FROM THE NEW FICTION LIST

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33693, 16 November 1974, Page 10

FROM THE NEW FICTION LIST

The Fat Man in History. By Peter Carey. University of Queensland Press. 141 pp.

Peter Carey’s collection of short stories displays a young talent of major proportions. It is a combination of fantastic whimsy in the twilight zone of existential insane associations, but it conveys a similar excitement to the early short pieces of Ray Bradbury. Ranging from the desired woman who is slowly undressed and continues to remove her skin and organs until only a child’s doll remains, to a group of fat men who end by literally consuming their idealised woman, each segment is beautifully fashioned and scintillating in its unexpectedness. It is to be hoped that Mr Carey can keep his grasp on reality and continue to explore the mysteries of unconscious thinking. Living Together. By Michael Wilding. University of Queensland Press. 193 pp. This is a first novel looking for a theme and never quite achieving its aim. A couple with a male boarder, become disillusioned with playing parts instead of being themselves — he as

the cultural lion and philosopher, she as the contented housewife. The boarder’s sexual activities increase the disillusionment and dissatisfaction of a stable unit which falls apart in chaos.

Happenings in the house are described with farcical hilarity but all the time the author seems to be looking for some sort of deep philosophical message behind them. His avowed desire to explore the nuclear family situation however, is not successful. He might have done better to have concentrated on one character or aspect and developed it fully. Arthur. By Gordon McGill. Michael Joseph. 208 pp. A zestful and lyrical hymn to his phallus forms a constantly solid centrepiece to this typical first novel of a young journalist. Arthur, from the slums of Glasgow, with a mother strongly reminiscent of Portnoy’s classic character trying to absorb him back into her life, and a broken-winded and dispirited father, launches himself on to London and a slumming socialite with amazing agility in bed. Mr McGill has a sharp eye for people and places. His skilful, sparse use of

words brings to life typical pub fights, ritualistic clearing of bronchial tubes by Arthur’s father and the inevitable bouncing bedsprings.

Together. By Ingeborg Pertwee. Hamish Hamilton. 215 pp. The ingredients of a searching psychological study are present in this story of a middle-aged woman brought up in a Germany losing its illusions of grandeur and the subsequent chaos. She marries a millionaire industrialist and after having his daughter, deserts them both. A life in London cohabiting for many years with a television actor ia disturbed by the arrival of the daughter, now a beautiful adult, and there is a sexual competition for the actor’s favour. All the characters remain flat and flickering without a vestige of life or meaningful continuity in their behaviour to each other. The chief heroine does a great deal of drinking, swearing, and seeking for sexual release, but the depth of her emotion is no greater than a cocktail glass, and her dramatia moments .are completely stagey and predictable.