KIWIS AT WAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26544, 20 August 1947, Page 2

KIWIS AT WAR

Literature

D. M. Davin’s Brilliant Novel For the Rest of Our Lives. By Dan Davin. Nicholson and Watson (from Whitcombe and Tombs). 42s 6d. In his second novel, Dan Davin, the former New Zealand Rhodes scholar, has made a major advance as a writer. “ Cliffs of Fall ” was uneven and immature and, although it aroused interest in the possibilities of the author’s future, it was not successful. In For the Rest of Our Lives he has given us in the guise of a fiction the story of the New Zealand Division at war. The style is still uneven, trite at times and too high flown at others, but the characterisation is convincing, the descriptions vivid, the insight penetrating. The book is uncompromising in its realism but there is truth in every incident. This is what war was to the New Zealand soldier in the Middle East.

There may be objections to this book on account of the frequent use of bad language and the preoccupation of some of the characters with drink and wm, sex. It may .also be contended that the descriptions of the killings of friends and foes will give pain to those who have lost relatives in battle. Certainly this is no book for squeamish readers, but war is not a picnic and the violent extremes of the soldier's life do not tend to. make him behave like, a member of a Bible class. A man may be a hero, but he is still capable of getting drunk and going into brothels. And Mr Davin's characters are heroes only incidentally, by the accident of war. All soldiers did not behave as they do. but enough did for them to be true to type and true to life. In his foreword the author says that in describing his characters he has "moved completely into the field of fiction,” anu he trusts that his readers will not flatter him by trying to discern factual reality in a mosaic that owes such existence as it has to his imagination. Some such statement was necessary in a novel dealing with a formation such as the New- Zealand Division where officers and men were widely known beyond their own unit. This is particularly so with the holders of various army appointments. Some readers will be aware of the, real identity of the officers who held, for example, appointments at G.If.Q. in Cairo—Mr Davin was one of them —and they will know that the characters described here are, at least

men of the type who might have held such appointments. But with some characters it is almost impossible to avoid identification. For his general, Mr;?Davin says he has created a “ mere abstraction,” but when he makes him take a keen interest in the Russian front he invests him with a characteristic of the man who did lead the division. Similarly, when he describes an interview with the military secretary, he invests him with characteristics which were those of the. man who really held that office. And once identifications are made in spite of Mr Davin’s disclaimers, the way is open for the recognitions to be extended to other characters—and this could be unfortunate. Two or three very distasteful incidents are introduced in the story which could have been omitted without much loss—the most that can be said for them is that such events did occur. Omission is a debatable matter, but perhaps Mr Davin would have done better to avoid giving cause for controversy in a book which has so many good things in it. Much of the talk in the book is very good and very typical, and the whole thing is much more than a clever piece of reportage. For the Rest of Our Lives is as good a novel about the Now Zealand Division as we are likely to get, and it is better than could have been anticipated. D. G. B.