COSTUME PIECES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 541, 4 November 1949, Page 20

COSTUME PIECES

THE GOLDEN HAWK, by Frank Yerby; William Heinemann. English price, 10/6. CROWN IMPERIAL, by J. Delves-Broughton; Faber and Faber. English price, 12/6. OVELS set in other ages often turn out to be, not historical novels, but pieces of period fiction. The chief distinction between the two types is that the writer of the hisforical novel tries conscientiously both to capture something of the atmosphere of the times and to produce a work which satisfies the canons of good. fiction, while the maker of period fiction uses a glamorised background as an excuse for adolescent day-dreams, often shot through with erotic fancies. The latter form is the more popular today, partly, I believe, because it allows people to read of things as "history" which they would blush to read in a novel of modern life. The Golden Hawk is a typical piece of commercially tailored. period fiction;

the formula is that of a thousand best sellers, glamour plus sadism plus sex. It. is set in the Spanish Main of the 17th Century, and the hero is Kit Gerado, a handsome pirate, who throughout his burnings and murders remains the perfect gentleman. Involved in the story are two females as luscious and as improbable as Cheyney "dames"Bianca del Valdiva, who marries Kit’s enemy, Don Luis del Toro, but loves

the buccaneer, and Lady Jane Gelphin, noblewoman turned pirate, who preserves her virtue by means of a_ long whip. Finally, del Toro is shown to be Kit’s father and ‘is killed, Bianca goes into a convent. and Lady Jane surrendérs to the hero. The whole thing reads like Sabatini vulgarised and gineered up with

En: popular Freud. The style is the colourless, characterless variety common to the trade-novel, the psychology is puerile, and the picture of the period is riddled with absurdities. In contrast, Crown Imperial is a somewhat long but carefully constructed novel about Queen Elizabeth. Although imaginative in its interpretation of the Queen’s character, it is based on a thorough study of the Elizabethan age, owing most to Préfessor J. E. Neale, Edith Sitwell and Lytton Strachey; and a good deal of the dialogue and description is drawn from contemporary documents. A feature of the book is its sensitive sketches of some of the great figures of the day, notably a charming study of the young Philip Sidney. The author has chosen to show the brilliant, enigmatic Elizabeth as a woman who sacrificed personal love to her devotion to her people and to strengthening England. Hence, although she was the mistress of the Earl of (continued on next page) z

(continued from previous page) Leicester, she dared not risk marriage." Two of the greatest puzzles of Elizabeth’s life-her attitude to Essex and the Queen of Scots-are bravely grappled with; but, though the Essex story is credibly explained, Elizabeth’s mind with regard to her cousin is not so satisfactorily presented-chiefly, I think, because, as we never see her face to face, Mary remains a vague, shadowy figure. In‘general, however, Mr. DelvesBroughton writes with such integrity that the result is an exceptionally interesting picture of a remarkable per- |

sonality.

J.C.

R.