FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27043, 30 March 1949, Page 2

FICTION

Villa IVlar. By B. L. Jacot. Macdonald and Co. 9s.

The Schoolmaster’s Daughters. By Dorothy Eden. Macdonald and Co. 9s. East River. By Sholem Asch. Translated by R. H. Gross. Macdonald and Co. 13s 6d.

Portrait of a Playboy. By Warwick Deeping, Cassell. 9s.

Morning at Mount Auriol. By E. P. B. Linstead. T. Werner Laurie. 9s. The Woman at Jingera. By Don Edwards. Dymock’s Book Arcade, Sydney.

The Sky and the Forest. By C. S. Forester. Michael Joseph. 9s. The Flying Saucer. By Bernard Newman. Gollancz. 10s. Suspense Well Held The author of Villa Mar creates a fine air of suspense as he removes a typically phlegmatic Englishman from the security of a well-paid job in London to a remote corner in Provence in which strange and mystifying occurrences thrust themselves under his notice. Jpe ■ knows no one none —not even the su* comings anti goings of the smugglers and blackmarketeers—there is no apparent reason why attempts should be made on his life. Not unnaturally, he wants to know why. New Zealand Author

Charlotte Castle’s almost complete absorption in herself has made her, in spite of her superficial beauty, a thoroughly unpleasant young woman. Her doting mother’s acquiscence in every selfish wish she expressed borders at times on the nauseating, and one becomes exasperated with the manner in which a younger sister, Truda. always complies, after only a brief struggle with her conscience and common sense, with her pettiest desires. In an affair of the heart, the dominence of the stronger will is expressed in its worst form, but the result eventually, after almost wrecking Truda's life, leads her with a certainty along the road to happiness. (The Schoolmaster's Daughters.) Submerged People

The chief value of East River lies in its depiction of how humanity can exist in extreme poverty and unhygienic conditions in what Americans are proud to call the richest city in the world. There is nothing appetising or stimulating about this background, and it has previously received a full measure of publicity. Mr Asch, however, removes his characters from the grime in a movingly dramatic story of how a Jewish storekeeper maintains the faith of his people with humility and kindliness. Playboy

Mr Warwick Deeping is never at a loss for a plot or the words with which io give it animation. Not that the story of the rakish progress and eventual reformation of Playboy Maxwell Tryte has either originality or profundity as a plot, but in Mr Deepmg’s deft hands it becomes the theme for a satisfying romantic tale. West African Scene

Rather in the manner of some modern artists, the author of Morning at Mount Auriol paints a picture which his audience may interpret according to the tastes of its individual members. In this collection of memories of a sojourn in West Africa he gives fleeting glimpses of odd contrasts in cultures, of unexplained contradictions and of incidents in a way of life that has many challenging aspects. But if he does not explain he does comment, and his philosophy and quiet humour reveal him as an acute, if detached, observer of an unusual scene. An Australian Novel

The Woman of Jingera was highly commended in the recent Sydney Morning Herald novel competition, and it will be highly commended by all who read it. “The Woman ” —Joyce Armstrong—is an outstanding character, one of the most mature an Australian fiction writer has delineated. The drama between her, her roughneck husband, and Fred Preston the school teacher is played out in a small country town, full of the scandals and petty animosities which affect the lives of people in such surroundings. The sequel is dramatic and surprising, and is a fitting finale to a most entertaining novel of Australian life. In the Jungle

Mr C. S. Forester has taken his readers into some strange corners, but none stranger than the heart of the Congo in the nineteenth century. The Sky and the Forest is for the most part the tale of. a primitive tribe and their chief, who was also their god. The raid by a slaving gang upsets the ancient sway, and the chief discovers his humanity The epilogue, which introduces the chief in conflict with a higher form of civilisation—the rubber planters—is less convincing. Perhaps Mr Forester has been attempting something allegorical. The Flying Saucer

It is typical of the topical ingenuity of Mr Bernard Newman that he should have seized upon a recent news sensation and embodied it into one of his “ real-life " espionage thrillers. In this tale the “ flying saucers ” are one means by which an international group of scientists attempts to frighten the world into a realisation of its real peril. It is a most ingenious piece of work enlivened by provocative appreciations of the circus in the United Nations.