In “The Magus” the turns and twists of plot are unpredictable.

Westward Lies Heaven. By Petru Dumitriu. Collins. 380 pp.

In his last book “Incognito,” the author won laurels for his description of Communist tyranny in Rumania—from which country he himself escaped to the West six years ago. In the present volume he brings his gifts to bear on the problems of composite Western democracy as they arise in a country which he carefully refrains from naming. In a succession of suspensive situations, whether amatory, political or psychological, Mr Dumitriu skilfully mirrors the perplexities of a sick civilisation. The narrator is an . employee of a shipbuilding firm, the head of which, Freddy Jordan, is an elderly, rather irresponsible playboy. The jealousies and rivalries of its key-executives is a recurring and connecting theme. A political murder, senseless acts of sabotage by a group of nihilistic deadbeats, and the killing of a Christ - like figure who preaches and practises a doctrine of selfless love embracing all humanity, are worked into the general pattern of unrest which

characterises an uneasy world. The love, or love-hate relationship of Annerose Brandt and Octavio AndersGilderays, carried to its nebulous conclusion is the final strand in this complex

of human relationships, though so fantastic is the progress of their affair, and so agonising the sadistic implications of Octavio’s expressed philosophy that the reader is apt to become confused in conjectures about what their behaviour really portends. Motivated perhaps by his own tragic experience Mr Dumitriu seems to be looking at this so-called free world through dark or distorting glasses. Yet all his characters live, even if their way of life seems removed from the ordinary stream of mundane existence. The translation is by Peter Wiles. Trio. By Patrick D. Wall. Barrie and Rockliff. 310 PP-

The title of the book comprises, the initial letters of an international, if rather nebulous, body styling itself “The Revolting Intellectuals Organization,” the functions of which are rather like those attributed to the activities of Robin Hood. “Trio,” in fact is a “do-gooder” in a modern and unorthodox way. A small job of safe-cracking (the money being taken from a firm which has made it dishonestly) gives Trio a little working capital—and the attention of the London police. Then follows an organised attempt by American and French members of Trio, working in collaboration, to bring to justice the men who have sold large quantities of a condemned antibiotic to an African Republic. The group eschews violence, and even the kidnapping of an Eastern diplomat concerned in the above-mentioned malpractice is a bloodless coup. The scene darkens, however, when one of the women members of Trio allows her loathing for an American, who is in London preparing to break a small firm in the interests of Big Business, to get out of hand, and murders him. Thereafter improbable actions begin to multiply, and though the end is exciting it leans a little too close to fantasy. Patrick D. Wall is a graduate of Oxford University, and is now Professor of Physiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is his first novel, and if it has enabled him to ride some spirited hobby-horses the reader shares in his enjoyment of the exercise.

A Door Fell Shut. By Martha Albrand. Hodder and Stoughton. 192 pp. This is a story of the attempt to get a high-ranking Russian, who wishes to defect

to the West, out of East Berlin. A former attempt has failed and snarled up the usual sources of contact open to intelligence agents in West Berlin. Hackett, their chief, asks for the help of Mischa Bronsky, an eminent young violinist who is about to give some recitals in the eastern zone and whose former teacher, Plesh, is involved in the plot because the Russian, Cassan, had been the lover of Piesh’s daughter. Their young son, Paul, is in the old man's care and he shows very remarkable talent as a violinist. Bronsky has easy access to East Berlin and goes there, meets Plesh and Paul, and makes his concern arrangements with his agent, Lutz, and his accompanist, Weber. Behind a polite front from these people, the storm clouds of suspicion arise grimly and, as they mount, the story reaches a gripping intensity. Plesh is old and very fearful of the results to himself of attracting suspicion through the visits even of such an eminent musician as Bronsky, quite apart from what he is doing in sheltering Cassan. All the hopes of his life are centered in young Paul and, when he finds that Cassan intends to take Paul with him when he escapes, Plesh is ready to betray Cassan and anybody else. Lutz and Weber have their sinister roles in the plot which reaches high climax at Bronsky’s first recital. A violent dash for the border in a meat truck full of frozen pigs follows, with triumph achieved only at the expense of several valuable lives. The atmosphere of the book has a horrid ring of probable authenticity, and the tale is extremely well told with excellent descriptions and sympathetic understanding of character.

All Night Stand. By Thom Keyes. W. H. Allen. 216 PP“There has never been a novel quite like this,” says the blurb. Why not? Because “it has something important to say about modern youth?” Evidently all of the many novels about young people, especially if written by a young person, are true, frank, raw, bold, and all the rest. In case this formula is not, in itself, enough, we have endless crazy teen-age girls and sexual conquests, usually together. Perhaps it is the sex that provides the uniqueness: it is certainly the dominant impression left by the book. The representatives of the young generation are a pop quartet who rocket to stardom, from whose point of view the story is told. Their lives are a continuous searching for girls and kicks, first in their native Midlands, and later, with success, on concert tours of Germany and the United States. Then, depressingly on cue, come the first doubts about the purposelessness of such a shallow existence. As picturesque fiction this is bouncy and readable, but it is a mistake to think it has anything to say. The author discusses the point of all the ballyhoo only in the final chapter, and then there is so sudden a change of tone as to be bewildering, and it comes much too late to revise the reader’s opinion that the purpose of the whole thing was to make some quick money.