Literary Views And Reviews SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 4

Literary Views And Reviews SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

A Quartet of Three. By Mile* Tripp. Macmillan. 188 pp.

This is a neat tour-de-force, covering a 48-hour adventure of four people, thrown together by circumstances, in the Black Forest The four are Randall, an improvident and irresponsible artist; his wife Willie, who loves but constantly reviles him; Bob, an English publisher who has come to BadenBaden on business: and Stephanie, an insubstantial figure who attaches herself to him, though without inspir-

ing in him any real interest The four meet by chance, at the Baden-Baden Casino and the Randalls invite Bob and Stephanie (who at first they believe to be his wife) to stay with them in their Hutte in the forest What happens in the next two days is in the realm of fantasy. Randall is obsessed by a rhyme once given him by a fortune-teller, which foretells his death in the kind of circumstances pertaining to the present set-up. He determines to challenge the validity of the prophecy by visiting a near-by stone cross on which he suspects his demise is intended to take place in “the arms of a woman who is none.” Desperately excited, Stephanie determines to accompany him. and bis wife and Bob go along as well, being convinced that the German girl is mad. During that eerie night all four behave totally out of character, while preserving the type of personality which each has hitherto demonstrated. Except for Randall’s and Willie's rather revolting habit of addressing each other as “Baby” the four widely differing characters are intriguingly conveyed, and the reader’s curiosity in their fate is held until the last page. P. S. Wilkinson. By C. D. B. Bryan. Longman’s, 441 pp.

It makes an agreeable change for once to read about an American who is a likeable young man striving to come to terms with a situation that is not local and extreme. but generally prevalent When we meet Wilkinson, the eponymous hero, he Is nearing the end of his service in Korea, hating every moment but not knowing what he would really like to do in civilian life. At the close he is back in the Army, recalled during the Berlin crisis, and now in disgrace because a reporter, to whom he spoke rather openly as an old college friend, has quoted him out of context. During the intervening period he has tried, as all reservists must to settle back into a society which has been progressing happily without him, where his friends are now married, established in their jobs and

set in their thinking. Wilkinson is still immature and somewhat naive; the dis-

astrous results of his efforts to find love and a career leave him bruised and dismayed: but clearly he will achieve a greater stature than his friends and relatives who have stopped thinking too soon, and in the process will find himself a place at last A well - written, sympathetic book, this is evidently based, to some extent like so many first novels, on the author’s ; own experience in similar [army service.

‘ Die Rich, Die Happy. By James Monro. The untimely death of his creator has robbed us of James Bond, but Mr Munro is one of those writers well qualified to carry on the Bond tradition, which includes murder, and mayhem, interspersed' with a few hurried amours to keep the girls happy. John Craig (whose name should be noted by cloak-and-dagger addicts) is called in by Dept K of M. 1.6. to undertake the hazardous mission of guarding the life of Naxos, a Greek millionaire, whose holding in a cobalt mine in Haram (an obsure Arab principality,) is vital to British inte-ests. Naxos’s wife is a drug addict which makes her approachable by Chinese Communist elements who wish to possess themselves of Haram’s priceless product. Other menacing factors to Craig’s purpose are a renegade Englishman 6 feet 8 inches tall, with a talent for using sadistic methods to dispose of his enemies, an exNazi who by plastic surgery has had himself provided with a convincingly British face, and odd bods whose chief roles are to kill or be killed. Craig of course circumvents the plots of the “little yellow men” (why little?) and all the Queen’s enemies, getting badly damaged in every other chapter, but killing or maiming his

way merrily through one fracas after another. By far the best thing in the book is an excellent skit on Damon Runyon, as put into the mouth of an underworld character, and the author has a good line in witty dialogue which is rather wasted in a book so remote from probability. In the almost limitless demand for the type of fiction it could be said “He also serves who only boils the pot.” A Wrinkle in the Skin. By John Christopher. Hodder and Stoughton. 220 pp. The setting of this novel might at first seem to be the most important thing about it for Christopher writes of the world after a series of gigantic earthquakes has devastated the land and drained the seas. Indeed much of the interest in the novel does arise from

the bizarre description for as the hero, Matthew Cotter, a Guernsey tomato-grower, wanders across the former sea-bed to England the landscape recalls descriptions in works of science fiction. But though setting is important and though Christopher is very successful in his descriptions of the country and of the differing behaviour of survivors after the earthquakes, the main interest centres in the character of Cotter. At the opening of the novel he .is detached, living alone unconcerned about his neighbours and untouched by his friends. His daughter Jane who lives in England is the only person for whom he cares. This novel traces Matthew’s progress from detachment to involvement His rescue of the ten-year-old Billy and his subsequent care of him, the shattering of his hopes for Jane, his illuminating meetings with April and the hermit—all these contribute to Matthew’s development and it is fascinating to watch his character change. Some of the episodes in this novel are a little melodramatic and some of the minor characters overdrawn but the story as a whole is exciting and absorbing; the results of the earthquakes and tidal waves brilliantly described and the major characters carefully and vividly drawn. Son of Man. By Augusto Roa Bastos. Gollancz.

The author has lived all of his life in a revolutionary society. Such has been his involvement that today he is exiled from his own country, Paraguay, and lives in Argentina. Out of rather bitter experience he draws freely of the depths of the waters of suffering and makes us drink deeply of their bitterness. The word “revolution” to those separated from its horrifying activities evokes no great emotions, but when one sees the depersonalisation of imprisoned slaves, the privations that escapees will endure in the hope of an ultimate freedom, the sleep of the blessed ignorant is shattered. Such is only the first of our disturbances. The centre of the revolution in the God-forsaken country of Guaira is waged about a desert garrison. Here, death by war is portrayed in all its brutality and its stupid evil waste. Yet a golden thread is woven into the warp and woof of the events, whereby we see man as basically superior to the animal, and feeling that ultimately there must be something worthwhile to live for, even if it be not contained in the fighting for national ends. Religion does offer some possibilities, but because it is so identified with primitive superstition and hypocrisy, man must look elsewhere. Where else, the

author asks, can he find It but in man, who can be at times so heroic. The mind of the writer is not easy to appreciate, as he does not want to present a flowing story. His preference is for events to be looked at from various points, of view. As a result the sequence is confused and the final general impression of the reader is akin to that of a meeting with many a work of modern art —an impression pleasing but tinged with irritation. The novel is exciting, the characters are vivid, and the time devoted to sharing all its details can do much to quicken our understanding of man’s potentialities both towards good and towards evil.

Shakespeare and Son. By Edward Fisher. AbelardSchuman. 214 pp.

Great men have always left to posterity the task of understanding what made them tick. There has never been any lack of historians and novelists to fill in the blanks in the lives of poets, preachers, writers and villains. The author of this book, an American writer, attempts to fill the blanks in Shakespeare’s life from the age of fifteen to eighteen. Mr Fisher was urged to produce a trilogy on Shakespeare, of which this is the first, by a critic who said “if you must write a novel on this mysterious subject, it is better to throw caution to the dogs and improvise freely . . . just have fun.” There is no doubt that Mr Fisher took the advice, to heart. The story is improvised to the extent of becoming almost unbelievable—it makes one wonder what the two volumes to follow will be like. However, as no-one can speak with authority about the poet’s youth, this attempt will be accepted for what it is, an attempt to delineate the unknown. After four hundred years the mystery of Shakespeare's life from fifteen to eighteen years of age cannot be solved.