THE THREE TRAVELLERS
SECRET VALLEYS, by John Cousins; Jonathan Cape. English price, 9/6. SOME years after the war, three men undertake a journey to visit a guerrilla chief in his native island, Crete. They have been members of an aitfcrew employed among other things in dropping supplies to partisans, and for many reasons they have come to regard the chief with great affection. They knew nothing of him; but a half-humor-ous, half-patronising idea grew round their reflections on the man. He became a name-Papadopoulos, a kind of
heroic buffoon; tragic but absurd. It was perhaps to test this idea that the journey was made. Arrived at Crete they find the people tongue-tied, smouldering with suspicion, divided in what now appears to be a police state. The few who protest are hunted down as bandits, Papadopoulos, who, had fought so courageously against the Germans, chooses to protest. The point seems to be that in peace as in war there are oppressors, and not to oppose them is to become "less than a man." Papadopoulos dies while coolly picking off with his rifle members of a large detachment of police which has been sent out to silence him. Heroic? And a trifle theatrical. But perhaps the presence of the three travellers, who rather self-consciously commentate and sympathise-somewhat in the manner of a Greek chorus-accounts for that.
Alistair
Campbell
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 18
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226THE THREE TRAVELLERS New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 18
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