WHERE EUROPE MEETS ASIA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18653, 23 August 1930, Page 14

WHERE EUROPE MEETS ASIA

AS COLOURFUL AS CONRAD. Port Said fascinates because it contains a mixture of all the duplicity of Europe and Asia, working secretively, cunningly, in shadow. In his latest book, “North of Suez,” Mr McFee looks at all this intrigue through the eyes of an English naval officer, one of those unimaginative slaves of detail who advance the Empire’s prestige in their own limited spheres only to be overshadowed and robbed of reward by some bigger man in one bold stroke. Stiffly, this essentially English character compromises with the pervading softness and crookedness of the place, even with much pricking of conscience yielding so far as to dally with a Greek adventuress, all the time filled with remorse on his wife’s account, his wife who—. But what exactly did happen to his wife? Mr McFee never tells, although he leaves dangling a diverting possibility, more laughable than tragic. The story tells how an ordinary, plodding Englishman took his place in her hour of need with the nation’s heroes. Besides being an engrossing story and an unusual character study, “North of Seuz” gains distinction because the jumbled orderliness of its hero’s mind owes something to so surprising a source as James Joyce. By quite different methods Mr McFee achieves a setting almost as colourful as Conrad’s. “North of Suez,” by William McFee, (Heinemann).