NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31772, 31 August 1968, Page 4

NEW FICTION

Figure* in a Landscape. By Barry England. Jonathan Cape. 219 pp. To their right the massive shoulder of the mountain soared up to a hidden peak; on their left was a sheer drop. They were in a column of prisoners, their arms behind their backs, surrounded by guards in close formation. Yet from this impossible situation the two men made their bid for freedom— MacConnachie, strong, tough, who knew the country and spoke the language: Ansell, much younger, weaker, full of fear. MacConnachie worked by instinct, an inner device of sensing which Ansell had learned to envy and trust. Unknown to himself, Ansell had a gift just as remarkable —he could assimilate natural cover effortlessly; he was a born stalker. So MacConnachie’s gift assertive, Ansell’s gift was supportive together they had a minimal chance of survival as they looked towards their destination, up and beyond the mountain, an estimated 400 miles away. If it had been men only who hunted them, they may have made good their escape, but the helicopter became the real enemy harassing them in controlled relentless patterns of search. It slid towards them once more— they were up and off. It seemed to Ansell “that In some horrible way the proportions of their world had been reversed; the tiny speck of dancing metal had swallowed to immense crushing dimensions, they had been reduced to minute, scrabbling dwarfs on an endless landscape.” The hide-and-seek went on, destructive and inescapable—they were being run into the ground. Through ordeal by Are, through ordeal by water, lacerated, hungry, almost without hope they struggled on. The grimness of the story is redeemed by the brilliant flashes of humour in the racy dialogue, by the real affection that deepens between the two men and by the heroic courage that transscends the sheer brutality necessary for survival.

The Side of the Angel*. By John Rowan Wilson. Collin*. 351 pp.

The defection to the West of a leading Soviet biochemist is the theme of another first rate novel from Mr Wilson. In it, Dr Peter Karas loses both his complacency and his self-sufficiency when a friend and colleague commits suicide, secretly bequeathing him the notes on a startling new genetic discovery. He escapes to the West but is dismayed to find that even there he is not free to regard his skill and knowledge as his own property. A prestige-seeking young industrialist smuggles him into America where he falls in love with a young journalist but his introduction to the “great society” leaves him bewildered and disillusioned. On fleeing back to Europe he is betrayed into the hands of his old Soviet masters who want the details of his secret and are prepared to go to any lengths to get it Dr Karas’* brave shouldering of the terrible responsibility he has inherited is eloquently described by Mr Wilson who presents his hero with a skilful understanding and sincerity. Melodrama rarely intrudes into this compelling story of a man who suddenly and unwittingly finds himself in control of the future of humanity.

Death After School. By Anne Holden. Whltcombe and Tombs. 188 pp.

Anne Holden has produced a well-written story of a New Zealand girl, Mary Frazer, who accepts a position as a relieving teacher in a secondary modern school in London and finds that something indefinable seems to be wrong with the staff, the children, and the general administration of the place. This is in addition to the obvious difficulty that so many of the pupils are just waiting for the day on which they can legally leave. Mis* Holden has given a much clearer picture of the staff members than she has of the children, and this was necessary for the progress

and point of her story, whose plot holds a reader’s attent,®.“ ve P’ Pleasurably. One child, however, does come closely into the plot and takes a central part in it later as the murder victim. She is an unattractive child, not above blackmail and other activities well beyond the bounds of the law and of good manners. She creates a situation which she cannot control and from that point the book has some well worked out and quite frightening episodes leading to a tense climax at Whipsnade zoo at the school’s annual outing. However, Anne Holden can hold her reader’s interest right from the beginning of the book with her clever creation of character and of atmosphere quite apart from incident. If she taught at such a school in order to gain experience for writing the book, she deserves to make a lot of money in royalties.

Travel* With A Duchess. By Menna Gallic. Gollancz. 192 pp.

For a husband to be “off I the hook” for a while is nothing new but there are plenty of wives Who would relish the thought of a spot of relaxation away from the daily routine. Innes Gibson is a schoolteacher married to a Cardiff doctor in Miss Gallie’s new novel. Driven up the wall by a class of educationally sub-normal boys, she finds it is the last straw when her husband arrives home to say that he cannot accompany her on a long cherished holiday in Jugoslavia because of a conference. Piqued and selfpitying, she sets off alone and her resulting fling with “Duchess” (her long-suffer-ing room-mate who is fleeing from husband and six children in Northern Ireland) makes very entertaining reading. Cheap foreign booze, the relaxing sun, and predatory men are her downfall and, although she does not set off for home unscathed, she returns to her beloved Mike a happier and wiser woman. Menna Gallic has a jaunty,

frank and utterly disarming style of writing and her book coasts along from start to finish as she recounts one woman’s brief but eventful interlude of romantic independence.

Fine Day For A Flenlc. By John Vemey. Boeder and Stoughton. 224 pp.

John Vemey has a proper contempt for sacred cows, and in this story of the ageold struggle between conservative and progressive views he gives full play to his satirical talents. Querbury is one of those small dormitory towns in Sussex, full of commuting husbands and bored wives, but it does have a sense of civic loyalty, though this admirable characteristic is devoted to conflicting objectives. The Town Clerk would like to see Querbury made into a New Town —or at worst a spill-over district for London’s surplus population. Brigadier Bone, chairman of the council, is, needless to say, of an entirely opposite opinion, wishing to preserve the few jealously-guarded amenities of the countryside. Local jealousies, snobberies factions and ambitions jostle for supremacy in the community. The Greater Querbury school of thovght wishes to destroy an ancient stand of trees (one seems to have heard this before somewhere) on the grounds that they are dangerous, and also to extend its building programme, but in this they are thwarted by an aged local architect who has a prescriptive right to prevent such a desecration. Alas, octogenarians have a worse and more remorseless , enemy to fight than local councils, and so, in the end, the march of progress triumphs, and becomes a stampede. A great deal of the story, especially where it reveals the interplay of temperaments, is very funny, but there is just a trace of bitterness in tiie author's appraisal of the destruction of the values of a more dignified age.