TURNING LEAVES
CLOUDS IN THE WIND, by F. L. Green; Michael Joseph. English price, 12/6. "(~HARLIE grinned and gave me a playful nudge. ‘Ah, get away with you,’ ‘he said, ‘We've all got criminal tendencies. The whole human ~race.’." Mysterious, philosophic and fatuous at the same time, Charlie dominates this
book, a big, handsome, half-educated pawnbroker who wants to become king of an empire of crime. Around him the atmosphere is electric and full of deceit; spivs, deserters, Nazi spies and refugees are mixed up with air raids and the black market in a whirling storm through which the narrator, Frank Chester, tries to grope his way. It is hard also for a reader to find a way through the maze of atmospherics that surround the book’s other charac-ters-Jim, the egotistical ex-trapeze artist, Ronnie, the consumptive oboeplayer, Eric, the overdressed racketeer, and those beautiful, seductive. women, Dora, Patsy, Mabs and Flo. But it is worth persisting until the end, for a deeper significance is hinted at continually in the story: "It’s as easy as a leaf turning in the wind for a good person to become evil," says Charlie. The novel tries to focus some of the moral problems of the contemporary
world.
P.J.
W.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19500825.2.30.5
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 19
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205TURNING LEAVES New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 19
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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