FRENCH POLISH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 459, 9 April 1948, Page 12

FRENCH POLISH

THE INTRIGUE, by Jacques Natanson. Ham« ish Hamilton, HE French novelists, in the nineteenthirties, were widely acknowledged to have had their English contemporaries whacked. Since then the German occupation of France has left ‘deep wounds, accentuating her growing dis unity, Aragon, de Montherlant, Bernanos, Robert Francis, Mauriac and so many others have not all survived the storms of these years. with equal credit. Some have not survived at all, while others, like Gide, are old. Whatever the present powers of those whose reputations were secure before the war, it is plain that the dangers and humiliations their country has endured have not prevented the emergence of a new generation of writers in France whose insolent vitality is as abounding as that of the old. It is significant that in these days of paper shortage an appreciable proportion of the new fiction published in England is translated from the French. Flaubert captured the novel for France, captured it from the English, and his literary descendants mean to hold it. Even the French detective story is a distinctly (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) more competent performance than the English; one may compare Simenon with his English rivals, To descend from the general to the particular, this short novel by Jacques Natanson has a neatness and cynicism which will appeal to sophisticated and unmystical readers, A rich man hires a handsome scoundrel to seduce the affections of his wife, not from himself but from her "regular" lover whose hold on her he is determined to break. But the blackguard has his sparks of\ honour, and anyway this little job Proves an infernal machine which carries him on a road he never intended to take. The story, deftly told by the scoundrel, moves quickly and may be enjoyed on at least two levels, as an entertainment and as an unusual view of human nature. Take it as you find it,

David

Hall