These need no bush

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33739, 11 January 1975, Page 9

These need no bush

The Chian Wine and Other Stories. By Patrick O’Brian. Collins. 219 pp.

In the title story of this collection Mr O’Brian’s description of the French village of Saint Feliu reminds us of his interest in European history. He traces the village’s change from a town picturesquely fortified against the Spaniards and Algerian corsairs to one spoilt forever by tourism and petrol fumes, where few fish are caught in the polluted sea. Much of Mr O’Brian’s reputation rests on his historical novels. Also, he has translated into English several novels by Simone de Beauvoir, and such works as Henri Charriere’s “Papillon.” However, the well-structured and varied stories in this book prove him to be a short story teller of considerable talent. Many of the 18 stories are openended; after reading the closing words, we continue the action in our thoughts, and, indeed, are encouraged to by the provocative twists. The best example of this is “Samphire," a holiday tale in which a woman tries to push her husband off a cliff, does not succeed, and resigns herself to a lifetime of them both knowing what she attempted.

In “The Clockmender” time passes almost visibly, certainly audibly, through the gleaming perfection of the many chronometers with which the

unhappy clockmender is surrounded. This study of one man’s working day becomes a small treatise on eternity, “brass and iron insects horrifying in their nakedness and numbers, perpetually eating time.”