Mixed offering of new fiction

Press, 23 February 1980, Page 17

Mixed offering of new fiction

The Peach Groves. By Barbara Hanrahan. University of Queensland Press, 1979. 228 pp. $5.95.

Barbara Hanrahan’s latest stylish novel crosses the Tasman Sea from upper-class Adelaide society in the 3880 s, to Epsom in Auckland, where the facade of colonial gentility is as flimsy a fabric as that of the young ladies’ summer dresses. The setting is idyllic. “The Peach Groves” is an antipodean Eden, where little girls are tempted to eat t.he forbidden fruit, in this case a collection of Victorian pornography kept on the topmost shelf >n the library, owned by Mr Maufe, (he serpent in this garden. Ida and Maude, as innocent as their Tennysonian namesakes, are halfwilling victims in the subtle web of illicit, sometimes violent adult passions and complex relationships. Barbara Hanrahan writes with all the sensuous elegance and felicity of Katherine Mansfield, even to the Imitation of some of her symbolism. (Aunt Cissie’s aloe is a direct extension of that grown by Linda Burnell in “Prelude”). But her theme and subject matter are strongly influenced by the novels of L. P. Hartley. The tension between the heavenly worlds of infancy and the darker adult world of repressed sexual knowledge is brilliantly realised by this most accomplished Australian writer. — Diane Prout.

The Bulgarian Horse. By Leslie Paul. Cassell, 1979. 286 pp. $17.95.

The Second World War has nearly ended and Captain Arundel, a soldier with the British Army in Palestine, is mentally and physically exhausted. He has not seen his wife and son for a long time and his mistress, a Jewish girl whose father died in Dachau, drains his emotions still further. There

then bursts into the Captain’s miserable existence a young schoolboy with golden hair. He is a young German Christian living in Palestine and a refugee from Hitler. The relationship between the Captain and the boy forms -the central part of the story which is played out against the mounting tension between Jews and Arabs.

A relationship such as the one described here is difficult to handle, and to my mind Leslie Paul does not make a success of it. Here is the boy at an Anglican service. “He was die image of a youthful server invented by Baron Corvo to appease his sensual hunger.” Sensual hunger was not, as we know, the only thing Baron Corvo appeased. Sentences such as this tend to make the Captain’s motives obscure. At other times -the boy is like “Just William,” clearly a boy of many parts. Leslie Paul’s inability to handle this relationship is also apparent in the descriptions of the boy. For whereas Mr Paul writes well elsewhere, he tends to resort to the cliche and purple passage when the boy appears. He has a “lion head” a “singular beauty,” a ‘“searching gaze,” and “A jewel of sweat hung from his childish lips.” He even, God save us, makes a “move of disappointment.” — A. J. Curry.

The Lion of Mortimer. By Juliet Dy moke. Dobson, 1979. 190 pp. $11.95.

Rather more serious historical novels sometimes take an historical figure and make some attempt at biographical accuracy. This is what Juliet Dymoke has done with the kings of the Plantagenet dynasty, and “The Lion of Mortimer” is the third in her series. (Her list of other published novels, all set in some period of

English history, is very lengthy.) This book traces the life of Edward 11, weak and frivolous son of the hard, efficient Edward I. It gives us, mainly through the eyes of one of his barons, Will de Montecute, the story of Piers Gaveston, the defeat at Bannockburn, the rise of Mortimer, and the horrifying murder in Berkeley Castle. It ends with' the third Edward establishing himself firmly on the throne and the fourth book will continue the tale of the Plantagenets with the life of Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent. Juliet Dymoke fulfils her claim of providing “more fact than fiction’’ and occasionally the writing becomes stolid as she attempts complicated explanations of the court rivalries. In general, however, the book moves easily and creates a vivid picture of the turbulent politics of early fourteenth-century England. — Margaret Quigley. Kane and Abel. By Jeffrey Archer. Hodder and Stoughton, 1979. 514 pp. $16.75. William Kane, son of a Boston banker, is born to fortune and position. Abel Rosnovski — originally discovered by his dead mother in a Polish forest, and christened Wladek Koskiewicz — reaches the United States as a refugee, but with plenty of ambition. Both men work to make their mark on the world, and fiercely seek success. They come into conflict. The battle between them, based on misunderstanding, becomes bitter and destructive. Many novelists are better at plots than characters, but not Jeffrey Archer. His earlier books, “Not a Penny more, Not a Penny Less”, and “Shall we tell the President ”, showed an impressive talent that “Kane and Abel” confirms. The story of the two men, both very much creatures of their times, is compulsive reading. A. J. Petre. The Human Factor. By Graham Greene. Penguin, 1979. 265 pp. $3.10. “The Human Factor” first appeared two. years ago and was acclaimed as “beautiful and disturbing,” and among the finest writings of Graham Greene. Although far from being a spy thriller, it can be read for its splendid tension and carefully worked out plot. But its strength is as a glimpse into the isolated and neurotic world of those who earn their living in secret ways, and of the curious motives which men and women can have for their actions. The tale of the ageing secret agent and his African wife, tangled up in the threads of past lives, bridges the gap between the psychological tensions of Conrad’s “Under Western Eyes” and the alarming banalities of John Le Carre’s best characters. The result is a rare treat among the welter of superficial spy thrillers of the last few years. — Naylor Hillary.